marketing

I just came across the review of what seems to be a great little book with a philosophy that us at Avanti Interactive always keep in mind as we go about our daily business. It is called "The Go-Giver: A Little Story About A Powerful Business Idea".

Here are the five laws outlined in the "Five Laws of Stratospheric Success:"

One of the biggest questions companies ask themselves before investing in online social marketing revolves around the challenge of evaluating the return on investment (ROI). In general companies have few benchmarks as compared with traditional media to measure the success of these campaigns.

Nevertheless, it is possible to quantify them. Starbucks got one million clients in only one day thanks to a campaign launched in social circles. Read the complete engagement study in PDF here.

Recently, a new study (PDF) was published by Syncapse whose objective was to evaluate the commercial impact of clicking on the Facebook "Like" button. The conclusion is that on average those users that are fans of a company in the most popular social network spend an additional $71.84 on products for which they are fans compared to those who are not fans.

Marketers are expanding their focus to include more ways to digitally and directly reach consumers, so their vendors must follow suit. It’s just smart business.

Nearly every major email service provider has announced social media integration plans in one form or another, and most have selected a mobile partner or are building messaging into their platforms.

In general, and in particular for direct marketers, mobile continues to represent tremendous opportunity. As we’ve seen with these acquisitions, the appetite for social and digital media technologies is growing.

We regularly make the point that marketers should have a multichannel strategy – one that includes email, online, mobile and social media. The more opportunities you have to reach a customer, the more opportunities you have to engage with them.

Apple’s iPad hasn’t saved publishing just yet, with Conde Naste revealing just 365 sales of its iPad-edition of GQ, while fresh research claims the average iPhone app sells 101,024 copies. [Via 9to5 Mac]

By Bryce Marshall,
Chief Marketeer

Mobile marketing creates opportunities for timely and intimate consumer experiences, but is often poorly understood. And unlike online tactics like search, email, and social marketing, few brands have dollars set aside for mobile development, meaning business cases and ROI models must be cemented upfront. The good news is consumers are already mobile. Hundreds of millions of North American consumers are engaged with their mobile devices.

Many marketers are overwhelmed by the technologies and terminology that fall under "mobile." However, the foundational components of mobile marketing are straightforward, support core marketing and communications programs, and deliver clear and measurable outcomes.

Here are a few tips for making a mobile business case:

The Foundation

1. Text Messaging (SMS)

From Mashable, by Shane Snow.

Social networking has finally become something valuable for brick-and-mortar businesses. Smartphones and location-based social networks allow users to interact, share, meet up, and recommend places based on their physical coordinates. This real-world connection to social media can mean more foot traffic and profits for business owners.

So-called “lo-so” networks like Foursquare, Loopt, and Gowalla enable any business with a physical location to not only communicate with customers online, but actually get more of them to walk in the door — and that’s exciting.

The question any brick-and-mortar business owner should be asking him or herself is no longer “Should I use lo-so networks?” It’s “How do I do it?” The following tips are essential to getting started.

Read the full article.

By Emilio Castellanos

To charge or not to charge for access to proprietary content online is an old idea based on a new media paradigm. The paywall has been highly debated, tested, embraced and forfeited over and over again but media companies are not asking the right question.

The bigger issue with monetization is that media companies have failed to react to the changes that have taken place in the ecosystem and still insist in serving controlled content online as gatekeepers. Media companies need to be asking questions about structure, portability, business focus and models to become more flexible, accommodate user preferences, identify emerging trends and then avidly follow them.

Target's mobile efforts have reached a new high as the retailer takes the first step towards rolling out seamless mobile payments through 2D barscanning and tracking technology.

Target’s point-of-sale scanners make Target the first major retailer with the ability to scan mobile barcodes in all of its retail locations.

To take advantage of this new technology, shoppers need to currently purchase a physical Target giftcard either online or at the store and save its code information onto a secure account on Target's mobile site. Then, at the point of sale, mobile users retrieve appropriate barcodes to scan at checkout.

It is still necessary for shoppers to buy the physical giftcard either at the store or online but Target is already looking into providing seamless mobile payments to "reload" the value of the giftcard electronically which would completely eliminate the need to carry your wallet when visiting a Target store.

