What's In Store For Beacon Marketing?

Much as showrooming received attention entering last year's holiday shopping season, beacons is on the minds and plans of more and more marketers as we head toward fall.

Here's what I told cmo.com when asked about the importance of beacons:

"I remember interviewing Patrick Flanagan, a vice president from Simon Malls, for my "Mobilized Marketing "book. He talked of possible ways to get more folks to come shopping. One, he said, was to pick up the mall and move it to a better location in town. Of course, that wasn’t viable. Two, he said, was to change out the store mix in the mall. But, he said, that was a long and difficult proposition. The third, and best way, was to use mobile to drive traffic and more sales.

Beacons are the latest and brightest hope for brick-and-mortar retailers like Simon, which recently expanded its beacon network arrangement with Mobiquity Networks to 240 malls. Why? Pre-recession, during the recession, and post-recession, consumers want deals. But they need to be relevant. Three dollars off of a pizza available 50 miles away isn’t just an annoyance for the consumer, it’s a stupid use of marketing dollars.

But you have something when you combine location, an individual user’s past shopping behavior as seen through app activity, and permission given by a mobile user to be sent compelling information and offers.

Of course, marketers need to be wise and always provide value to the mobile user. Just because an opted-in consumer invites you into their house, so to speak, it doesn’t mean that you can stay as long as you want."

The complete article by Giselle Abramovich is here - http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/8/29/CWTK_Beacons.html

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Will We Need Cash After Apple Introduces Mobile Payment Option?

The next iPhone will include near-field communication (NFC) mobile payments, per Wired.  To me, it’s significant but not "cash gone by Tuesday" significant. There will continue to be slow adoption to mobile payments due primarily to security concerns, but faster with Apple pushing it.

Push notifications boost mobile app engagement, according to Localytics.  That makes sense since it's permission-based. When done well, value is provided.

Headline: Really. It's Time For Brands To Deliver Real-Time Personalization. My reaction: time? The word is overdue.

Apple is reportedly considering a $400 price tag for its wearable device, which supposedly will be introduced Sept. 9 but not go on sale until early in 2015.

70% of college students post to Snapchat daily, Sumpto says. 46% post to Twitter. 11% take to Facebook.

50% of Square businesses are owned by women. Women own approximately 30% of all businesses in the U.S.

There were 1.1 million tweets during the Emmys telecast, seen by 8.8 million people.

The Falcons app allows you to click for an in-stadium "cheerleader visit". Watch out for the blitz since your wife will surely visit next.

There are nearly as many McDonald’s with free Internet (12,000) as public libraries (15,000), Pew reports.

My favorite tweet of the week came from Bob Davis (@BobDavisHCP), a VC with Highland Capital. “Auto correct makes me say things I didn't nintendo.”  

The runner-up tweet comes from marketer and friend Rick Mathieson (@rickmathieson). “Kimberly-Clark potty training app offers rewards every time your toddler downloads.”

73.4% of smartphone owners used them to access the Internet in 2013, Harte Hanks tells us.

Juniper Research predicts that there will be over 1 billion mobile coupon users by 2019.

The majority of digital media consumption occurs in apps with most activity coming from 7% of power users: comScore.

751 million users access Facebook from mobile with 7,000 different devices.

How We Fail To Effectively Market To The SMBs

The CMO Council’s new “Business Traction From Smarter SMB Interaction” report http://www.cmocouncil.org/download-center.php?id=273 nails many of the challenges that marketers face in selling into small and medium-sized business.

Cited are significant personnel turnover in SMB operations, not to mention the fact that the businesses come and go frequently.

Here is some of what is in the report, then I’ll get into what’s missing, and what we should do about it all.

·      70% of respondents say that the SMB market is extremely important to their businesses

·      Only 8% reported having a complete view of the SMB customer

·      Marketers tend to look at SMBs as one giant segment, and that is how they have tailored their messaging, Liz Miller, senior vice president of marketing for the CMO Council, told cmo.com http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/1/22/marketers_have_incom.html. A small business with 100 employees in the agriculture sector, for example, is not viewed as having different needs because it is in a particular vertical, she says

·      63% are only moderately satisfied with their current strategies. Only 6 percent of marketers believe they are extremely effective at developing compelling messages and executing measurable campaigns for the SMB market

Many of my efforts in the past year have been focused on marketing to SMBs. Granted I have been selling technology and a new way for SMBs to market (via mobile devices), but I found the largest challenges were in effectively educating the business owners on a particular problem that they have (getting customers to come in more regularly) and more importantly how my solution fit the bill.

