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How To Use Mobile Marketing To Improve Your Business

By Cathy Quel in Featured

Did you know that over 91 % of people in the country have a mobile device? Twenty percent of these people, which consists of more than 50 million people, have an internet-capable “smart phone?” These smart phones are iPhones, Androids and Blackberry phones. There are more than 150 billion mobile text messages that are being sent every month by these mobile devices and a rather amazing ninety percent are being read within one hour of being sent.

Now that you know how many people have smart phones and how many people are sending and reading text messages, just envision how a mobile marketing plan could grow your business. Mobile advertising is a perfect way of getting your message to your target audience. By sending out text messages to your audience, your information is being hand-carried right to their front door. You will want people to subscribe to your list or to your publication and this is a great way to stay in front of them and get them used to hearing from you.

It doesn’t matter what type of business you have, potential customers will always wish to hear from someone who has new, helpful ideas. They don’t want to be bombarded with useless messages but if your messages are beneficial, they will choose to hear from you on a regular basis. This is a very powerful way for you to increase your business. Just like email messages, customers can unsubscribe from your lists using their mobile devices. But similar to email marketing, this is the way it works.

As part of your total marketing strategy, you need to also have a mobile marketing strategy to reach all of your customers who are going mobile. Here are some mobile marketing points to keep your mobile customers glad and excited to open your text messages:

1. You should make available a text message service to all of your customers.

2. Put the offer on your website, in an online advertisement or in your emails.

3. Your text message should contain a catchy slogan. Clarify what the benefits are to them if they subscribe.

4. Make sure that your text messages are valuable and relevant to your customers’ needs.

5. Offer your customers a great deal. You can offer them a markdown on your services when they send your message onto a family member or a friend. Tell them that the offer applies when they subscribe. If you have a brick and mortar store, you could give your customers a bar code message in your text message. When you send the bar code to your customers, let them know that your offer will expire in a week or 10 days.

When your customers come to your store, they can show the bar code on their phone and the discount will be automatically applied. There is no requirement for them to produce a coupon. This is another powerful way for you to grow your business through mobile marketing.

You should begin to understand just how powerful a mobile marketing strategy would be to your business if executed the right way. More and more people are getting great deals through mobile marketing so join the club and put together a mobile marketing strategy for your business.

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Article by Cathy Quel. If you would like more information on how to use mobile marketing to grow your business, then download my free report, http://workonlinesuccess.com/Mobile-Content/index.html

Mobile Revolution Commanding Attention – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Rick Berry in Featured

The number of smartphones has been doubling every year, and by the end of this year will exceed 125 million in the U.S. alone, about half of all mobile phones on the market in this country. In addition, Apple’s iPads have approached almost 20 million units sold to date. And they seem to have altered the way we perceive and interact with mobile commerce.

Consumers have quickly made the transition and are learning to love mobile commerce apps and web sites. This year, they’ll buy over $6 billion worth of goods and services on web-enabled phones and tablets, doubling last year’s number, and next year that number is expected to double again.

Online merchants are already cleaning up on this second e-commerce revolution. About 25% of the largest e-retailers already have a mobile site or app, most of those launched in just the last year or two. Another 25% are preparing to implement mobile commerce soon. But fully half are not ready to make the move, and virtually all second-tier e-retailers have no mobile program whatsoever.

They all need one – and fast. Estimates are that 15% to 20% of all visitors to e-commerce web sites NOT equipped for mobile are coming from consumers shopping from smart phones and tablets. If you don’t have a mobile initiative in place you had better adopt one fast or you risk losing business to your competition, perhaps forever.

Once they see your site isn’t optimized for mobile phones, they just leave and they may never come back. To avoid this crippling blow to your e-retailing business, you simply must make your move toward mobile commerce.

Brick & mortar retailers that have initiated mobile POS payment abilities in their retail operations, such as Apple and Nordstrom, have started a wave of momentum that has IT departments across the nation rushing to develop mobile payment initiatives.

Mobile in retail has received a spectacular reception because it produces a much more pleasing customer experience for one reason. It enables a purchase to be made anywhere on site while capitalizing on the impulse buying decision.

For instance, a customer in a dressing room with a number of different items or sizes now instantaneously checks out right when the impulse develops. No gathering up of packages and trudging over to a waiting line of bustling customers at the point-of-sale, where by the time the clerk gets to them, an impulse decision may evaporate and a sale can be lost.

