Credit Where Credit is Due

Mobile Demystified is the in-house blog for Waterfall Mobile – so we rarely, if ever, give air time to our distinguished competitors in the digital messaging space.  But I do have to hand it to Hipcricket’s Jeff Hasen.

His Mobile Marketer essay on the more or less total lack of a mobile presence during the Super Bowl is right on point: precise, funny, indignant, and full of good ideas.

If linking to a competitor – once – is all I must do in order to get major brands to incorporate mobile calls-to-action in their Super Bowl ads, then so be it.

– Matt

PS: Am I the only one who misses the Bud Bowl?

Using Social Media to Connect With Students During Emergencies

Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Youtube — it’s no secret that Social Networking Sites are popular among college students.  In fact, 2009 marked the year that Facebook surpassed email as the top form of communication, according to Nielsen Online.

In response to that, colleges across the United States are stepping up their online presence to try and engage their students.  A majority of colleges have a presence in social media, as 33 percent of colleges maintain a blog, 29 maintain a presence on social networking Web sites, 27 percent maintain message- or bulletin-boards, 19 percent employ video blogging, and 14 percent issue podcasts, according to a study by the National Association of College Admissions Counseling.  Beyond engaging with their students, eighty-eight percent of admission offices believed social media were either “somewhat” or “very” important to their future recruitment efforts.

With these overwhelming stats, it’s time for colleges to link social media technologies to emergency contingency plans so the school can get news out to as many students as possible in the shortest amount of time.

Waterfall’s AlertU emergency notification system already enables colleges to send text messages to students, faculty and staff in the event of a campus emergency.  The system is integrated into current emergency action plans quickly and easily, enabling an additional communication channel that delivers vital information to registered users, students, faculty and staff at colleges across the country.

Our successful emergency notification system already has email covered – the platform can re-distribute alerts to the unlimited distribution lists the school has set up – and we have recently taken the natural step to link up AlertU to social networking sites that the students are frequenting.  For example, when a school closes due to weather or the H1N1 virus, a college administrator can log onto AlertU’s site or send the notification via SMS text.  AlertU then automatically sends the text out to users and to the school’s Twitter account.

We all know almost nobody leaves home without their phone, so combine our attachment to cell phones with our addiction to social media in your emergency preparedness and you will have your students covered.  This means students studying in the library, or surfing the web on their laptop during a lecture, are sure to receive any important campus notifications during times when they may not have access to their mobile phones.

We have a lot of exciting things going on with AlertU right now, so be sure to stay tuned for exciting announcements in the coming months.

Q&A with Mickey Alam Khan

It’s a new year, and today we’re debuting a new feature at Mobile Demystified: Guest Bloggers!

First up is our friend Mickey Alam Khan, editor-in-chief of Mobile Marketer. We wanted to get Mickey’s take on the mobile marketing space, and this email Q&A ensued.

WATERFALL MOBILE: Have any products or brands used mobile in a way that you’ve found to be especially smart or effective?

MICKEY ALAM KHAN: We find most brands in the apparel, travel, media, entertainment, retail and consumer packaged goods sectors get mobile. Their use of mobile banner ads for brand-building and engagement, SMS for loyalty programs, store drives and discounts, and applications for everything from information to shopping and transactions is transforming the use of mobile. The triumvirate of mobile Web, SMS and applications are ideal for brands with a decent mobile budget.

WM: Waterfall Mobile noticed a lot more major consumer brands activating their traditional media (TV, radio, print) with mobile calls to action in the second half of 2009. Have you observed this trend? What do you make of it?

MICKEY: The major trend we noticed last year was how mobile calls to action were increasingly integrated with other media such as television, radio, print and out-of-home. It indicates that marketers are wise to the chief benefit of mobile: driving traffic to other channels, or giving legs to other media. No medium can succeed on its own, and mobile is no different in this regard. SMS is the best tool to drive traffic to stores for discounts or sales. Similarly, applications are the perfect vehicles to deliver the latest deals or offers from the brand. And mobile Web sites are perfect for store locations, search and price-comparisons while out and about.

WM: Mobile applications get a lot of ink right now, but statistically far more people are using SMS. Do you think brands are buying into the hubbub (having an iPhone app for the sake of having an iPhone app) at the expense of more effective mobile messaging options?

MICKEY: Each mobile channel has its use. To convince a consumer to not only download the application but also regularly use it means that the loyalty battle has been won in that case. But there is no disputing that SMS is the most ubiquitous form of mobile advertising and marketing. It is low-tech and affordable, and is a language that every consumer understands. SMS is ideal for driving consumers to stores, and for delivering alerts, discounts, coupons and news of store openings and sales. Also, SMS is available on 99 percent of mobile phones in the marketplace.

WM: Mobile marketing ROI is an evergreen topic of discussion. How far do you think the industry is from uniform ROI metrics? Do the benefits of mobile outweigh any lingering questions of how to exactly calculate ROI?