The Verizon/Motorola/Google mobile phone DROID arrived in stores November 6 and is causing a stir. The cost is $199.99 (plus tax on the full retail value $599.99) with a new two-year customer agreement after a $100 mail-in rebate in the form of a debit card.

You will probably want to consider buying an extra battery (I did not) to support heavy internet browsing and application use, although according to this test it is pretty good.

The Droid offers no global plan.

Tip 1: If you are having problems connecting from your PC to your Droid, look for a USB indicator on the notification bar of the phone... drag that down and tap on it... select mount, and it should just show up as a removable drive on your PC.

By Emilio Castellanos

There has recently been some buzz about companies getting sued for conducting non compliant or flawed SMS campaigns. In particular I am referring to the class action suits filed against Coors Light and CBS-owned Simon & Schuster.

MillerCoors LLC is being sued for running a mobile sweepstakes promotion in which it allegedly printed invalid promotional codes. Simon & Schuster is in trouble for having allegedly sent unsolicited messages during a three-year SMS campaign for the Stephen King horror novel "The Cell."

These two class action suits highlight the need for companies embarking on SMS campaigns and promotions to ensure that campaigns meet the Mobile Marketing Association's (MMA) guidelines, receive adequate legal attention, and are administered and deployed by mobile professionals using only the best mobile infrastructure available.

By Jordan Crook, Mobile Marketer

NEW YORK -- Despite the overall decline in marketing budgets nationwide, companies are allocating their marketing dollars to mobile.

This was the topic of conversation at the Mobile Marketing Association's Mobile Marketing Forum in the Grand Hyatt Hotel where Peter Johnson, vice president of market intelligence and strategy, MMA, led a panel discussion titled "Marketing Industry Research: 2009." "Our main purpose is to create a model of who we are as an industry so when we make decisions we can tell clients, ‘if you do this or that, I know what will make a difference for you and consumers," Mr. Johnson said.

By Marshall Kirkpatrick, ReadWriteWeb.com

We've been writing a lot here about Augmented Reality (AR), technology that displays layers of data on top of our view of physical reality through mobile phone cameras, projected images or webcams. It seems like a red-hot field and something we should cover all the more. Some people think that's not the case though; they say it's just hype, a technology looking for applications or a recipe for disappointment.

Below we offer you a chance to let us know what you think. Please take our poll and let us know if you think these services being heralded as Augmented Reality are the real deal or something not worth reading about. Just below the poll we offer some links to a few of our most important articles about AR and some opposing viewpoints from readers. Let us know what you think!

By Emilio Castellanos

To effectively reach the Hispanic mobile market, brands should ally themselves with organizations that have an established and ongoing relationship with the market and involve themselves with a cause that is important for the particular Hispanic demographic they want to reach. Each case needs to be looked at individually. There is no magic formula that will work across the board. Translating an ad into Spanish just won't do.

Companies seeking to target Hispanics should gain a strong understanding of the cultural differences and behaviors that make them unique --whether they are English or Spanish preferred, represent a particular ethnic group, etc.-- and develop a relationship with them based on those individual characteristics, needs, wants and aspirations. Targeting mobile Hispanics must begin from message conception, contain a long-term component, incorporate multiplatform, and provide an added value service that can be useful and interactive.

Since the end of the last century, when Marconi and Hertz demonstrated the feasibility of radio transmissions, mankind has endeavoured to fulfill the dream of flawless wireless multimedia telecommunications, enabling people to communicate with anyone, anywhere, at any time, using a range of multimedia services. In fact, "virtually" being with someone, anywhere, at any time at the push of a dialing key - provided that the wireless system, the communicator device as well as the human/communicator interface are up to the associated requirements - is a concept that ultimately leads to the impression of "tele-presence" while communicating.

Naturally, the provision of these "tele-presence" services requires a further quantum leap in a range of enabling technologies from the current state-of-the-art, which is constituted by the well-known mobile phone. The Communications Group is endeavouring to contribute in most of the associated areas. Our long-term research is focused on communications and information theory, providing ideas for more short-term applied research.