The customer now simply hands the attending sales clerk the desired item(s), the clerk scans the product barcode with a mobile infrared scanning and payment card-swiping device (which encases an iPod), then swipes the payment card, hands the device to the customer, the signature is captured (and photo if desired) on the device and is automatically embedded on the printed and/ or emailed receipt.

Whether you’re a ‘brick & mortar’ merchant or an e-commerce online merchant, retail or wholesale, if you’re trying to sell in today’s marketplace you’d better have a mobile payment application or system in place or you risk missing sales and perhaps more.

The mobile revolution is marching to the insistent drumbeat of progress and convenience is its heralding call. When consumers use technology and become accustomed to it they begin to anticipate and expect it.

If the mobile revolution has caught your attention but you aren’t quite sure how to implement it, or capitalize on it, then you may want to Google ‘mobile POS payments’. Find out how to take advantage of and utilize mobile before it marches right on by and you miss out completely on the mobile revolution.

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Rick Berry is president/CEO of ABC Mobile Pay, a registered ISO/MSP, and merchant service provider based in Valencia, CA. ABC Mobile Pay – rick@abcmobilepay.com – 877-258-5223

Follow Rick on Twitter @abcmobilepay

Mobile Marketing Methods

By Joe Maldonado in Featured

If you want to grow your business, then it is time to take mobile marketing into consideration. You will need to have a firm grasp of network marketing in order to take your business to the next level and effectively understand this type of marketing.

SMS is one of the most commonly used campaigns of this nature. SMS stands for short messaging service. Any mobile device is going to be able to view SMS and Text Messages. If you have your clients’ phone numbers, this can be an excellent marketing tool for your business. You will be able to send updates about promotions and other business related information straight to their mobile phone.

If you want to take it a step farther, you can go with MMS. This stands for Multimedia Message Service. With this type of message you will be able to include media, such as photos. These messages are a bit more complex, and while not all mobile devices can receive them, most will be able to.

More and more people are getting SMART phones these days. People are able to get instant updates about your company through mobile web applications, and they will not only be able to get the information faster but they will also be able to avoid text messaging fees. Another form of technology that is becoming quite common is Bluetooth. This is not just limited to the headsets. This technology can be used from roughly 33 feet in distance. Even though this may seem like a relatively short range, it can still be used for marketing within a close proximity.

There is another type of technology that is much like Bluetooth. It’s called Location-Based mobile marketing. It isn’t as commonly used as some of the other methods, but in the future it may become much more common. This is a type of marketing that delivers media straight to someone’s mobile device based on where they are located through GPS technology. Obviously, it seems as though you are going to need to get the user’s permission to use this form of marketing. Although it has not risen to total popularity yet, in the future this is likely going to be a popular method.

Some other methods have started to catch up in popularity as well. Quick response codes (QR) are barcodes that are two dimensional, and they seem to be getting more popular. Mobile banner ads are always a common variety. All of these methods play a part in Mobile Commerce, and businesses that are taking part in this type of advertising are finding a great deal of success.

You can automate your phone calls with Interactive Voice Response, or IVR. You can even organize a list through your computer to use voice broadcasting and call pre-programmed numbers. You can send messages to your customers that you have previously recorded in order to let them know their order status or update them on promotions and such. Mobile marketing is the future of marketing for both small and large businesses, and you will find that your business can have great success using any of these methods.

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Did you know that 97% of text messages are read compared to about 25% of e-mails? That means you can get your message to your customers quickly and effectively. More people have cell phones than computers. Mulkern Internet can set up and manage your text messaging campaigns.Visit: http://mulkerninternet.com/mobile-marketing/

How Mobile Marketing Can Be Beneficial To Your Business

By Joe Maldonado in Featured

If you can manage to get into mobile marketing it can be highly beneficial for your business. This is because the number of people that are using mobile devices and mobile web applications is rapidly growing. Adding this type of marketing to your other efforts is a sound business decision that you should strongly consider making.

It is vital and necessary for any business to stay current with how customers go about finding their products and services, and you must take note of any current trends.

Today, the most popular trend is the use of SMART phones. Everywhere you go these days, anytime you turn your head, you are going to see people with cell phones in their hands. However, you must be aware of the fact that these phones are no longer being used just for calling and text messaging. As a matter of fact, cell phones are now being used for marketing on a regular basis.

