Ever try out one of those surveys on the back or the bottom of a receipt? Most businesses use an IVR (interactive voice response) to give the survey because paying a call center in India or the Philippines is just too expensive. Problem is, with IVR, you lose personalization because it is not a human being talking to you but rather, a computerized voice. However, the upside is you save hundreds of thousands of dollars because you don’t have to pay for office space and a call center. That is a definite plus.

How do you cut costs and still get personalization? Mobile surveys. These things have been around since the early 2000s but has never really amounted to anything because of lack of adoption. Now, with the growth of smart phones, people are using their phones for everything BUT phone calls. A recent study released by JFK/NOP Research found that 60.6% of phone users text and 82.5% of iphone users text. Furthermore, the study found that more than 20% use mobile internet and have played a game on their phone.

An easy way to gain personalization and the survey data that you are looking for is to create a mobile survey. People can text in to start the survey and instead of talking over the phone, 3-5 question surveys would be texted to the phone user. Convenient? Yes. Likelihood of being adopted? High. As the study revealed, people use their phones for more than just talking. Furthermore, studies have shown that people now text more than they make phone calls.

The key however is to keep their interest while taking the survey. One company in England gives surveyers instant cash after they take a survey. The company that offers the survey is linked to hundreds of retailers so as soon as a survey is taken, a monetary credit is put on your cell phone. Of course you could always just do the same $5,000 sweepstake drawing that everyone else does.

I just did a google search on “text to vote”. Some of the results that came up are listed below. What I want you to notice is the power of mobile voting/polling. It is an interactive way for a company or an event to get people’s opinions about what is happening either in the current moment or something that has already passed.

The good news is that mobile polling and voting used to be limited to specific carriers (i.e. the American Idol and Dancing with the Stars examples). Now, there are mobile platforms out there that enable even small companies or event management companies to set up their own mobile polling and voting systems. It is a great way to interact with you clients and consumers. The thing that would be of most concern to someone wanting to start up their own mobile voting campaign during an event is, “how hard would it be to set up?”

Good companies that provide this service allow you to set up the questions and mobile text numbers via a web-enabled platform. This means that you can just go online and set up a mobile question in less than five minutes. Additionally, you will want to take a look at the cost for each time a person texts in to vote. What you really want to stay away from is a situation where the third party text company charges voters to vote (ie. the example for DJ Metro below). No one will want to give you their opinion if they have to pay for it.

Lastly, you will want to think about charges to set up the software or have access to the platform. These sometimes can get expensive.

Here are the three things to look for again:

1.) Cost of set-up/platform access

2.) Cost to send and receive text messages (anything over 7 cents is a rip-off)

3.) Difficulty level of setting up a mobile voting question (this should take under 10 minutes, anything more is too complicated of a system)

Also, remember to check out the text to vote examples below:

Frequently Asked Questions - American Idol

Additionally, if you text vote using AT&T Mobility Text Messaging, … For American Idol, only AT&T Mobility customers can vote by text message using their …
www.americanidol.com/faq/

Dancing With The Stars - About Text Voting - ABC.com

AT&T subscribers may text the word VOTE to the text messaging 4 digit short … If you are sending your text vote from a wireless phone with an area code …
abc.go.com/primetime/…/index?pn=textvotingfaq

Text Your Vote to Help Determine ELLEgirl Nationwide Model Search …

NEW YORK, March 6 /PRNewswire/ — All of the submissions are in, and all of the finalists have been chosen. Now you can help ELLEgirl, Clairol, …
www.reuters.com/…/idUS108158+06-Mar-2009+PRN20090306

DJ METRO (Text 73997 and Vote 85) best midwest!! on MySpace Music …

Download DJ METRO (Text 73997 and Vote 85) best midwest!! Hip Hop / / music singles, watch music videos, listen to free streaming mp3s, & read DJ METRO …
www.myspace.com/djmetro18 -

Nashville Star TV Show | Online Contestant Voting, Rules & How to …

Inside Buy More is a social networking game for fans of the TV show Chuck. …. Unlimited Text Voting! Vote for your favorite Stars as much as you want each …
www.nbc.com/Nashville_Star/vote/register.shtml -

I’ve said it over an over again. Mobile Marketing by itself is strongest when coupled with traditional mediums. Mobile has yet to become a destination the way that TV, Radio, and the internet has become. Mobile however, strengthens traditional mediums because it is able to personalize messages for customers and also acts as quick updates to keep people “in-the-know”. The strength of mobile is that it is with a consumer all the time. Recent studies have shown that 92% of mobile users never leave the home without it. Furthermore, rarely does a mobile user ever turn it off.

