12 posts categorized "Retail"

Entry By Jason Brick

Running your small business can feel like working in a vacuum. You keep working your plans, but lack the feedback and example of other players in the game. This is doubly true of mobile marketing -- a promotional field new enough that there isn't a strong data infrastructure to which you can compare your results.

Industry will catch up in good time. Meanwhile, you can draw inspiration from these three wildly successful mobile initiatives:

Marks and Spencer

British retailer M&S decided in 2010 to take the mobile plunge. Instead of going with a simple app or SMS marketing campaign, they opted to design a mobile portal for retail purchases direct from customers' mobile devices. In less than two years, Marks and Spenser rose to be the number one ranking mobile retailer in the world. Not only are they successfully selling to mobile customers, but they're selling items not normally purchased electronically -- including furniture and large-screen plasma televisions.

Expert analysis identifies three key characteristics behind Marks & Spenser's success:

• A dedicated mobile site -- incoming connections to their website identify the kind of device that will view their page. Mobile devices are routed to an experience optimized for those devices.
• Simple programming for a fast load time -- just over half the time of the average 10-second load for mobile retail.
• Reliable purchasing leading to a 100 percent success rate on attempts to buy. Retailers average about 93 percent -- but losing seven percent of sales can make a big difference.

Pontiac G6

In a campaign to raise awareness, Pontiac offered a place in a drawing for $1,000,000 every time somebody texted a photo of a G6 they found in the field. Responses were immediate and impressive. Although Pontiac hasn't released exact numbers, sales for the year of the promotion numbered over 120,000 luxury cars -- as compared to only 16,000 for the year before.

The Pontiac campaign is an excellent example of eliciting a response from potential clients. It got people who may only have been interested in the prize keep a lookout for the product, raising brand awareness across multiple markets.

The keys to this success included:

• Solid integration of print and broadcast media with the mobile response campaign.
• A compelling call to action that required no immediate outlay of cash from potential responders.
• Simple interaction mechanic -- snapping a photo and sending it to a widely advertised email address.

Nike

In a desperate attempt to inform the remaining three people in the world who don't know what Nike sells, the sports apparel giant has embraced the mobile marketing world with a series of apps. In some cases partnered directly with Apple for the iPod, these fitness apps, like MyCoach, help users plan and execute fitness training regimens. Nike coupled this with real-time response campaigns like their Nike ID initiative in Times Square.

Although they didn't release specific numbers about the campaign's success, their mobile marketing frequently leads lists of the most successful mobile marketing campaigns to date.

Nike's success with their mobile marketing relied upon:

• Multiple mobile platforms and styles, to appeal to a wide general audience.
• Giving potential customers tools that help them use the merchandise they sell.
• Pushing information about the new campaigns through more traditional media sources.

6 Unexpected Ways Businesses are Using iPhones and iPads in the Workplace is the seventh in a series of articles that we'll be posting this fall. Small Business Marketing Tips To Build Sales In A Down Economy will teach you how to use do-it-yourself tools like SMS, email and social media to effectively market your business.

Entry By Jason Brick

For decades, Apple courted the consumer market so exclusively that business clients often considered the company actively hostile. Since the iPhone/iPad revolution, though, Apple products have appeared more and more in employee hands at businesses both large and small. In some cases they work as the newest productivity tool, a next-generation upgrade from the standard laptop. Other businesses, have taken the implementation to an entirely new level.

1. Meet the New Cash Register
Internet-based credit card processing is beginning to nudge traditional point of sale machines out of the market. Combined with apps like Square for order tracking and accounting, this turns your iPhone/iPad into a portable cash register. Salespeople can ring up orders on the floor, or take them into the field for house calls. 

2. Upgrade Presentations
Old-school sales presentations means carrying printed materials; they're bulky and can quickly become outdated. The iPad/iPhone way of presenting is light, portable, and easy to update. Apps like Keynote allow you to add colorful graphics, animation and videos, makes this new presentation approach still more powerful. 

3. The Truly Paperless Office
Large companies and small businesses have a common problem -- too much paper. Putting the same information on a dedicated iPad though -- or a server the device can log in to -- eliminates paper and saves trees. It also creates a document that's easy to update, and one that everyone can access at the same time.

4. Integrated Customer Tracking
A business without an electronic customer database is far behind the times. But some savvy business owners are going further by integrating that customer database with apps for their iPhone/iPad. This benefits them in three ways: It lets them choose the best candidates for marketing broadcasts; it gives them the ability to update information in real time while talking to customers; and it makes inputting a new customer's information a more pleasant experience by moving it away from a formal desk and a bulky computer. 