SMBs have a core job – providing a product or service to customers – that takes priority over new marketing initiatives.

When it comes to selling SMBs on mobile marketing and building permission-based databases that will result in customers coming back frequently, we believe that it’s a no-brainer.

But many SMBs haven’t the time nor background to learn how to market through a new technology.

So what do we do about it?

Marketers need to make it about the SMB. The solution proposition needs to be laser-focused, addressing the very needs and circumstances that the individual business finds itself in.

Cookie-cutter marketing to SMBs won’t cut it, even if you are looking to sell to the cookie maker on the corner.

We must do better at putting ourselves in the shoes of the SMB and addressing their particulars accordingly.

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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 - A Smartphone and a Flying Machine?

Since some supposedly have the iPhone 6 nailed, iPhone 7 rumors anyone? I heard that the phone will enable us to fly without planes.

Orbitz lets users resume searches across devices. That is so 2014.

The majority of Americans download zero smartphone apps every month, comScore says. This report is everywhere on the Internet.

Digital time spent on mobile is all additive, not substitutional to desktop, according to eMarketer.

I had no issues with mine (before it was recalled) - 10-20% of people are allergic to nickel, a material unregulated in the U.S. that's found in devices like Fitbits .

1.6% of app developers make more than the other 98.4% combined, a review by Vision Mobile shows.

Google’s 2013 mobile search revenues were approximately $8 billion.

The value I put on Twitter is high, but it doesn't get me to believe 79% of marketers used Promoted Tweets this year.

Half of American adults now own either a tablet or an e-reader, Pew tells us.

Younger millennials spend a majority of their "TV" time watching TV on another device, according to eMarketer.

The mobile spend by marketers is slowing , the CMO Council tells us.  It’s maddening but points to need to work harder and smarter to show ROI.

I've been doing this all wrong. I see an "offer" to get me 100-200 retweets per tweet for 30 days. You know that my stuff is not that compelling (but you did read to the end, so thanks).

The most secure version of BBM is coming to iOS and Android this year. That’s at least 4 years too late.

173 million people in the U.S. now own a smartphone per comScore.

50% of Walmart web traffic comes from mobile.

75% of HR managers say mobile HR improves worker satisfaction, ADP reports. More education needs to be done there since it isn’t a no-brainer apparently.

Avoid Making The Biggest Mobile Marketing Mistake

The biggest mobile marketing mistake that I see businesses of all sizes make is failing to follow the most basic of marketing principles – know your customer and act accordingly.

Too many times we see SMBs and others either go too slow or run like the dickens to get a mobile website up and a mobile app produced before consideration is given to the behaviors and interest of the customer and prospects.

I thought of that recently when I was preparing for a webinar on mobile content. There are many, many best practices that that are pretty much universal -- things like ensuring that content viewed on wireless devices is relevant, headlines are descriptive, and the visuals are compelling.

But best practices are general, and say nothing about how an individual business can – or should - use mobile.

Here’s what I mean:

On venturebeat.com, I read

http://venturebeat.com/2014/08/16/no-your-website-doesnt-need-every-cool-new-feature-out-there/ about NerdWallet’s approach to mobile. NerdWallet is a free tool positioning itself as the best way to find credit cards, cd rates, savings, checking accounts, scholarships, healthcare and airline fares.

Much of those categories are big in terms of time spent on mobile. But NerdWallet dug deeper rather than just follow form.

“At NerdWallet, for instance, 33% of our traffic comes from tablets and phones, up from 20% just a year ago,” wrote Eric Ogren, NerdWallet’s chief technology officer. “Still, our website relies heavily on charts and tables, which don’t translate that well onto smaller screens. What’s more, if your website is anything like NerdWallet and requires people to plug in data to get the information they need, it’s more likely that they’ll want to do this on a desktop. Even though the industry is trending toward mobile apps, it simply isn’t a top priority for us right now. Don’t go mobile simply because everyone else is doing so.”

Very true. And, if you do go mobile, create a formal content strategy. More than 90 percent of companies do not have one, according to Gartner.

Beyond beginning with customer insights, here’s what to consider when building a content strategy:

·      Mobile is more personal. Consumers have less patience in receiving irrelevant content. How many times does a vegetarian put up with receiving meatball sandwich offers, especially a regular customer expecting you to know better? Very few at most.