That being said, mobile components have been added to things such as billboards and magazines because the traditional media has the reach, but mobile gives it an interactive push. That got me thinking about other things or places that have a strong consumer base and I came up with one in particular that I wanted to break down; the Shopping Center/Mall.

Malls or shopping centers are based on one single principle: people like the idea of an all you can shop stop. The Grand Bazaar of Istanbul was built in the 15th century and is still one of the largest covered markets in the world, with more than 58 streets and 4000 shops. The  Grand Bazaar extended 10 kilometers worth of shopping and vendors.

This is the idea that Sam Walton had when he started to think about Wal-Mart; one  place for almost everything. Now, auto malls, outlet malls and even online vendors have sprung up doing the same thing.

The reason why I am talking about malls is because they are a great place to implement some kind of mobile marketing. Although numbers are down due to the recession, malls are still one of the most popular places to catch people’s eye and are still the number one destination for after thanksgiving and after Christmas sales.

With that many people going to these locations, a mobile marketing plan would be beneficial to not only the mall itself, but the vendors within the mall.

Last month, General Growth Properties (the second largest Mall Management Company), released a mobile marketing platform to the malls that they manage. Club Mobile is a mall subscription service that notifies opt-in customers of mall sales and events. The Club Mobile extends the value of The Club (GGP’s email campaign) by delivering discounts and offers to on-the-go consumers through text messages.

“This type of marketing innovation is a great example of how we are meeting the needs of today’s consumer,” says Keith Maladra, vice president of Consumer Intelligence at General Growth. “We believe this provides a unique tool for our retailers and gives value to our consumers by allowing them control of what type of offers they receive and how they receive them. The bottom line: we want to help our retail tenants drive store traffic, and this is a great way to accomplish that.”

Imagine walking through the mall and being sent text or picture message coupons for stores that you plan on going to. Imagine a mall where you didn’t have to use a single credit card or where you didn’t have to worry about paper money because if you wanted to buy something, you simply just use your phone to scan the bar code on the item and BAM! it is yours.

Now at this point you could be thinking that it is cool but what about the security of it all. For those of you who are thinking that, I just want to say that all of this would not be implemented if security was not taken into account.

GGP is taking the first step into a mobile world by paving the way for mobile commerce and mobile transactions. Though we are still a couple years away from this actually being adopted, the reality is, is that it is coming.

Additionally, for other mall and shopping center management companies, I would suggest looking into a mobile system for your shoppers. Not only can it provide for convenience but it also allows shoppers to interact with your stores on a more personal level. The key here is operating on a personal yet unobtrusive fashion. No one wants to be sold on anything. People want to make active, non-pressuring decisions.

In a mobile world, we have become mobile shoppers and real estate is no exception. Mobile developments in real estate have been pretty exciting. There are many companies out there that have some innovating products that help out the both the buyer and the seller. I outline at couple successful mobile real estate companies below.

1.) Trulia.com is a real estate site that lists homes for sale. It boasts that it was one of the first companies with an iPhone real estate application. Launching last August, the application has been downloaded 200,000 times and allows filtered and multi-leveled searches by price range and home style characteristics. It also sends out alerts when there are upcoming open houses and has a button that will instantly call or email a registered agent. It also provides some maps to homes so that you can check them out.

2.) Smarter Agent, launched in January and is available on almost any mobile device and is not specified to one carrier. The consumer pays a monthly fee to the phone carrier for the service, but this does not seem to be a deterrent because there are more than 200,000 users and picked up 20,000 new users in April alone. Smarter Agent taps into the consumer’s location through GPS technology and returns info about properties in the immediate area with relevant descriptions for each property. This is similar to trulia.com however, is not limited to a specific application.

