How SMBs Can Win In The Early Days of Personalization Via Mobile

Ask me what holds the most promise in mobile marketing and I’ll answer personalization.

Query me on my biggest disappointment to date and I’ll also say personalization.

Therein lies a big opportunity for small businesses.

I spent the better part of the last 10 days getting smarter on beacons – a hardware and communications method to link proximity with a mobile device, and more importantly, the user.

Why my interest? It was the July topic of my Market Motive online training webinar. http://www.marketmotive.com/training/tutorials/conference-calls-and-workshops/workshops.html. But it also is on the minds of many marketers who I meet, and I want to provide strong counsel.

It strikes me that a beacon’s No. 1 mission is to tell a business that someone is in the store.

The SMB doesn’t need a piece of hardware and accompanying Bluetooth transmission to learn that.

He or she knows the customer is there.

Larger entities like Macy’s are testing ways to convert this information into useful data by combining beacon technology with an individual’s previous purchases to deliver a more individualized experience – and to increase sales.  While there is potential there, Macy’s is in the early days of the experiment. However, the SMB doesn’t need beacons to know what a certain customer wants.

He or she already knows.

You may recall my post http://www.jeffhasen.com/blog/2013/6/10/what-if-anything-keeps-your-customers-loyal about the boutique pet store owner who provides such a level of personalized service to me that I routinely pass roughly 40 closer stores selling the same product so I can do business with him.

At the recent CEO/CMO Summit conducted by the Mobile Marketing Association, I heard from the mouths of global brand marketers that personalization through smartphones and other devices is hard. Some believe that it’s unattainable.

To me, we have to get there. There are only so many steak sandwich offers that a vegetarian will receive before he or she is convinced that the business sending them has no clue about their dietary needs or really about them in general.

Few are more bullish than me about text message loyalty clubs.

The top way for SMBs to get customers to return is through a mobile VIP program that opts in mobile users who want to receive offers via SMS. These programs cost the businesses well under $100 a month – good ones can be developed for less than $50 through several high-quality mobile vendors. Redemption rate for deals from the SMB vary, but consistently the savvy business owner is seeing a solid return on the expenditure.

While these clubs are the best that we have for now, they still can be better.

We are under-delivering when we say that we are doing one-to-one marketing when we are really doing one-to-one-opt-in-list marketing. Everyone gets the same offer. Not ideal.

The ineffectiveness of the large brands is an opportunity for SMBs. Until the big players get more targeted through mobile, and provide more value to the consumer, the smaller businesses can win through personalization.

If you like, call it old-fashioned customer service. I’ll refer to it as a leg up in the battle for sales and loyalty.

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This post was brought to you by IBM for Midsize Business and opinions are my own. To read more on this topic, visit IBM's Midsize Insider. Dedicated to providing businesses with expertise, solutions and tools that are specific to small and midsized companies, the Midsize Business program provides businesses with the materials and knowledge they need to become engines of a smarter planet.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - An App To Do Everything But Get 49ers To Beat Seahawks

The Levi’s Stadium app is said to change the role of mobile at sporting events forever. Fans will be able to instantly watch replays from their mobile devices in the stadium, choosing from a variety of different camera angles. The app will feature paperless ticketing and the ability to order food and drinks directly from your seat.

What it won’t change is the 49ers’ inability to beat the Seahawks.

Mobile payment users span all income levels, with the highest usage among those making less than $50,000 (32%) and more than $100,000 (29%) – Nielsen.

"The Beginning of the End of Smartphones" is a provocative headline that isn’t likely so.

Mobile now represents 62% of Facebook's total ad revenue, which reached $2.91B in Q2 2014.

Mobile phone penetration in Singapore is at 156%, according to Forrester.

17% of US internet users with an income of $150,000 or more have opted in to receive text message info and offers from luxury brands – eMarketer. Uninterested? I say it’s more likely that they haven’t been approached in compelling ways.

This year, for the first time, advertisers will spend more on mobile ads than on newspaper or radio, reported the Wall Street Journal.

Twitter stats: 70% male globally. 59% White.  29% Asian in U.S.

Fitbit tweeted to step it up near the end of the month. That zapping wearable competitor lets action speak louder than words.

Fixed raised $1.2 million for a mobile app that fights your parking tickets for you. It’s a tool to win on technicalities.

15% of Starbucks' revenue last quarter came from smartphone transactions.

The "demise" of tablets is the week's winner for gross exaggeration. Phablets will get some dollars. Tablet innovation will stem flow of others.

Where do mcommerce transactions take place? eMarketer says that mobile websites get 55%. Apps 34%.

Big Brand Conference Provided Learnings For SMBs

There were just as many lessons for SMBs as megabrands at the recent CEO/CMO Summit http://www.mmaglobal.com/events/ceosummit/2014/agenda staged by the Mobile Marketing Association.

Sure, there was discussion that was irrelevant to small businesses, such as Hilton’s mission of trying six mobile tactics over the course of a year knowing that “three or four things will work. One will be OK. One will be a learning.”