·      Attention spans are shorter – be concise

·      Think multi-screen. In its global Cross-Screen Engagement study http://advertising.microsoft.com/en-us/cl/1932/cross-screen-research-report, Microsoft Advertising found that 68 percent of consumers engage in "content grazing" - multi-tasking using several devices at once. "Marketers will only succeed in the multiscreen world if they create content that enables personal engagement across TVs, PCs, consoles, tablets, and mobile devices”.

To gain customer insights, you might ask these questions:

·      How much of your traffic is coming via mobile?

·      Is that expected to – or does it need to – change?

·      Are visitors coming via smartphone, tablet or both?

·      What type of content are they consuming now?

·      How much time do they spend with you?

Finally, do not mandate that content be read on one particular device – it’s a consumer’s choice, not yours. And remember to make it easy for mobile users to share content – they can be your biggest and most influential advocates.

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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 - The Smartphone Turns 20 And No Longer Connects To Fax Machines

The world’s first smartphone just turned 20. Yes, there was a smartphone before the iPhone.

The IBM Simon wasn’t called a smartphone, but it did feature software apps. It could also be linked to a fax machine. Young ‘uns, consult Wikipedia or a history book if you have never heard of a fax machine.

It was amusing to see some tech sites diss TMZ for showing and hyping supposed bogus iPhone 6 photos. Of course, hunting for clicks, the same sites went that route themselves.

Headline: Researchers Say They Can Charge a Phone With Ambient Sound. Me: consumers need a compelling reason to upgrade. A device that constantly has power is meaningful to many.

Half of Facebook and Twitter users get news on those sites, Pew reports. It was on Twitter that I learned about the deaths of Robin Williams and Michael Jackson, not to mention the ultimate fate of Osama bin Laden.

More than one in three seniors in the U.S. will make a digital purchase this year, eMarketer tells us.

Travel "deals" on Twitter remain a head-scratch - who do you know who will head to Ho Chi Minh on Friday as result of Wednesday night "offer"?

How many times are Promoted Tweets repeated? I wasn't interested the first, fifth or 20th time.

Real value - Google Now for Android shows alternate flights when yours gets delayed.

Lookout Mobile Security nabbed $150 million in funding. As was the case with PCs, consumers will be slow to protect their devices. This is an Enterprise play for now.

Apple supposedly wants to be a “hub” of health data and is in talks with top hospitals. Tracking will soon be more robust than calorie counts and steps taken.

More than half of 18- to 24-year-olds say they "never" unplug from technology, according to eMarketer. We at least have that in common.

Everything B2B Marketers Need To Know About Mobile

This is an excellent piece written by Giselle Abramovich, Senior & Strategic Editor, CMO.com. I offer my thoughts, as do several others. It first ran here - http://www.cmo.com/articles/2014/8/11/b2b_mobile_marketing.html

There’s no denying that business-to-consumer brands, in many ways, have an easier time at digital marketing than do most business-to-business brands. Not that it’s ever really easy, but B2C marketers normally have a more digitally engaged audience—one who is used to living in the digital world and actually expects to be addressed via digital channels over digital platforms.

No wonder, then, that B2C marketers are historically known for more cutting-edge strategies than their B2B counterparts.

This separation is no more apparent than in the mobile marketing arena. Mobile penetration has hit record heights, and, once again, B2Cs are more courageous and experimental.

But that might not last long. According to a recent report by mobile marketing company Usablenet, B2B mobile Web traffic (10 percent of overall B2B online traffic) will soon push ahead of B2C mobile traffic (currently at 22 percent), forcing B2B marketers out of their shells. The study also found more than half (56 percent) of B2B customers read reviews on their mobile devices, and 50 percent compare features or prices.

Additionally, according to Ray Pun, senior product marketing manager for mobile solutions at Adobe (CMO.com’s parent company), a Forrester report from earlier in the year found that 30 percent of IT buyers use a smartphone to conduct research, and 49 percent do their IT buying research on a tablet device.

“B2B is lagging B2C in terms of mobile marketing investment because the percentage of mobile traffic is less than B2C,” Pun told CMO.com. “There is much room for improving mobile Web and app experiences.”

Indeed, mobile is a huge opportunity for B2B marketers, according to Christina “CK” Kerley, an innovation speaker and B2B mobile marketing specialist. “Mobile is a channel for enriching and increasing the efficacy of existing programs and creating altogether new programs that help customers do their jobs better and address customer pain points,” she told CMO.com in an exclusive interview.