People used to use desktop computers and laptops to find virtually anything online. These days, things have changed. Now people are using their SMART phones more often than anything else for search purposes as well as communication. The main reason why mobile marketing is so successful is to the sheer volume of times in which people access their phones every day. This is actually a huge market, since there are nearly 4 billion mobile users worldwide, with 27% of them being SMRT phone users.

When you look at it this way, it is easy to see how profitable this method of marketing can be. Especially when you take into account how many more people are beginning to use mobile internet, and half of them use their SMART phones to do local searches. So in essence, you can equate mobile searches with local searches. When you think of it in these terms it becomes easy to see that through marketing this way you would be able to get these mobile users to find your business when they are seeking you out.

On the other hand, a great way to get your message across to your customers very quickly is through text messaging. When you compare this type of marketing with email marketing, there is no contest. Text messages have a much higher open rate than emails do. Open rate means the amount of time that it takes for your message to reach the targeted client.

There is only a 20% open rate with email marketing. This is in comparison to an astounding 90% open rate when you advertise through a mobile device. Basically, from the time your message is sent, it will be read within 4 minutes. This is much better than the average of several hours if you choose to send your message as an email.

The reason for this difference in open rates is because most people tend to have their mobile phones with them at all times throughout the day. This allows you to get your advertising message across to people in a matter of minutes. With all of this taken into account, it is easy to see why any business will benefit greatly from mobile marketing.

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Mulkern Internet is an internet search engine marketing company, based in Houston, Texas. Mulkern Internet specializes in small business internet marketing with the goal of being on the first page of Google and the other top search engines for that small business. Visit here http://mulkerninternet.com/mobile-marketing/

Mobile App Marketing 101

By Chris Haycox in Featured

Let’s be clear, marketing a mobile app is not the same as marketing anything else. In order to make people aware of your product you must rise above an estimated 350,000 iPhone and 140,000 Android apps – and that is without the consumer even having a good idea of what it can do. There are hundreds of apps that all claim to do what yours can, so why shouldn’t they choose the one at the top of the list? How can you get your app to be one of those ‘recommended by users’? The ways to successfully market a smartphone app are simple, even logical. Unfortunately developers often overlook these easy steps to successful mobile app marketing.

Shine

Make your app shine. Listen to what smartphone users want and cater to it. Anybody can be unique if they try hard enough, after all, isn’t that why we have silly apps like Shotgun and Angry Birds? For example, the biggest feature smartphone users want is security. They want to know the information they store, transfer and send on their phone is safe from hackers. If you are building a business related app, go out of your way to make it secure. Then tell everyone. A business app that functions efficiently and is secure will out shine all the others.

Be Diverse

If you develop an app that only services Androids, then you are shutting out a huge portion of the smartphone market. When we were launching our mobile apps we did launch our Android application first but followed that just a couple months later with the launch of our iPhone version. This will broaden it’s success and allow for marketing to a much larger audience.

Spread the Joy

You know your app is great. Your co-workers know your app is great. Even your family knows your app is great. They are all tweeting, blogging and Facebooking about its greatness, yet there are still not as many hits at the app store as you would like. Unless your app is simply an add-on for your current services it needs to be marketed on the web and while the app stores are great, you need your own web presence where you control the message.

Does your app have a dedicated website or a dedicated page on your business site? Is it just as great as your app or did you build it at 2 am the night before the launch? Your app’s website is just as important as your app. It shows just how serious you are about development, and in turn how good the app will be. If the app site is less than great, then perhaps the perception will be that your app is full of bugs and not very usable? Yes, people do judge a book by its cover, so spread the joy of your app to your business website and the site dedicated to the app itself. Offer as much information as possible, even as an extension of the app.

Launch Like NASA

When NASA is going to launch a shuttle into space they begin a countdown 43 hours before liftoff. The launch team is saddled with a specific set of tasks to complete before the shuttle can launch. Take a cue from NASA and schedule the launch of your app in much the same way, with a concise set of tasks to occur in a certain order and at a specific time.