I don’t know even one SMB that is doing six things in mobile. And that's a good thing.

Andrew Flack, Hilton Worldwide’s Vice President Product Marketing & Customer Insights made a comment about mobile that is true for businesses of all sizes -- “be prepared to not be perfect.” Rather, savvy SMBs are integrating mobile to make their operations more efficient.

Manish Gupta, Executive Vice President and General Manager, OPEN Products at American Express, said that SMBs should focus on “incremental benefits” that mobile brings to their businesses. An example was a photo-taking tool that enables SMBs to save time by easily building expense reports tied to QuickBooks.

Gupta reminded the audience that some small business owners are slow to adopt, and that it’s important to “think of consumer behavior and not just do mobile for mobile’s sake.” While computer penetration is short of 100 percent, 98 percent of SMBs use some sort of mobile technology.

“Almost two-thirds think of it as an imperative,” he remarked. These companies view mobile as an “equalizer”, and a “traffic driver”, even when employing the least “sexy” mobile product – text messaging.

Two companies, Perry Ellis and Cosi, spoke of the success of SMS programs. In fact, Perry Ellis believe so much in building a database via text that it has sales associates proactively going down store aisles to ask shoppers to opt-in for offers and other information.

Justin Roisman, Head of Mobile Strategies, Perry Ellis, said that it often takes 8-10 emails for a customer to convert.

“It’s a much shorter time with text,” he told the audience.

Cosi, primarily a sandwich shop, uses SMS to get people to come into the locations at times when business is slow, including mid-afternoons.

Marc Lapides, Cosi Director of Marketing, shared that the next phase of growth is in segmentation. When applied, Lapides said that Cosi would no longer send an SMS offer to a consumer who already was going to buy lunch there. Instead, deals would go to those who are visit infrequently.

SMBs have all sorts of ways to get into text messaging. Often the easiest is to work with a radio station to reach listeners and to use the station’s short code which saves them time and money. As mobile evolves, the adaption of mobile practices, particularly for SMBs, expands with it. 

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This post was brought to you by IBM for Midsize Business and opinions are my own. To read more on this topic, visit  IBM's Midsize Insider. Dedicated to providing businesses with expertise, solutions and tools that are specific to small and midsized companies, the Midsize Business program provides businesses with the materials and knowledge they need to become engines of a smarter planet.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Why Giving Your Spouse A Certain Fitness Band Can Get You In Trouble

A fitness band "that publicly shames the slacking user", huh? Here's my advice - don't give the Pavlok to your spouse or significant other.

A New York ice cream shop sees 5% of sales via mobile payments. And growth isn’t dripping in.

A study finds that half of Verizon customers are paying more than $100 a month with 14% above $200.

The first Instagram photo, posted four years ago this month, was of a happy dog. Then the service got legs.

Meanwhile, the inspiration for Pinterest was a collection of bugs.

eBay says that it sells 12,000-15,000 autos per week via mobile.

8:06 AM is when the majority of log-ins to mobile banking occur, as people start their day with a check of account balances.

Sandwich shop Cosi spends 30-40% of its marketing dollars on mobile, primarily to “solve problems” including traffic beyond the lunch hour.

Hilton has formed a Suggests Team of front line and other employees empowered to interact with consumers in real time.

Some Hilton properties view customer feedback via mobile as “terrifying”, according to an executive who spoke at the CEO/CMO Summit.

Hilton spends 6% of its marketing dollars on mobile, well above the norm.

An ad says that you can get Gogo Internet for the price of a coffee. Lies now?

Engagement, not ‪mobile bookings, is supposedly most important to ‪Priceline. Of course, one should lead to the other.

AT&T’s emerging devices head says to expect ‘fully independent’ wearables this year. Likely, but the carriers will push bundles hard.

Theme park visitors are ditching maps for apps? What's a map?

Google has reportedly banned this question in interviews: explain a database in three sentences to your 8-yr-old nephew? I know marketers who can't handle this one.

Steve Jobs supposedly recruited a hardware designer with this -- "Everything you've done in your life is sh*t”. The guy went to work for Jobs at Apple.

When Closeness Via Mobile Is Too Close

In a subway car or on a mobile device, there is getting close. And there’s getting too close.

It didn’t have the stench or uneasy feeling of that “Close Encounter of the D Train” kind, but a moment at this week’s CEO/CMO Summit put on by the Mobile Marketing Association had even the hardened of marketers turning up their noses.

xAd took to the stage to unveil a new product that gets marketers to “the intersection of places and people.” Within Footprints, we can see a real-time map showing where consumers are. An example used showed how a toothpaste brand can serve up an ad to someone that it knows at the dentist’s office.

There was significant pushback during the presentation and afterward with several noting that a dentist’s visit is off limits for brands even if the technology is there to reach out to a mobile user before, during or after a deep clean or root canal. 

The topics of privacy, permission and personalization led if you gauged the 2 ½ day conference in Hilton Head on time spent.

Already a leader in mobile interaction, ESPN sought answers as to whether it could – or should – seek to opt fans in for the short term when they enter a ballpark. Benefits could include access to exclusive content, upgrades to seats, and meet and greets with announcers, among other things. This one seemed easy to answer – why not?