B2B sellers need to be on mobile because it’s what their customers have come to expect, added Shehryar Khan, principal at Deloitte Consulting and mobile and Web offering lead for Deloitte Digital. They want to be able to conduct tasks anytime, anywhere, using the device of their choice in a contextually relevant manner, he said.

“With that in mind, when I put myself in the shoes of a B2B buyer, I would expect to be able to research products and view content about them on my mobile device. I should be able to review proposals on my mobile device,” Khan told CMO.com in an exclusive interview. “I should be able to review a contract from a vendor via my phone. I should be able to review, modify, and negotiate pricing on mobile. If I have an existing relationship, I should be able to conveniently reorder from my mobile device. And, on the off chance that I do need to reach out to one of my suppliers, I would like to get proactively notified [via] a push notification.”

Three forces are driving B2B professionals’ use of mobile, according to Seth Pickett, senior director of global mobility and workplace practice in the enterprise services division of Hewlett-Packard. They are the workforce itself, the workplace, and work styles.

When you think about the workforce, Pickett explained, there’s an increased expectation for productivity. In addition, the demographics are changing dramatically as Millennials start their first jobs. And, Picket told CMO.com, even professionals who have been in the workforce for a number of years now are more comfortable with technology than they’ve historically been.

“All of a sudden, this new level of comfort by those in the workforce and the demands of advanced technology entering the workforce create quite a conundrum in the enterprise,” Pickett told CMO.com.

The workplace has also changed, Pickett said. People are no longer stapled to their desks, with employees working in different offices worldwide, and some working remotely out of their homes. What they all have in common: their mobile devices. Large B2B enterprises are arming their employees with mobile devices, and that’s a clear opportunity for B2B marketers, Pickett said.

The last driving force behind the growing adoption and reliance on mobile in the workforce, according to Pickett, is the fact that all professionals are also consumers. And just as they go into their personal email, for example, to check in with friends and family, the same “habits” are moving into the workplace.

“That trifecta of elements makes things interesting as it relates to how professionals conduct business,” Pickett told CMO.com. “[B2B] companies need to be thinking about their mobile strategy.”

Jeff Hasen, founder of mobile marketing consultancy Gotta Mobilize, agreed that mobile is increasingly important for B2B, but pointed out that B2B marketers have been slow to adopt. Hasen told CMO.com that B2B marketers lack mobile personalization strategies, intuitive navigation, and mobile-specific content, while many B2Cs have already mastered these areas. 

“In general, the [B2C] consumer has more patience and can put up with a dose of irrelevant content,” Hasen said. “Not so with the business target, who likely is time-challenged and unwilling to wade through an experience that brings no value or takes too long to deliver.”

According to Kerley, in 2015 more B2B marketers will make mobile a priority in the marketing budget. By assessing current plans and finding ways to infuse mobile, Kerley explained, businesses will find they are able to cut costs in areas such as customer service and call center volume.

The “Golden Rule” in B2B mobile marketing is to focus on the buyer’s problems and identify ways to solve them, Kerley told CMO.com. Mobile lends itself really well to that, she said.

Kerley told CMO.com B2B marketers need to shift their mind-set from looking at mobile as a consumer media, when, in fact, it is the most “opportune, rich media they have ever been given,” she said. It is true that consumers are dependent on their devices for personal tasks; however, the smartphone is also the one device that every business professional must have to do their work effectively, she said.

According to Deloitte’s Khan, most B2B organizations have traditionally relied on in-person, high-touch sales team interaction to drive conversion. That still holds true, but it needs to be augmented by tools and digital experiences that accelerate that conversation.

“The B2C space is much more competitive than B2B,” Khan said. “The challenge that B2B is up against is the fact that, historically, they haven’t had to worry as much about digital engagement. Mobile has changed user expectations. As a result, B2B companies have to re-evaluate how to effectively and seamlessly engage with their current or prospective customers along every step of the customer journey.”

When it comes to the B2B customer journey, mobile is now playing a big role in the awareness stage. Mobile search, mobile ads, and such have become the first touch that a professional has with a company, according to Thomas Mueller, chief experience officer at B2B agency Siegel+Gale. Mobile plays an important role in lead generation and other portions of the consideration stage as well, he said.