Post some teaser tweets or blog posts that incite interest, but don’t give away the secret of your app. Canvas review sites for a cover story on your app. Don’t be upset if they don’t have time to review right away, a little publicity down the road is good too. If possible, coincide the launch of your app with a popular event or conference, especially if it relates to your category. For example, if your app is related to global business why not launch it during the Asia Business Conference 2011 (ABC 2011) at Harvard Business School? Having a large presence at the conference will not only draw in those attending, but also those watching what goes on there. At the same time, hold a live online event to showcase the app. Having it all centered around an event like the ABC 2011 will bring together many respected
industry icons, so why not try to get their attention? Also have your team begin posting tweets with promotional keys for your app. Launch a contest related to your app and give away prizes your users would find useful. Highlight ‘new additions’ to your website that include links to your app and its site.

The key to any successful product launch is word of mouth (even if that takes place via the social web). If you can get people talking about your app before, during and after its arrival on the market, well then you have it made. Create interest with hints on social media sites, even start a few rumors. People will always be interested in rumors, even if it is just to prove the rumor was wrong. To get people talking it takes creativity and interest. Make your app shine so that it becomes interesting. Make it diverse enough to appeal to everyone’s preferred methods of smartphone use. Spread the joy and greatness of your app. No one will know how great it is unless you tell them through your business website and the app site. Prepare your launch in a calculated manner with clear goals specific to a certain schedule of events. Incite excitement about your launch and your app. Get people talking.

Marketing your shiny new app doesn’t end at the launch, it just hits a point of climax before leveling out. Keep on talking, tweeting, blogging, promoting and sharing news about your app and its popularity will continue to grow exponentially.

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Chris Haycox works for MetroFax Internet Fax as their head Network Administrator. MetroFax has just launched their iPhone app to enable their clients to more easily and securely access their faxes from anywhere.

SEO for Mobile Websites – A SPN Exclusive Article

By Warner Carter in Featured

Mobile Web usage is growing stronger every day. The popularity of this service is one of the main reasons behind the smartphone’s dominance of the mobile communications market. On-the-go Web access is also proving to be one of the most sought-after conveniences of Web users today.

The mobile-friendly versions of popular social media sites and search engines have long enjoyed high visitor traffic. Blogs and business websites are starting to cash in on the trend, acknowledging how the population of mobile Web users can significantly change site traffic and possibly contribute to revenue. Many SEO experts recognize the quickly-rising percentage of users who access the Web through their mobile phones.

Basic Mobile SEO

There is a notion that mobile SEO is a separate branch of SEO. While there are slight differences between both concepts, the two processes have a similar goal: to help websites rank in search engine results and dominate their respective niches.

The first thing you should keep in mind when doing mobile SEO is that the process is still based on traditional SEO principles. The proper usage of keywords, tags, and anchor links is as important for mobile websites as it is for regular websites. However, you should remember that mobile search engines often consider a site’s speed and its ability to be rendered well on a particular phone.

Creating a mobile version of your site and venturing into mobile SEO can help you capitalize on the growing mobile Web user population. Businesses and companies are at risk of losing revenue when they take mobile SEO for granted. With smartphones and tablets selling like hotcakes these days, there’s no reason for you not to take advantage of the trend and enjoy success for your business.

Of course, it’s understandable if you’re a little skeptical about mobile SEO’s abilities in making your business more successful. The Web provides a lot of articles on how mobile SEO can benefit small business, especially those that cater to localized markets. You can use these articles as resources for the basics of mobile SEO. You can also contact a professional SEO provider, in case you’re interested in the method.

Mobile SEO Keywords

Web designers usually overlook keywords even if they are aware that they are designing a mobile website. If you can’t design your own mobile website, make sure to hire a designer who is knowledgeable about SEO. Your working relationship with your web designer is a critical part of your mobile SEO strategies.

If you’re thinking of optimizing your mobile website using the keywords for your regular website, think again. Smartphones and tablets are structurally different from laptops and desktop computers. Typing on a mobile phone or dealing with an onscreen keyboard is said to be a big factor for users to choose shorter keywords. These users may search for keywords that are more concise. Experts call it the “rush search.”

Before consulting your Google Mobile Keyword tool, keyword analysis must be completed. First, you have to revisit and restudy your target market and niche. You have to think from a different perspective and put yourself in a mobile Web user’s shoes. List down all the possible keywords, regardless of competition, length, and strength, then get some recommendations from your customers, friends, and colleagues.

Then, jump into AdWords and use they Mobile Keyword tool. Look for keywords Web users are actually searching for. Just like typical keyword research, you have to know the strength of every keyword you are going to use.