5. The Robot Waiter
An iPad integrated with another in a restaurant kitchen means a comfortably seated diner can order a meal at the pace that best suits him. Instantaneous, electron ic delivery, helps out as well by eliminating wait staff errors, and lost or confused tickets. No luck yet, though, on an iPad that actually carries your food to the table!

6. Flexible Workstations
Everyone's interacted with the conceptual ancestor of the iPad for years by signing the UPS worker's electronic order tracking pad. Apps for the iPad now provide this kind of workstation for every imaginable task, and let one employee use the same device for different tasks throughout the day. A network of iPad workstations also gives management real-time tracking of progress

“Mobile is an area of great interest to us, as we expand how we use all social media platforms.” said John Faulkner, director of brand communications at Campbell Soup.

To read the entire article, click here.

To learn more about mobile marketing, visit Ez Texting.

Mobile Marketing Watch posted an important article yesterday, Nonprofits Ban Together To Petition FCC Over Use Of SMS And Carrier Hurdles. Please check it out:

Washington-based public interest group Public Knowledge has filed a letter to the FCC  on behalf of several nonprofits urging the government body to take action on the state of SMS communication and the fact that it’s severely hindered by “layers of obscure, interlocking bureaucracy” that make it hard to innovate, communicate and connect via SMS.

Some of the nonprofits involved include the likes of the American Public Media, Center for Community Change,  The Humane Society of the United States, Reform Immigration for America and the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.  These and other nonprofits have banned together to get behind a petition Public Knowledge filed with the FCC back in 2007 asking that it clarify that text messaging is subject to the same nondiscrimination rules as voice communications.  Though the FCC has yet to act on the petition, more and more companies, groups and nonprofits are coming together in support of it.

Nonprofits care about text messaging because they want to use SMS to advance their mission.   Text messaging could be a great way to reach out to supporters, tell them what’s going on, and even raise a little money in the process, but as of lately they’re learning what Catholic Relief Services found out the hard way – text message campaigns can be fickle, and arbitrary carrier rules are not helping.

Read the entire article at Mobile Marketing Watch.

Another day, another SMS marketing success story. Of note, this one involves one of the decade's best personal branders:

HairTech International is using mobile marketing to promote the launch of Paris Hilton's huge new line of hair and beauty products.

The campaign, which kicked off in late November, already has budding socialites and fans opting-in to receive product information and giveaways via mobile from Ms. Hilton. Velti is powering the campaign.

...

The mobile program is focused around a certified, Velti-powered short code (text keyword PARIS to short code 72747) that enables fans to log on to a mobile Web site to learn about Ms. Hilton's new line, sign up for giveaways and get text alerts about upcoming promotions.

As a call to action the short code has a powerful media schedule behind it including social-media initiatives - with tweets to Ms. Hilton's 1 million Twitter followers and communications to her 140,000 Facebook friends.

Mobile Couponing has been growing by leaps and bounds this year. And now it is invading the place where more people use coupons than anywhere else--the supermarket.

Read more @ Mobile Marketer.

MediaPost's Marketing Daily predicts a big jump in mobile shopping:

Read the whole article here.

There's nothing like a 2008 year-end review of mobile to start off the New Year! Our friends at Mobile Marketer have the full report:

Many people would agree that 2008 marks a change in the way information is consumed. The mobile phone is at the forefront of that change, as it has evolved as the most personal device.

With companies like Sears, Target, Coca-Cola, Pepsi Dolce & Gabbana and even Santa Claus adding mobile to their marketing mix, the channel has finally started to gain wider acceptance.  Let’s take a look at some of the most notable campaigns of 2008.

This article from Internet Retailer gives a great overview of mobile commerce and purchasing via SMS:

Read more at the link above.

Kraft Foods, the world’s No. 2 food company, has launched a new iPhone and iPod touch application that offers consumers access to food and meal-planning ideas.

Called the iFood Assistant, the app can be downloaded from the Apple App Store for installation on any iPhone or iPod touch. The app targets consumers on the go looking for recipes. “Our goal is to help make consumers’ lives easier by helping them find the perfect food idea for any occasion, create quick shopping lists and find the nearest grocery store – all just a finger-tap away,” said Ed Kaczmarek, director of innovation for new services at Kraft.

Read more here.