Some in attendance lamented the lack of cookies in mobile. Cameron Clayton of The Weather Company (formerly The Weather Channel) said that location is “like a mobile cookie”. But he admitted that many consumers appreciate the absence of cookies and don’t believe that giving up one’s location to get local weather gives license to advertisers. The company gets thousands of complaints a day from those offended by ads tied to location.

Martin Cooper, called “the father of mobile” for his invention of the first cellphone, said that we’re headed for the ultimate in personalization.

“In health care, instead of curing disease, we should be preventing disease,” Cooper told us. “The annual physical exam is essentially worthless because there is no baseline. Soon we’ll be able to have a physical examination every minute and anticipate a disease before it happen.

“In a few years, we’ll be able to sense a few cancer cells in the body and zap them before the cancer spreads. Every disease will be curable.”

Whether that personalization comes through wearables remains to be seen.

Earlier at the event, Pebble’s head of partnerships and business development made an unconvincing argument for the need for wearables today.

Said Asad Iqbal: “You cannot expect consumers to always be engaged on their mobile device.”

That was a head-scratch for me given smartphone stats and consumer behavior. Pebble’s premise for a wearable came off as a luxury, giving users redundant access and speed when it may not be needed.

On Twitter, a reaction to Iqbal’s comments was that wearables don’t, at least for now, solve a problem.

The MMA opened the conference by teasing the notion that a 16% share of the marketing spend for mobile could bring companies like Coca-Cola an additional $1 billion in market cap. Most brands spend in the single digits and have yet to be convinced that more is justified.

Still, we learned lots from major brand marketers.

Addressing questions about the ROI on mobile, Andrew Flack, Hilton Worldwide’s Vice President - Product Marketing & Customer Insights, said that just as Hilton knew when it was time to put TV’s and air conditioning in rooms, it knows that “now is the time for mobile.”

Flack’s advice? “Be prepared to not be perfect. In a year, three or four things will work. One will be OK. One will be a learning.”

Also, contrary to what one might expect, there was extensive talk about success through text messaging (Perry Ellis and Cosi were the most vocal) and nary a mention of beacons.

While not smelling like a rose, mobile’s future seemed brighter than when we got on planes traveling to Hilton Head.

(article first appeared on Mobile Marketer - http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/18245.html)

Tackling The Real Problems

The courageous woman who escaped oppressive China to revolutionize 3D printing for the good of mankind and the surfer-looking gentleman who runs Not Impossible Labs and puts arms on children’s war-torn bodies are the ones who are changing the world.

What about the rest of us, who attended this week’s CEO/CMO Summit put on by the Mobile Marketing Association?

We’re tackling “problems” such as scale, attribution, privacy and the marketing spend mix.

Talk about a reality check.

Sure, what we’re doing is important. Billions, eventually trillions, of dollars hang in the balance. As marketers, we need to get this mobile thing right.

But we are not Ping Fu, who co-founded Geomagic, a revolutionary 3D software company. Ping knows a level of resilience that is off the charts. Nor are we Mick Ebeling, who won’t leave a room until a seemingly insurmountable challenge is solved — like creating affordable and nearly instant prosthetics for kids.

The talks by Ping and Ebeling hushed a room of more than 200 marketers, publishers and others. Their stories are etched in our minds.

Around them, we batted around ways to get “closer to the consumer” via mobile.

Here’s some of what I found interesting:

- My belief going into the conference is that we’re in the first inning of one-to-one marketing. At best, we are doing one-to-a-list of opt-ins. Same offer to everyone. But what if I don’t like meatball sandwiches and realize that you don’t know or care about me if you send me deals on those.

Where personal got off the track at the event in Hilton Head is when xAd showed a new tool that can tell marketers when a mobile user is at the dentist. The idea is to be able to send a toothpaste ad at the right time and place. Even the more hardened marketers in the room were taken aback by the perceived invasion of privacy.

- On a similar note, we lamented the lack of cookies in mobile. Cameron Clayton of The Weather Company (formerly The Weather Channel) said that location is “like a mobile cookie.”.But he admitted that many consumers appreciate the absence of cookies and don’t believe that giving up one’s location to get local weather gives license to advertisers. The company gets thousands of complaints a day from those offended by ads tied to location.

- The MMA opened the conference by teasing the notion that a 16% share of marketing spend for mobile could bring companies like Coca-Cola an additional $1 billion in market cap. Most brands spend in the single digits and have yet to be convinced that more is justified.

- Addressing questions about the ROI on mobile, Andrew Flack, Hilton Worldwide’s vice president - product marketing and customer insights, said that just as Hilton knew when it was time to put TVs and air conditioning in rooms, it knows that “now is the time for mobile.” Flack’s advice? “Be prepared to not be perfect. In a year, three or four things will work. One will be OK. One will be a learning.”

- Contrary to what you might expect, there was extensive talk about success through text messaging (Perry Ellis and Cosi were the most vocal) and nary a mention of beacons.