MICKEY: We are on our way to getting uniform mobile metrics.

The Mobile Marketing Association has made great strides in this area. Besides, there shouldn’t be much trouble tracking mobile performance. Response to SMS is easily tracked at point of sale or via interactions, mobile Web banner click-throughs are recorded and application use data is easily accessible. So it is a myth that mobile can’t be measured for its ROI. Why isn’t the same question asked of television or print? Who knows how many people actually saw a commercial or read an ad? Mobile is way more measurable than the guesswork passing for metrics in TV and print.

The Rules of The Road

Waterfall’s own Matt Silk outlines best practices for mobile marketing in an exclusive opinion essay for DMNews that posted today.

DMNews, which celebrates its 30th anniversary this year, is acknowledged as one of the top trade publications in the direct marketing space. This is Matt’s second post for DMNews’ “InDirectly” blog.

You can check out Matt’s post here.

Google – To Text or Not To Text?

Google recently launched a pretty cool program that links online content to real world locations with their new QR-code based program, “Favorite Places on Google.”

For the program, Google identified the 100,000 most searched stores in the US and provided those stores with a barcode to place on their windows. Consumers can now scan the barcode with their cell phones to get more information on the business, including reviews, coupons, or an option to review the business. The program is based around Google’s “Local Business Center.”

You can read about it on MobiADNews here.

Obviously there is one big problem with the program – only people with barcode readers installed on their phones can use it.

Sure, more and more people are buying smart phones and utilizing App stores, but how many are really using barcode readers? Wouldn’t it be smarter to incorporate a messaging side to this program so all 270 million mobile subscribers can participate?

The Company currently has a popular SMS option in place that allows consumers to text in the name of a location to 466453 (Google) and receive a message back with the business’ address and phone number. Why not take this option to the next level? Decals could continue to have the barcode but also include a keyword and a Google short code. Any costs could be offset by selling the messaging costs back to the businesses.

After all, Google’s mission is “to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.” Wouldn’t making the “Favorite Places on Google” accessible via SMS make the information more universally accessible?

Not to mention, SMS could be another potential revenue stream for them by selling mobile messaging packages into the SMB market.

Great Outlook for Interactive Marketing

Forrester recently released their “US Interactive Marketing Forecast” for 2009-2014, and the outlook is good.

Forrester is predicting that interactive marketing (including email marketing, social media and mobile) will become a more significant part of the overall marketing mix in the coming years, which is expected to grow to an impressive $55 billion by 2014, and to increase from 12 percent of the overall marketing spend to 21 percent.

Over the next several years, mobile marketing is expected to grow by 27 percent and social media by 34 percent. Social media has the steepest expected growth as marketers continue to try and keep up with the consumers increased use of social networking sites, which has surpassed email as the primary source of communication in 2009, according to Nielsen Online.

The increase in mobile data usage, continued development of mobile applications and mobile maturing as a marketing medium all will attribute to mobile’s growth.

Forecast: US Interactive Marketing Spend, 2009 to 2014

Although Email marketing had the smallest expected growth, this can be attributed to the already high adoption. The report found that marketers will continue to utilize email as a tool, with 97 percent of marketers planning on using/continuing to use email marketing in 2010.

It’s imperative that every company is asking themselves how they plan on utilizing interactive marketing over the next 5 years. And, with nearly every print publication feeling crunched and the “TIVO” phenomenon taking a bite out of TV advertising, do we really think only 21% of these budgets will be allocated to interactive?

I am going to go out on a limb here and say significantly more budget will shift into these incredibly cost-effective and measurable direct marketing mediums. My number is 30%…

2010: Hard Work, Sunnier Skies, and Multi-Channel Digital List Management

A new year has just been born, and in our industry various self-appointed “thought leaders” in the digital messaging space have taken to their blogs to give their predictions for 2010.

Sure: in general, I’ve got ideas about where the business is heading this year. And Waterfall in particular has some exciting and significant announcements coming soon about the direction of its business – namely in the area of multi-channel digital list management.

But rather than prognosticate and pontificate, we here at Waterfall Mobile would rather simply roll up our sleeves and get to work.

For the purposes of 2010, that means continuing excellent client service, technology delivery, and marketing ROI. It means laser-targeted messaging that delivers impossible-to-ignore customer communications through the most personal and precise media available.

We will continue to over-deliver for our customers, and will see to it that Msgme remains the most robust and comprehensive messaging solution on the market today.

Happy New Year, everybody.  Let’s get to it.

The Dos and Don’ts of Holiday Mobile Marketing

“Make it Fun”
The Dos and Don’ts of Holiday Mobile Marketing

Giselle Tsirulnik over at Mobile Marketer recently posted a great list of the dos and don’ts of holiday season mobile marketing.

In case you missed them before Thanksgiving, I wanted to repost Giselle’s list here. It’s a must read for anyone pondering a holiday-timed mobile marketing program.