What’s the point of researching keywords without consulting Adwords and the Mobile Keyword tool first? This helps you re-associate yourself with your business and market. Some SEO experts forget the essence of knowing their market because of the vast availability of keyword tools. They always end up choosing high-ranking keywords without even considering major factors that may affect their business. For example, if you’re selling secondhand or used Chanel and Hermes items, you would not want to mistakenly choose the keyword ‘brand new designer bags’, just because you were distracted by the long green bar that indicates its rank.

Basically, you should have a mobile version of your website if you want to jump into the mobile SEO bandwagon. However, if you’ve already established a strong domain authority, creating a new domain may affect your site negatively. Instead, use a sub-domain to retain your current domain authority and link juice. The mobile version of your website should always be in XHTML or Basic XHTML format. This is where you can use your new mobile keywords.

Have a mobile search self-test and analysis If you’re not familiar with mobile searching, you can do a self-test of how it works. Knowing the search engine is like studying your battlefield. You have to recognize the competition, the competitors, the rankings, and the current situation. Accessing some mobile websites can give you ideas on what you can do for your own website.

Investing in Mobile SEO

Some think that mobile SEO is only for businesses that have secure markets. There are business owners who opt to do mobile SEO to show success, because the process often requires more financial resources. On the other hand, some business owners choose to venture into mobile SEO to strengthen their promotion strategies, because they know the importance of having a mobile presence today.

The Future of Mobile SEO

The future of mobile SEO greatly relies on manufacturers of mobile phones and computers. As long as these companies design and produce smartphones and tablets, mobile SEO’s future is secure. 2011 starts the decade of the mobile Web, and this fad is yet to fully boom. As long as technology and Web giants such as Apple, Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo! exist, there’s no end in sight for mobile SEO.

Additional mobile SEO reminders:

• Submit your site to major mobile search engines for quicker crawling and indexing.
• Put relevant keywords in the title tag, headers, body text, and anchor text, and make sure you integrate these keywords into your website’s content.
• Promote your mobile website in social media sites.
• Check how your site looks on different smartphones and tablets, and be open to revisions and improvements for your mobile site.

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Warner is interested in everything about discovering and learning new things online. He works with the only for SEO Resellers outsource resource Endless Rise

SMX Melbourne : All About Mobile Search

By Kalena Jordan in Featured

Live blogging of SMX Melbourne presentation by Gillian Muessig, President of SEOmoz.

Mobile is here to stay. If you haven’t already investigated how to use mobile marketing, you are already way behind.

Why do you want a community platform? Social commerce is a subset of electronic commerce. Gillian mentioned LivingSocial.com – already in Sydney, very big in the US. It’s a way to get deals / coupons for things in your community. Also Groupon.com is a similar thing. These ideas are similar to @square, which is a way to pay for things using your cell phone, popular in the US and hopefully coming to Australia and New Zealand soon.

You can make your own QR code at www.qrcode.kaywa.com – download the QR code to your mobile for coupon / discount / offer / invitations / news. Mobile coupons are about levels of offers therefore all about social status.

You can also play games with QR codes. Send hints / clues / instructions etc. Data has come full circle and now gone offline. You can get your codes offline now, from billboards, physical stores etc.

Should you or shouldn’t you jump on the .mobi bandwagon? Gillian says no. It was always a stop gap measure. But DO create mobile-friendly pages. Search engines will use transcoding to auto show your page on mobile devices. Make sure your pages provide value and are designed for mobile and put them in folders on your site.

Cindy Krum is a mobile marketing evangelist and the world’s foremost authority on the subject. Gillian suggests looking at Cindy’s mobile directory list.

If you can blog, you can build an app. You don’t need a huge audience, you can make a mobile app just for your biz or your few customers.

For application building, try AppBreeder. Also, Hunch.com launches tonight – it’s a mobile community builder that allows you to build your own mobile local app on the fly. It’s a brand new service that Gillian thinks will take off after launch.

Mobile is easy, it’s out there and now is your chance to grab the opportunities in mobile marketing before your competitors do.

Mobile Marketing – Another Market To Build Your Empire?

By Jai Grishin in Featured

Smartphones have suddenly become the device to have. No longer a novelty, or a tool for the rich, everywhere I look I can see someone using their iPhone or Android phone. Doing everything from making calls to searching for information. That’s new eyes in a new market with new customers. How could you incorporate a business model using mobile marketing, and affiliate marketing, as a part of your Empire Building?