- Long considered a hot sector, it was brought up investment banker Tim Kawaja of Luma Partners that only seven of the last 110 mobile acquisitions were deals of  $100 million or more: “It has been a horrific investment category — a disaster.” Kawaja brought frowns to the mobile ad crowd in the audience by saying that marketing and content, not advertising on the small screen, is what’s meaningful.

Despite Kawaja’s words — it’s not the first time that many of us have heard sobering comments from a banker — no one left the event feeling defeated. Ping and Ebeling equipped us with lessons that while nothing is easy, anything is possible.

(article first appeared on MediaPost - http://www.mediapost.com/publications/article/230109/tackling-the-real-problems.html?edition=74483)

"Father of Mobile" Predicts Three More Revolutions

We stood in line to a get a picture with the gentleman who looks a bit like Kris Kringle. There was no sitting on his knee, but we fawned over the “toy” that he had with him – the world’s first cellphone that the “father of mobile” had invented.

Forty-one years after Martin Cooper changed everything with a device now warmly called “The Brick” – it was actually the relatively humongous Motorola DynaTAC – the 85-year-old came this week to the Mobile Marketing Association’s CEO/CMO Summit in Hilton Head, S.C. to give us a history lesson – and to tell us what is next.

In 1983, “The Brick” had just 20 minutes of battery life and with a weight of 2 ½ pounds, Cooper said that users couldn’t even hold it up for 20 minutes.

Still, “we jump-started a revolution. People are fundamentally, inherently mobile. It seems like no one is where they want to be. Back then, the phone company told us the only way to do it was to tie people to their desks through copper wire. We set people free.”

That freedom and the consumer behavior changes that have come with it had about 200 marketers, publishers and others spending three days hashing out mobile’s role as a channel. Consensus was absent (for instance, the amount of marketing spend used on mobile was all over the board). Come to think of it, we weren’t wise enough to ask Cooper for his opinion on using his invention for brand building, getting closer to the consumer, and to sell more stuff.

Cooper wasn't reticent when asked whether more “revolutions” are coming.

He cited three areas that will change everything over the next 20 years.

“In health care, instead of curing disease, we should be preventing disease,” Cooper told us. “The annual physical exam is essentially worthless because there is no baseline. Soon we’ll be able to have a physical examination every minute and anticipate a disease before it happen.

“In a few years, we’ll be able to sense a few cancer cells in the body and zap them before the cancer spreads. Every disease will be curable.”

Cooper also predicted what he called a revolution in the educational system through 24/7 learning (“when the brain is challenged, it actually grows”). He named Pong and Pac-Man as early stimulants that preceded activity on tablets, games, Kinect’s, smartphones, and many more.

“The next generation will be smarter than we are. Our only satisfaction is that their children will be smarter than they are.”

Finally, he forecast a “collaborative revolution”, pointing to the ruling change in Egypt energized by Twitter.

“People are doing things in groups like never before,” he said. “We’re more efficient by order of magnitude.

“Some day we will all be rich.”

(article first appeared on imediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2014/07/15/father-of-mobile-predicts-three-more-revolutions/) 

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Where Mobile Stands In Lives of 18-24 Year Olds

18-24 year olds in a Bank of America survey are most likely to view their mobile phones as very important (96%) – more so than deodorant (90%) and their toothbrush (93%). Does that say more about the role of mobile or a gross decline in basic sanitary habits?

The core of an American soccer audience? About a quarter of Hispanics and young adults followed the World Cup very closely, according to Pew. Those demographics are highly engaged in mobile, too.

The U.S. mobile ad spending will surpass digital ads and print in two years, eMarketer forecasts.

Predictably vendors are talking up beacons.  My recent conversation with brands say that a robust testing period is needed first. I’ll do a webinar on the topic July 23 for Market Motive http://www.marketmotive.com/training/tutorials/conference-calls-and-workshops/workshops.html.

Shazam has moved inside movie theaters to give second-screen advertising another shot, Adweek says. You have a captive audience, so it isn’t as ill-conceived as one would think.

SAP says “the mobile revolution is now.” Jeez. Just what we need is more hype.

Mobile email opens have increased 400% in the last three years.

The average smartphone user has 21 apps and uses 8 in a week, Survey Analytics reports. Those numbers seem low on the total number and high on the weekly usage.

Separately, Apptentive says that only 4% of customers will still be using an app a year after they download it.

50% of Walmart smartphone owners use mobile to help them shop in stores, the retailer claims.           

Mobile device adoption will grow to 2.4 billion smartphone and 651 million tablet users by 2017, Forrester predicts.

80% of smartphone users want to interact with doctors on mobile devices, according to Cisco. Other than privacy concerns, why wouldn’t one want to do this?

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: Anything Your App Can Do Dogs Can Do Better

An app that forces you to get out of bed? I have three dogs that do that.

More than half of U.S. online adults who begin tasks on their mobile phone continue them on their laptop, Forrester says.

The digital ad spend is concentrated among a few companies  -- nine account for two-thirds of the U.S. digital ad revenues, according to eMarketer.