3.) Zillow.com applications pinpoint a user’s location on a map and shows values and information on surrounding homes, moving with the user as he walks or drives through a neighborhood. Users can research home values, home details and photos as well as find information on recently sold homes.

These are great technologies for real estate companies that want to get their name out there but for less technological communities, simple but effective mobile marketing campaigns are also being used. Brokers and agents are now advertising with  “Text for more info” signs located below sale or rent signs.

In the past, there would be flier boxes posted on property sale signs. If someone was driving by and wanted more information about a particular house, they would have to get out of their car and walk over to the flier post. Now, they can stay in the car and just text a real estate ID to a specific number and the interested buyer would get information and pictures of the house straight to their phone.

Jingleblast.com, product by Jinglefeed, lets real estate brokers and agents set up these real estate IDs for each of their listings. The service is free to use and just costs $0.05 per message sent. That is less than the cost of printing up your property fliers. Check out Jingleblast.com to see how the set up works.

To be more accessible to your clientele its time to think about going mobile. If you are a brink and mortar business then a website is the first thing that you need to do to get your name out there. However, that my friend, is dated circa 1995. Now, you need to think about the way that your website is viewed by potential customers. There has been a big movement for websites to be available to mobile users. A big problem with that is 0.8% have mobile formatted websites. What does mean? That means that it will display correctly in the mobile phone since the website is formatted for a robust browser and a larger screen. Design wise, it is a mess. Furthermore, usability is minimized if you do not take it into account.

Big bulky websites with a lot of video and picture content will definitely be a big hassle for mobile browsers. In the near future, 2-3 years from now, this may not be the case, but for your consumer or potential client today, it definitely is.

I will create a series of blog posts that discuss what you need to do in order to implement a success mobile site strategy, taking into account the different phone types and browsers.

For now I will discuss part one of your mobile site. The name. The mobile industry has been somewhat inconsistent with the urls of mobile websites because there is a variety of different routes you can go with the name, and for now each one of them is acceptable. However, I will tell you what I think is best, of course. Say your site is called “Mywebsite.com”. Here are the possible urls for your mobile site:

m.mywebsite.com

mobile.mywebsite.com

mywebsite.com/mobile

mywebsite.mobi

wap.mywebsite.com

mywebsite.com/wap

While all of these urls have been used in the past, my personal opinion is that wap (wireless application protocol) anything is too old school. Since the idea of mobile is coming to fruition and becoming mainstream you will want to stay away from techy urls and the word “wap”.

Taking those two away, we have four left.

For mobile sites you want to make it as easy as possible for people to access it. The .mobi” extension has gained some ground but has not been fully accepted yet so I would suggest purchasing the rights to that extension but when advertising for your mobile site I would go with something easier to remember.

USA Today uses “m.usatodaycom”. The “m.” is my personal favorite because it is the easiest to type in, however “m” could stand for a variety of different things. Now, that leaves the actual word “mobile”. Do you put it before or after your website. Putting after the website name implies that the website comes first and then there is a mobile aspect to it (www.mywebsite.com/mobile). Putting it before however signifies that the “mobile” is a subdomain of the actual domain. This is similar to how google does its features. You will find it as maps.google.com, blogsearch.google.com, or docs.google.com. This is what I suggest. When browsing on a mobile device, putting mobile in front of your website lets users know the importance that you put on their mobile usability.

Lastly, although I have a preference for “mobile.mywebsite.com”, I think that you should have everything accessible to your visitors. This means that you will have each of the other three possibilities redirect to your “mobile.mywebsite.com”.

Make sure to check back for more info on making mobile sites in the upcoming weeks.

What kind of campaign should you run? Should you do SMS blasts or should you develop a more in-depth engaging mobile campaign? Here is what Oberto did.

Oberto and its vendor developed an integrated campaign strategy by using mobile, online and in-store POS and on-pack stickers.“To engage consumers with the brand, we built the Ultimate Alpha Zone, where visitors can experience the brand online, in-store and via their mobile device”.“The campaign’s objectives are to increase consumer awareness of the Oberto brand and its Eat Like An Alpha campaign, drive increases in market share and drive sales velocity.”

Oberto Sausage company ran a campaign in 2008 that implemented mobile to push their beef jerky sales. Their target consumer for the campaign was young, “leader of the pack” males who love a more sophisticated beef jerky.