The surprise arrival of the iPhone a few years ago and its incredible growth has given rise to explosive growth in the mobile market. Over 2 million phones were sold recently by Apple. The recent launch of the iPhone 4 was Apple’s most successful yet. Then there are all the other handset manufacturers that are scrambling to catch up. Let’s stop and consider for a moment the number of people that are connected to the internet from their smartphone right now… Most people have their phones within 3 feet of them 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.

Furthermore, over half of all new connections to the internet are from these new mobile phones.

Smartphone marketing – What is it? In it’s broadest definition it is providing customers with personalized information that is time and location sensitive using media sources that is interactive and wireless to promote goods, services and ideas, such as from Google search.

There are not many marketers in this market yet. I will emphasize the word “yet”. With mobile advertising your ad is the ONLY ad that will be displayed on the page. With a bit of tweaking and personalizing your ad using a bit of research and geo marketing and you can begin to see how easy it would be to get someones attention without all the noise and distraction of other AdWords and flashing banners on the page.

Everything that you are using now in affiliate marketing using ClickBank, CPA offers, and building a list will also work the same with the mobile market as it does with a PC. The difference is that it is not as competitive.

The mobile marketing potential has just started, and there appears that it is not going to slow down anytime in the near future. The number of people going mobile continues to rise – using their smartphone for so many more things than just making calls.

How you could use this developing market to build your Empire?

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My name is Jai Grishin and I’m currently building my internet marketing Empire and I love life! If you like the ideas about mobile marketing and your interested in more ideas on building YOUR Empire, please go to seosecretsuncovered.info to receive a Amazing FREE 158 Page book.

Mobile Marketing – The Different Types Of Mobile Websites And How They’re Used

By Jason Drohn in Featured

More and more people are signing up for advanced mobile plans, which means that smart business owners and entrepreneurs have a window of opportunity open to them right now. Mobile marketing is cheap and people don’t have ‘banner blindness’ when it comes to their mobile device.

Those to things spell out an incredibly easy marketing solution. What I want to do is lay out a few different ways mobile marketing. Then, I’ll follow it up with a few resources you can check out for more information.

Mobile Squeeze Page

Mobile squeeze pages serve one purpose, and one purpose alone, to collect data. Basically, what you do is offer a free download of some kinds or discounts/coupons to visitors who sign up for your email list. That way, you can market to them again and again in the future.

Using A Check Out Page As A Mobile Landing Page

Another effective way of mobile marketing is sending prospects directly to your main product page or the page where they can sign up for your services. Obviously, a higher ticket item will need some pre-selling, but lower end offers work well.

Mobile Landing Page – Phone Number

One of the best innovations of mobile marketing ads is its click to call technology. What that means is that when someone clicks an ad, it automatically dials a phone number! That’s awesome for pizza shops and doctor’s offices!

Does Mobile Marketing Work?

Right about now, I’m sure you’re thinking that all this stuff is good in theory. But does it actually work?

On a cell phone, there is very little screen real estate. The user only has so many options… Sign up for your free download or exit the page. More times than not, the person will sign up so they can get your information or they’ll call you. It really is incredibly effective.

A properly designed mobile website won’t have any distractions at all. It’ll have a call to action and a action option… Something that the user has to do.

Graphics will be minimal and the page will seem relatively simplistic. That’s OK though, because mobile phones are typically much slower than normal computers and will need more computational power to load the page.

My Mobile Marketing Results

Based on the testing I’ve done, mobile marketing is definitely a big hit. Generally, people who view mobile websites or find your business on Google Maps are very well targeted. They know what they want and are willing to pay for it. If you place an email marketing opt-in box on the mobile page itself, you’re going to get lots of new leads. The ‘click to call’ option is also really impressive.

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For a free mobile marketing report, make sure you visit mobilemarketingreviews.org. Also, make sure you check out at Mobile Monopoly. It’s the best mobile marketing training I’ve seen so far.

Down The Mobile Anti-Marketing Hole

By Steve Smith in Featured

It started innocently enough. It was a cool June day on the streets of New York where outside of Penn Station some street marketers were passing out samples of Speed Stick antiperspirant. When I got to my hotel room and unpacked the cellophane bag I noticed that the promo included a 2D code I was prompted to snap and send to a short code.

Ok, fair enough. The theme of the campaign is “Different Strokes for Different Folks,” to promote three kinds of Speed Stick for a range of sweating types (“what’s your pit type?”). And to the marketers’ credit the concept of the 2D code is aligned with the brand message. The offer suggests that by using the 2D code I will be able to “make a 2D code that belongs to you and you alone.”