Up to five million Android users have malware issues. I believe that 4,999,993 don't know or care enough to do something. But Norton claims that a text message worm targets Android devices.

I disagree with the notion that consumers won't be loyal in the mobile age. In fact, I think that the opportunity to create and cultivate relationships is better than ever.

Nielsen tweeted that while advertisers are exploring mobile, they need proof that campaigns are effective. This is news?

If I tried, I couldn't create a worse user experience than what Gogo gives us on flights. Slow, bad customer service, overpriced, frustrating. No more.

78% of U.S. youth use Facebook at least once a month, more than Instagram & WhatsApp combined, reports Forrester.

Android users are spending around half as much as iOS users on apps.

89% of buyers use mobile when searching for homes, according to Keller Williams.

ESPN said that 3.2 million people watched the U.S. vs. Germany World Cup game. That added 10% to the TV audience.

A tweet said that BlackBerry is waging war against its greatest enemy: media haters. That’s a head-scratching, desperate strategy.

Another tweet says that it's official. We live in a mobile world. What kept you?

Deloitte says that there are three ways that banks can drive revenue from mobile - new customers, cross-selling, and mobile commerce.

The abandon rate for mobile shopping carts is 97%, claims HP.

Advice From a Mad Man - With Mobile, Put On a Flak Jacket And Go For It

You will be hard-pressed to find a smarter businessperson than Hank Wasiak, an ad man for more than four decades who has led small firms and global agencies, while always seeking to reach his target audience on a personal level.

“Technology opened the door to what consumers always felt anyway – back in my day when we were doing IR [infrared] scores to gauge television commercials and saying how hard it was to break through, the average recall for a 30-second spot was maybe 25 percent of the people who were forced to look at a commercial would remember it,” Hank told me in an interview for my Mobilized Marketing book.

“They were telling us then, ‘I want it the way I want it when I want it.’ We just didn’t have the capability to do it. Now we do. Mobile, it gets you connected but it’s part of your life in a functional way, in an emotional way, an entertaining way, in a lifesaving way.”

And Hank, former vice chairman of McCann Erickson WorldGroup who is now a partner at The Concept Farm, says fire sooner rather than later.

“To me, the key thing when looking at something is to be early and fast,” he said. “I’ve been the poster child for this.

“You want to overthink things sometimes. You want to get it perfect but things move so fast. To me in this world, especially in mobile, iteration is more important than innovation. You can find out quickly because you’re in real time in the hip pocket, the breast pocket and in the heart of your consumers.

“You have to put on a flak jacket and get a little more risk averse.”

More wisdom from Hank is here - http://www.hankwasiak.com

Can A Business Get Fit By Finding Lookalike Audiences?

While ever expanding, my gut tells me that the time is right to market fitness tools.

Wearables get the great majority of attention these days. Gauge your heartbeat. Record your strides. Those types of things.

However, what caught my attention is that Facebook is on a new “Fit” tour proclaiming that its Lookalike Audiences tool is of undeniable value to small and medium-sized businesses.

Let’s give that one a gut check.

As background, the Lookalike Audiences feature in Facebook’s advertising platform enables advertisers (SMBs and others) to upload customer information so Facebook can find similar people.

The theory is that those who are “found” will be convinced on Facebook to patronize the advertiser’s business.

I have no issue with the notion that a relevant ad can produce a desired sales effect – in this case, a real or virtual visit to a business.

Where this falls short for me is in the program setup.

To create a lookalike audience, a user, in this case, a business owner needs to do the following within the Facebook platform:

Go to Power Editor and select Audiences from the Ad Tools drop-down on the left.

Click Create Audience.

Click Lookalike Audiences.

Select your source: any Custom Audience, conversion pixel, or Facebook Page.

Choose the country where you'd like to find a similar set of people and select your desired audience size with the slider.

Click Create.

Yes, the business needs to feed Facebook information, i.e. a Custom Audience, to get the process going.

This is the same business that needs to make sandwiches in the morning. Or dry clean clothes for 12 hours. Or run a convenience store.

"These are the tools we are investing in," said Dan Levy, director of small business at Facebook.

Whether businesses devote the time to identify and upload audiences is another question.

Facebook says that it has more than 30 million small businesses with an active page.

That part’s easy. The inputting of basic info on Facebook can be done by someone with little marketing know-how.

But ad buys through Custom Audiences?

It doesn’t yet look like a winner to me.

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program http://Goo.gl/t3fgW, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: Wanna Pay To Experience My Life? Didn't Think So

An app on Google Glass will let people pay to watch a livestream of everything that you do. Name one person who would do that. In my case, neither my mom, wife, nor anyone else would.

I recommend that we get the basics right – location, device type, personalization and attribution - before we consider scented mobile ads.  This one smells like a gimmick.

Notifications via twitter.com rarely are accurate. When you look , nothing was retweeted and there is no new follower. What am I missing? Probably nothing.

Consumers choose brands that engage their passions 1.5 times more than those that just urge them to buy, Google says. That sounds low to me.