This from Adweek in 2008:

“Still, Ennis credited the Jack Links advertising for “talking to regular Joes” and “stimulating the category.” He said that competitor enjoys an estimated 35 percent market share lead, compared to Oberto’s 12 percent. Despite the No. 1 venue for sales occurring in convenience stores typically attached to gas stations, the category is still growing within those outlets, despite fewer customers due to high gas prices.

Because Oberto targets a “more upscale, ex-urban, suburban male, not the traditional camper/fisher/hiker type,” the spots are often set in an office environment, like in one commercial where a Japanese executive is lauded by an acolyte before subserviently suggesting that he’d accompany the executive to the bathroom. “Woodsiness,” says ecd Curt Detweiler, “is a self-imposed limit on the category. We’re opening it up to an afternoon outing, the workplace, to an exchange as casual as a pack of gum.”

They ran their TV spots on male oriented cable channels like ESPN, Spike and Comedy Central. Furthermore, they added a mobile component to the campaign to increase interactivity.

The company created the site http://www.ultimatealphazone.com/index.html, in order to further engage the consumer. In the site, the consumer could play games, sign up for mobile sweepstakes, and taunt their male friends by texting them funny messages through the site. Other mobile components that were available were wallpaper and ring tone downloads.

“Our target guy is regularly plugged into what’s happening in the world around him,” said Ryan Post, senior brand manager for Oberto, Kent, WA. “He uses mobile technology to maintain a healthy balance between family, friends, sports, exercise, culture and his career, getting the info he wants when he wants it.

“From checking his mail on his mobile phone when leaving the gym in the morning to looking up sports scores and texting his friends to find out where happy hour is, an ‘alpha’ manages his life on the go,” he said. “We saw mobile marketing as an integral part of our latest campaign because it connects to the daily lives of our customers.

“Plus, Oberto is all about having fun, so the ability to playfully taunt ‘sidekicks’ on the go is right in line with our campaign and a fun, engaging way to let guys know what we are all about.”

The promotion allowed consumers to register for sweepstakes and send taunt calls via IVR and the Internet to their friends, calling them “sidekicks.”

The mobile two-way “Taunt Call” IVR campaign lets consumers send unapologetic claims to their friends, and “sidekicks” can send props or insults—“smacks”—back to their friends to continue the conversation.

Oberto’s in-store call-to-action at the point of sale reads “Text / Taunt / Win, text ‘Alpha’ to 433339 for a chance to win and taunt a friend.”

Oberto claims that it has received more than a quarter of a million sweepstakes entries to date, and many of those consumers opted in to the brand’s SMS database.

If you are like me, you like numbers and graphs. Recently,  Liuzzo, Director of Marketing & Mobile Research at InsightExpress, presented the OMMA Mobile opening keynote, Morning Metrics: What Really Works in Mobile Advertising?. Joy shared the following numbers with the audience. It shows how mobile marketing is affecting branding and consumer actions.

When we look at overall mobile norms (display, SMS, video, IVR, applications) we see that mobile is returning results that are currently five times higher than online.

When we slice the Mobile InsightNorms data by gender, we see that females are returning slightly higher results than males. Typically this finding in and of itself would not be that interesting, except for the fact that we do not see this same impact difference in online studies. Campaigns or brands that are focused on females should not ignore mobile media.

What we found is that 18-24 year olds who were exposed to a mobile campaign actually had a nine times higher increase in purchase intent than those exposed to an online campaign.

So every week I will focus on a different industry and what has been done in that industry as far as mobile. This week I decided to focus on how the Automotive/Dealership industry has used mobile to increase their brand and product push. Why auto? Well, in the midst of GM trying to re-brand itself, Chrysler being sold….maybe they can implement some of what has already been done or add to it strengthen themselves. Below are links to some of the better campaigns I’ve found.