Eliding the obvious question of sentient beings (Why the hell do I want my own 2D code?) I decide to play the brainless toady brand marketers often imagine me to be and initiate the process. And while I am playing the doofus, how about if I also pretend that I am not versed in mobile media and marketing, and that a 2D code still looks to me like some silly screw-up of a digital image download.

But, of course, without standardized 2D code readers embedded on phones, using this system in the U.S. is a bothersome kludge. You have to text “SPEED” to 87415 in order for the WAP push to initiate the process. I do so and get the link, which opens my iPhone browser to land on a Speed Stick page. I have a choice between getting a 2D card reader or getting my own 2D code. Choice #1 kicks me to the App Store to download a “BeeTagg” multi-code reader – which, according to App Store users, merits two out of five stars. Speed Stick really hasn’t told me much of anything about why I want this poorly reviewed reader or what possible purpose it might have on my deck. In fact at this point I am a few minutes into a process that has yet to inform me sufficiently why I really am here.

Let’s pursue the other path down the brand rabbit hole. Back at the Speed Stick mobile landing page I try the other option to get my own 2D code (whatever the hell that is). Now I get asked for my mobile phone number and my email “to register.” What Speed Stick will be doing with both email and phone number, I don’t know yet. I get an email with a link and a password to enter. You’re kidding me. I have to copy or write down a password now and I still don’t know what I am doing if for? More to the point, this process has now kicked me around three media and multiple platforms: a print card, SMS, app download, WAP push, mobile Web site, email and finally a Web landing page.

Is anyone keeping count here, because I lost track a while ago of how many things I had to click and places I had to input information to get to a payoff that is still ill-defined.

So I get to the speed Stick Web page. Newcomers without login information get a “What’s Your 2D Code” prompt to find out what this is all about. The result is form to fill and a right-hand text description that easily can be mistaken for a useless Terms of Service agreement. For those of us who already went through all the above steps, we get to fill in our name and then get a pop-up with the same three graphs of unadorned explanation for what a 2D bar code is and can do. Finally, after all of that I get the privilege of reading a short story. I know, I sound cranky, but this has been a long brand adventure and I am getting hungry now. And then more forms; selecting a social network to send the code to. After this you can track how your code is being used.

You can tell there is the core of a good campaign in here somewhere. Ultimately the idea is that people are passing their 2D code around and being ranked on-site for how many times they get hit. I am sure the program is still too young for us to assess numbers, but so far the top ten add up to about 60 scans total. I applaud those who were hearty enough to follow through on the whole process and get their own code. I couldn’t follow you. I gave up. I had to eat.

Is this campaign just too clever by halves? I am sure that in outline and in pitch sessions it hit all the right buzzwords. The campaign aligns the technology with the brand message. It leverages numerous touchpoints (WAP, SMS, email, Web). It taps into social networks and uses viral distribution. It appeals to its male target’s native competitiveness and quest for popularity. If it works and catches on, the campaign harvests a crapload of data.

The problem is, it’s a pain to execute. This campaign not only turns me off to the brand, it turns me off to 2D codes as well.

I have never been a fan of slapping these things anywhere. I much prefer image recognition technology for this. UPC codes and the like were made for machines, not people. And most UPC codes are confined to packaging, where they can be tucked away out of sight or restricted to a single page of a magazine.

2D codes threaten to go everywhere. And there is nothing aesthetically pleasing or directly communicative about them. They are just a big fat eyesore that engineers and geeks might find energizing. The rest of us just want to peel them off of our otherwise pleasant-looking world. The prospect of a world filled with these things is too unappealing to ponder.

As someone who wrote years ago about the mind-blowing prospects of connecting the physical world to the digital world via the cell phone, I am a big fan of the basic goal here. But well-meaning campaigns like this remind me how far we have to go before the process is smooth enough, and the technology is ready for consumers to consume. We need time to eat.

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Contributing writer Steve Smith is a lapsed academic who saw the light, bolted the University and spent the last decade as a digital media critic and consultant. He is chair and programmer of OMMA Mobile and OMMA Behavioral conferences from Mediapost and is the Digital Media Editor at Media Industry Newsletter (MIN) from Access Intelligence. Contact him at popeyesmith@comcast.net.

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