Another one that appears to be lacking? 62% of customers looking for a company on their smartphone expect a mobile-friendly website, according to Forrester.

In related news, 79 percent of mobile users who find a site difficult to use will leave and never return.

Kobe Bryant is reportedly among those pro athletes testing the capabilities of Apple’s  iWatch. Do you think that he put in a request to slow Father Time?

To those who believe all mobile rumors, remember that speculation about Amazon Fire pricing and supposed customer access to free data was dead wrong.

More evidence of convergence - SportsCenter now has a social media producer within ESPN’s control room for each show.

Too many pings or consumer value created? iBeacon has rolled out in 100 stores on one street in Europe.

What planet does this tweeter live on? “Can Facebook retool itself and dominate mobile or will it run its course?”

Gartner: 75% of mobile security breaches will be the result of mobile application misconfiguration.

Globally, the number of people who own use smartphones monthly is expected to increase more than 25% this year.

Sizing Up Amazon's Fire

My first takes on the Amazon Fire phone:

Online pre-orders for version one of a product from a company that hasn't made a mobile phone before? That tests the brand trust notion that Jeff Bezos played hard during his presentation today.

Through Firefly, Amazon’s Fire aims to be the quickest way to buy stuff – of course, from Amazon. That’s like the mall sending a car for you and speeding you to stores. Only much more efficient.

My TiVo always underdelivered so I’m wondering about the promise that Amazon can predict videos that I’m likely to stream, leading to the video beginning instantly.

Google’s Jason Spero, long one of the savviest in the industry, tweeted: “Amazon just built a phone designed for showrooming. Not clear to me that they will sell many. This is a feature.” Except showrooming often leads to Amazon and customers know that.

Consumers have lots of choices at $199 with a contract. Smartphone prices are dramatically lower than just six months ago. Value for the price is the big question here.

A July 25 ship date gets the Fire out long before the new iPhones. You don’t think there was pressure on Amazon employees to hit this timeline, do you?

Recognition - voice, face, product, person - is the next huge innovation in mobile. Will Amazon further deliver on a relevant, personalized advertising product that brands will spend against?

Meeting The Demands of Mobile

A new list of “demands of businesses and their mobile consumers” shows us how everything and nothing has changed for marketers.

I made that point often in my Mobilized Marketing book. As marketers, we still need to sell more stuff. It’s the how that is different.

Atop the tips from IBM (https://ibm.biz/BdRAkX) is a recommendation to use cross-channel marketing that establishes a consistent customer experience across every engagement channel.

This one fits in the “nothing has changed” bucket. Whether it’s television and newspaper in the 1960s or the web and mobile device in 2014, it was and is critical to speak with one brand voice. And look like one brand. And deliver on the brand promise everywhere.

Second on the list is targeting and analytics to help with the development of a personalized experience for each customer.

Here’s another that is a must – and one that didn’t begin in the modern mobile device era. Even during the heyday of mass media, the savviest marketers knew that measurement and segmentation were key to delivering communications that meant something on the individual level. Mobile sits alongside web advertising, email and direct mail as vehicles to bring a relevant message.

Third is real-time and location-based marketing to drive relevant offers to the right person at the right place and time.

Of course, this one is where we see the most change. With devices that are mini-computers in the hands of many at all times and in all places, marketers have a way to get where my friend and longtime marketing executive Hank Wasiak calls the heart and the pocket of customers and prospects.

Fourth is mobile commerce that takes advantage of the features that are specific to mobile devices.

Google tells us that searches with local intent are more likely to lead to store visits and sales within a day. In my view, this tip is mostly about understanding the motivation and behaviors of the mobile users.

Finally, customer delight because a pleasant experience makes customers want to come back for more.

The need to delight is not new. On mobile, delight must come quickly because of the heightened expectation of instant gratification.

As I’ve counseled brands over the years, the key is to tie mobile initiatives to proven marketing strategies and tactics. In 2014, the what remains the same. Mobile is the new how.

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program http://Goo.gl/t3fgW, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: Picturing A Chief Instragram Officer Position

Picture this: a C-level job for taking photographs and uploading them. The Hillside Beach Club Resort in Turkey, which is a Hilton location, is hiring a "Chief Instagram Officer". I’m guessing that the only dough tied to this will come from the pastry chef readying the CIO for the day.

Via WatchESPN, 2 million devices watched the World Cup, NBA Finals and/or U.S. Open last Thursday. It’s a new record for a day.

Two of five Hispanic Millennials are mobile-only Internet users, comScore says.

Here’s a stat that I don’t believe - 85 percent of consumers expect to turn to a mobile app first for customer service over the next year. It came from Portio Research.

I enjoyed this tweet from respected mobile analyst Ross Rubin  - “Though I must say the colors on the Galaxy Tab S are more saturated than the fats in Cheesecake Factory menu items.”

There are smartphones as cheap as $25 in India and Indonesia, powered by Mozilla's Firefox. One quarter of the population worldwide will use a smartphone this year. Nine countries will surpass 50% smartphone penetration this year, eMarketer says. 