Drumroll, please…

1. Consider that these purchases are primarily for other people, so make sure to orient mobile offerings to that context.
2. Because it’s the holiday, if a brand doesn’t already have an established mobile market, it will need to do in-store tie-ins – “Can’t find that perfect gift? Text GIFT to 123456 for a link to our holiday gift finder!”
3. Consumers during the holiday season are typically tight on both time and money, so anything that can be done to help them save in either department is a nearly always a winner.
4. Allocate placements to on-the-go, “time saving” categories such bite-sized news, information, entertainment or even communications channels like mobile IM or email – all categories that are endemic to mobile.
5. Use tactics like store locators, discounts or just key product information or tips made mobile – basically anything that can make the lives of consumers a little bit easier will always be a hit during the holidays.
6. Make sure if you are launching or have a mobile marketing application, it is compatible with the full range of devices out there (no flash).
7. Think of the least common denominator in screen size and browser capability and make it work. Remember, in aggregate, BlackBerry has a larger penetration than the iPhone and it doesn’t do flash at all.
8. Keep your mobile marketing application lightweight. Not every area has 3G coverage.
9. Make sure messaging is consistent with other channels and information is accurate.
10. Make it fun.

Giselle makes an excellent point in her article – one that is not only important during the holiday season, but year round.  Keep the shopper in mind! The more brands integrate consumers’ interests and behavior into marketing plans, the easier it will be keep them engaged (and buying stuff) year round.

Here’s to an outstanding, and profitable, holiday season for all.

Go Time For Retailers

The economy is still struggling.  Unemployment is at a 26 year high.  And everyone – politicians, analysts, investors, regular consumers – everyone is wondering how retail stores will fare this holiday season.

We will soon find out. Black Friday, the formal start to the holiday shopping season, happens this week.

This holiday season, to get a bigger piece of a smaller overall consumer pie, retailers need to expand the ways they engage with customers.  And what better way to reach them than through the mobile phone?

Direct interaction with customers via mobile means greater engagement. And mobile media activation means brand messages can be instantly and directly beamed into users’ pockets via SMS, which in turn will lead to greater profitability.

Retailers such as Sears have already jumped into the mobile game, and offer consumers the opportunity to sign up for sales and promotions.  Even luxury brands like Dolce & Gabbana use mobile to engage with consumers and notify them of VIP sales.

To fully take advantage of mobile, below are three tips that retailers can use this holiday season – on Black Friday and beyond.

Subscriptions and Mobile Coupons

Mobile subscriber lists can be used the same way businesses would utilize an email or direct mail list – by delivering coupons and premiums.  The bonus is that mobile communications go to straight to the cell phone, which four out of five Americans “never leave home without,” according to a recent study by Synovate.

Because of its ability to incorporate location and demographic data, and to target customers based on pre-established purchase preferences, subscription-based mobile messaging can be an extremely powerful tool for retailers looking to boost sales.

Engaging Messaging

Create messaging relevant to the consumer and his or her shopping habits.  For instance, with mobile business can activate ZIP code verification when texting consumers to deliver a targeted message about promotions in stores nearest to the customer.

If you’ve ever tried to contact a store the week before Black Friday to ask when the store opens, to only to be pushed through an automated system, then you know how crucial a positive interaction can be during an already stressful holiday season.  Retailers should also use messaging to inform customers about holiday hours and return policies as well as the latest sales.  Friendly, informative messaging provides retailers with a powerful way to create relevant and on-brand user interactions.

Interactive two-way messaging

Two-way messaging can enable retailers to communicate with consumers directly.  This encourages customer loyalty and increased activity between brands and customers.

In the case of Black Friday and the holiday shopping season, retailers can seek real-time customer feedback via mobile.  Open channels of communication could lead to no-brainer fixes that might boost sales in the middle of this critical season.

And here’s a bonus tip:

When constructing a mobile marketing plan, retailers should note how important it is to make mobile calls-to-action prominent and easy to read.  We recommend both in-store placement and activation of traditional media like print, television and radio ads with mobile short codes.

If you’re a retailer without a mobile marketing plan, don’t worry – it’s not too late to inject mobile into your marketing mix, even for this holiday season.  Msgme activation takes less than a day.  Drop us a line at sales@waterfallmobile.com to learn more.

MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit

December: there is no better time of year to visit Park City, Utah.

And what better reason to go than for MediaPost’s Email Insider Summit.

The conference runs from December 6-9, and on Tuesday, December 8^th I’ll be part of the “Mobile Marketing of the Future” panel. My esteemed panelists and I will be discussing the benefits of mobile, specifically as it relates to email marketing communications.

Representatives from Microsoft, Razorfish, Turner Broadcasting, General Mills and many other great companies will be in attendance. Should be a fantastic event.

You can find the full agenda for the conference here and register here.

And PS: if any Mobile Demystified readers will be in attendance, I’d love to meet up.  You can reach me at msilk@waterfallmobile.com.

See you on the mountain!