Using Mobile Banners and Video to drive action

A mobile company built two different mobile experiences for smart phones and non-smart phones. Using mobile banner ads, people were allowed to watch a video for an auto campaign. Results? C4 Picasso (car) mobile site had 1.042 unique visitors only in three days. The level of interaction inside the mobile site presented 30% of users interaction in downloads section, followed by specification views (16%), test-drive request (7%) and dealer locator (5%). I Phone users had the highest level of interaction reaching 35%. http://www.mmaglobal.com/studies/citro%C3%ABn-c4-picasso-mobext

Using mobile to identify fans

In China, Volkswagen to provided Bluetooth stations where mobile Volkswagen catalogues could be transferred to enthusiast’s phones. Two stations were created. One was located in the Beijing Auto Show, the second was located at Volkswagen’s flagship showroom in Beijing. Results? 15,000 catalogues were downloaded during the week long show and 8,000 downloads per month occur at the showroom. http://www.mmaglobal.com/studies/vw-gains-interactivity-and-affinity-their-chinese-brand-friends-strategic-locations-puca-mob

Creating an engaging mobile website

In conjunction with the Jaguar XF’s reveal at the LA Auto Show, Jaguar wanted to communicate the vehicle’s break through styling and unique features. Jaguar created a interactive mobile website that allowed visitors to view pictures, watch video and also request demos and product brochures. To get the word out about the site, they used Yahoo mobile’s banner space. Results? In a 1.5 month period, 56,000 actions were taken; 11,468 videos consumed; 2,447 leads; 1,478 hand raisers (emails collected); 969 located a dealer. http://www.mmaglobal.com/studies/mobile-case-study-jaguar-xf-pre-launch-yahoo

Getting feedback from the customer; enhancing the experience through mobile

Goodyear operated Hi-Q used mobile marketing to get into the consumer’s head. Hi-Q created a mobile customer survey that allowed consumer’s to tell Hi-Q what they thought about the products in real-time and also allowed them to receive promotional incentives. http://www.mmaglobal.com/studies/goodyear-hi-q-automotive%E2%80%99s-campaign-measure-customer-satisfaction-touchwork

Generate Buzz

GM used mobile to create an outstanding WOM campaign that got the word out about their new car, the Pontiac G6. GM created a million dollar campaign that targeted 24-45 year olds by allowing them to enter in a million dollar drawing by sending pictures of a new G6 car. The program was elevated by the Oprah when she gave away a G6 to every audience member on one of her shows. Results? The Pontiac.com website visits jumped 425%, G6 page jumped 354%, the promotion’s mobile website received 232,000 visits, and the promotion drew attention from an estimated 55,500 – 92,500 people overall.

http://www.mmaglobal.com/studies/pontiac-m-qube-inc

With all the different types of phones out there, sometimes it is hard to make a decision on one specific phone to tie an entire year (mostly two) of your life to.

That got me thinking about iPhones. How many people actually have an iPhone?

Check out the post in the link below:

iPhone numbers

With the onset of GM and Chrysler going down, the car dealerships are taking major hits. With these two companies going down, a mandatory shutdown of 1,889 auto dealers is going to happen in mid June. In 2008, there were about 20,000 dealerships in the US and last year, about 900 of them went down due to the economy. As a result, money spent on advertising with US media companies, will see a steep decrease because of all the companies that are out of commission. Not only are auto dealers going out of business, but now GM and Chrysler are forcing some profitable dealerships to shut down??

Here are some of the numbers about the money auto dealers acutally spend:

- Across all ad categories, newspaper revenues fell 16.6% in 2008 to $37.8 billlion, local TV dropped 6.5% to $20.1 billion and radio fell 8.6% to $19.5 billion, according to statistics obtained respectively from the Newspaper Association of America, BIA Advisory Services and the Radio Advertising Bureau.

- Auto classified advertising in newspapers fell 29% in 2008 to a 25-year low of $2.3 billion, representing less than half of the $5 billion in car ads sold by publishers as recently as 2004.

- As of 2007, newspapers garnered 27% of the advertising dollars spent by auto dealers across the country, according to the NADA. This is down by almost half from the 52% of dealer dollars that newspapers controlled in 1997.

- The NADA reports that TV and radio broadcasters each sell about 17% of the auto advertising sold in the nation, which made their respective shares of the market worth about $1.5 billion apiece in 2008.

With all of the decreased advertising budgets, how will the remaining auto dealers get the word out?

A means of more efficient means of advertising is required. By extending the effectiveness of their marketing dollars, car dealerships can compensate for smaller budgets.

Enter mobile advertising.