I believe that this is a great point from a Google executive speaking at SMX - asking a user on your mobile site to install your app is like asking a girl to be your girlfriend right after you introduce yourself.

There's an app to find where 1 or more of the 6 Oscar Mayer Weinermobiles are. You're welcome.

One in 5 mobile apps is run just once, according to Localytics. That’s low, but better than it used to be.

There is a smart hoodie sweatshirt that can post to Facebook and send text messages. Help us.

I have carried an iPhone since v1 in 2007.  I have not woken up one day hoping for a larger version. Have you?

I know that there are other "solutions" coming, but I’m shocked we're at this place with consistently inadequate and expensive in-flight WiFi via Gogo.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer: Will Amazon's 3D Phone Change Our View?

If face tracking technology will power Amazon’s new 3D smartphone, here’s a question: 3D hasn't caught on with TV. Has it been due to price or lack of interest?

I requested an invite to the Amazon launch event. Playing out the suckup strategy, I put down "to witness history" as reason. We'll see.

Enter to win a chance to see a product intro? Unconventional. Amazon is true to its core.

Google’s search results now warn you when a webpage is not optimized for mobile.

“Spilled coffee on the train. Someone threw a newspaper down to mop it. You can't do that with a tablet.” Tweeter Ben Kunz is right.

A report that Apple "hopes" to introduce wearables (iWatch) in October became "will introduce” across the web and social channels. Where’s the accountability?

Meanwhile, Apple will attempt to increase iPhone sales in stores with new pre-paid & month-to-month plans.

Daily tablet usage in the U.S. is highest among Gen X Hispanics, eMarketer says. That follows earlier trends of use of smartphones and mobile in general.

50% of U.S. online adults expect companies to have a mobile website, Forrester says. 32% expect them to have a mobile app.

For a day at least last week, Seattle eclipsed Bay Area for mobile rumors. Amazon phone. T-Mobile sale.

Here’s a case where stagnation is good: magazine revenue is expected to flatten as newspapers decline, PwC forecasts.

There are 30 million small businesses with active Facebook pages, including 19 million on mobile, the company reports.

To those who believe tablet growth is slowing because people don't want multiple devices, why is Apple the latest to bet on "seamless" experiences?

My nomination for the category that most needs personalization on Twitter - travel. I have yet to see something vaguely relevant to me.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer -- Are Two-Year-Old Smartphones Useless or Good Enough?

I read on Business Insider where "80% or more of current iPhone users are due for a new phone because they're using old iPhones that are near the end of their useful lives." Says who? Two-year-old or more devices are “useless” for those with limited budgets?

Pew reports that 47% of those mobile users with a household income under $30,000 own a smartphone. Who says that they will put the next purchase of one before anything else?

Techcrunch took the same stance as I did. "The next two years will be the era of good-enough smartphones."

Integrated cross-platform ads are not driving reach, ROI: Nielsen. It’s the early days. The study doesn’t say that they won’t. It’s says that they aren’t.

That study aside, the obvious question from Mary Meeker's new Internet Trends report - with mobile adoption and usage so broad, why are brands slow to use the channel? Mobile now gets 11% of all the digital advertising spend.

Mobile advertising was up 47% year over year, Meeker noted.

The death of the tablet, eh? Tablet units are growing faster than PCs ever did -- +52% in 2013 , Meeker reported.

The U.S. market in on track to exceed $100 billion in mobile data revenues in 2014, analyst Chetan Sharma says.

As compelling as possible products that we'll see, I'm most intrigued by how ultra-strong personalities from Beats play within the Apple world.

A memorable tweet from Southwest Airlines: “You are now free to skip the printer: Mobile boarding passes land at all domestic Southwest airports!”

A new study says that 70% of retail marketers say personalization represents the future of marketing. Do the others think “one to all” will get it done?

Are these tons of World Cup apps meaningful or just for kicks?

Nearly a quarter of digital ad spending by U.S. healthcare and pharma firms will go toward mobile this year, eMarketer says.

Twitter Vs. SMS For SMBs

Regular readers know that I’m bullish on text messaging for small or medium-sized businesses needing to bring more customers more often.

There are tens of thousands of examples of SMBs seeing value in the development and nurturing of a permission-based database. One that I heard about recently is a tattoo shop in Utah that fills open appointment slots by sending out offers to opt-ins that get viewed and acted upon within minutes.

There are dozens of other examples in my Mobilized Marketing book. 

Of course, SMBs have alternatives. One is Twitter, a service that promises that it can help an SMB “connect with potential customers and increase your follower base.”

Follower bases are good, but what about the more customers, more often need?

Let’s take a look:

Twitter encourages SMBs to create a presence on the social network, then to integrate it across all marketing channels.

It recommends that businesses feature their @username on their website and ask customers to follow them. Further, Twitter suggests SMBs import an email contact list to follow and interact with customers. Also, it encourages businesses to join industry-related conversations and connect with influencers through hashtags.

Through a lead form, it offers a marketing “kickstart” with supposed easy tips, templates and a content calendar.

Twitter has dedicated account for SMBs (@TwitterSmallBiz) as well as a blog

https://blog.twitter.com/small-business.

Have you followed an SMB on Twitter?

Have you gone into a brick and mortar or bought on line after seeing a tweet from an SMB?

Do you know an SMB that is using Twitter and seeing success?

Is there an SMB that replaced a permission-based SMS club with Twitter and grew sales and loyalty?

Twitter says that it has 255 million active monthly users with 77% of the accounts outside the U.S.

There are 326 million mobile users in America, according to CTIA – The Wireless Association. comScore says that 75% text on a regular basis. Multiple studies report that approximately one-third of mobile subscribers are interested in joining a text club from a brand or business.

There just doesn’t seem to be any rationale for using Twitter and not text.

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program http://Goo.gl/t3fgW, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Making Sense of The Mobile Wallet Hype

One in 5 mobile handsets will have mobile wallet functionality by 2018, per Juniper Research. Functionality means squat without usage.

I have long said that we don't live in world of absolutes - no, tablets haven't become irrelevant. As far as the latest statistics, 18.5% of all marketing emails were opened on a tablet in Q1 2014, up 5% in 9 months.

A mobile vendor that I won't name (I have friends there) sent me email starting Dear Maryann. And they sell the concept of personalization.

72% of all tweets about a sporting event on TV is tweeted by someone under 35 years old (Nielsen).

Headline: Hispanic Consumers Embrace Mobile Technology. It's one thing in the industry that hasn't changed since I got in in 2005.

I saw where Fitbit has 50% of the world’s wearable market. Yeah, but we’re in second inning.

There’s news that Verizon is about to target its subscribers with ads. No one has more data on users than the carriers.

Facebook has launched new Shazam-like features. The jury is out on whether a big number of users want to access information this way.

YouTube reaches more 18-34 year olds than any cable network.

Citi saw the growth of mobile banking go from 22% to 59% in two years.

Gartner says that the global spend on mobile ads is expected to hit 18 billion, an increase from the estimated $13.1 billion last year.

15% of all e-commerce sales are estimated to come from mobile, McKinsey reports.

Tweet from Bill Murray – “Nuns in wheelchairs = Virgin mobile.”

Houston first responders and doctors in dispatch centers are using tablets in treatment of patients who don't need an emergency room trip.

A final few words from Arianna Huffington - "We take better care of our smartphones than we do ourselves." Are you guilty as charged?

Doubting My Benefit-of-the-Doubt Approach

About a year ago, in a post called What, If Anything, Keeps Your Customers Loyal? http://www.jeffhasen.com/blog/2013/6/10/what-if-anything-keeps-your-customers-loyal, I wrote about my family’s support of a small business owner who has never offered us a discount, sold us a product that we couldn't get elsewhere, or opened a location closer to our house.

In it, I told readers of Jeff, his boutique pet store, and the fact that we were buying high-end dog food from him ever after we bought product from Jeff that made our pets sick.

What was this business owner’s lure then – and now?

Jeff wins at what I call the Moments of Trust. He treats his customers like they are his customers. When I first wrote about him, Jeff had been working in his Kirkland, WA, store every day of the week for three straight years without complaint, with a smile, and a willingness to carry purchased product from his store to the car parked outside.

He has since found a way for his grandson to relieve him a couple of times a month so he can actually have a life beyond work.

I thought of Jeff Friday (before I actually saw him and bought from him) when one of those Moments of Trust was miserably fumbled by someone else I do business with on a regular basis.

Susan (not her real name) has cut my hair for more than five years. She charges more than the going rate, but I’ve stayed true to her despite the fact that she dumps her personal issues on me as if my time in her chair is hers rather than mine.

The other day, I received an email from her with a 20% discount. Wonderful, I thought, Susan has an appreciation for me.

Wrong.

On Friday, she told me that I had been sent the email in error. It was intended only for those who don't come in regularly. Twenty percent for not coming in for three months. More, she said, if the time between visits was longer.

The reward for spending money with her every six or so weeks for five years? Full price.

It’s the dumbest business practice that I've seen in a long time.

She rang up my $60 haircut (I know what you’re saying – 60 bucks for that ‘do?). I gave her no tip.

If you do the math (I did), she could’ve taken the 20% off, then I would’ve given her a 20% tip. We would’ve been at the same mathematical place – and I would’ve felt appreciated.

You may ask why I’ve stayed with Susan all these years. She’s alternated between being a single mother and an unhappy wife (while I sympathize, I know this because she has told me from the minute I sit down until the time I leave).

Will I go back? Doubtful, although I’ve said that before and always gave her the benefit of the doubt.

It’s more than she has ever given me.

Do you think she deserves yet another chance?

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This post was written as part of the IBM for Midsize Business program http://Goo.gl/t3fgW, which provides midsize businesses with the tools, expertise and solutions they need to become engines of a smarter planet. I’ve been compensated to contribute to this program, but the opinions expressed in this post are my own and don't necessarily represent IBM's positions, strategies or opinions.