“The biggest challenge for B2B marketers is they are so far behind in mobile from B2C,” Mueller told CMO.com. “They’re behind even in the basics, like optimizing sites for responsive design.”

That’s bad news for B2B, Mueller explained, because Google penalizes sites that do not opt for responsive Web design. Good content won’t suffice anymore. It’s now about overall site quality, which is where mobile plays a role.

“When you think about big B2B enterprises vs. smaller B2B startups, the startups have a substantial advantage because they started with a mobile-first proposition,” Mueller said. “They don’t need to force mobile into their legacy models. It’s the big B2B corporations that are playing catch-up in mobile.”

Another big challenge Mueller said he sees, especially with mobile playing a big role at the top of the B2B funnel (branding, awareness, and lead generation), is few chances for B2Bs to make a good impression. “If you mess up that first interaction on mobile, they aren’t coming back because you’ve already failed on your brand promise,” he said.

Marketers also have been using mobile-optimized content to drive purchase intent and aid with the research phase in the B2B buyer’s journey. And once a sale is closed, B2B sellers have been relying on mobile at the bottom of the funnel to grow loyalty and repurchase intent. The post-purchase phase has mainly been for native apps meant to grow the relationship between buyer and seller, Mueller explained.

“Mobile plays a role in all parts of the funnel, but it’s a very different use case in each phase, as the business customer is in different modes,” Mueller told CMO.com. He also said the mobile tactics and programs for each part of the funnel will differ for every marketer.

According to HP’s Pickett, B2B buyers do transact on mobile; however, because B2B is known for larger buys in terms of spend, right now mobile is primarily used to encourage purchase intent.

Another driver of mobile adoption in the workplace is the fact that enterprises are building mobile applications and services for their employees, said James “Coop” Cooper, chief technologist of the mobility and workplace global practice at HP. This, in effect, means professionals have to use their devices for work-related purposes more often. It is no longer an option.

The iOS and Android operating systems have experienced large-scale adoption, Cooper said. “iOS and Android share a lot of things in common, such as HTML5,” Cooper said. “That means we can start to develop apps without that fear that we’ll be rewriting it for different device capabilities.”

Deloitte’s Khan said that B2B needs to draw inspiration from B2C on effective mobile strategy. His advice is to take a user-centric design process for any mobile initiative; understanding the life and habits of the prospective buyer is imperative. The first step in gaining that understanding is mapping out the customer journey, he said.

“Understand the day-to-day life of prospective buyers,” Khan told CMO.com. "You have to know what they do, how they work, and what keeps them up at night. Then, identify where mobile can make that journey more efficient, effective, and more accessible. And last—but just as important—is ensuring you have all the back-end enabling systems, like a good CRM system, in place to make that happen.”

The complexity and longer lead time of the B2B sales cycle makes it difficult for many B2B companies to figure out which mobile tactics or programs to rely on and when. Mueller warned against using the same content from the Web on mobile.

Mobile can’t be an exact replica of the online experience, Kerley agreed. For example, e-books are a welcome form of content in B2B, but they’re long, and not a good fit for mobile, she said. Creating a video series highlighting the main points of an e-book is one tactic to turn existing online assets into a mobile-friendly message. Another tip is to add a mobile component, such as QR codes, to all print collateral to effectively digitize static media.

B2B must think about how content marketing can become "mobile-first," Adobe's Pun added. One example from inside Adobe, he said, is the CMO.com app for iOS devices, which is truly a mobile-optimized experience rather than an exact replica of the CMO.com Web experience. In addition, Pun said B2B marketers should ensure their social media pages provide links to mobile-friendly content pages.

According to Gotta Mobilize’s Hasen, no matter the mobile form factor, always remember time is of the essence for B2B.  “If you ask for six or more clicks in a B2B marketing campaign, you might as well put the campaign in the ‘failure’ category,” Hasen told CMO.com. “Make it easy, safe, and quick. Or don’t even try."

At the end of the day, Kerley told CMO.com, mobile is a gateway for B2B to solve customer problems. The mobile revolution is not about devices—it is about behaviors.

“As B2Bs, we want to help customers do their jobs better,” Kerley said. “You have to understand behaviors if you’re going to provide any real value.”

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Including Why The Point-and-Shoot Is Left Home On Vacation

Last week, I saw several 60ish tourists taking NYC photos of landmarks via tablets. The behavior looked funny, but if the oversized device worked for them and for others, who am I to argue? Nowhere to be found – the seemingly pre-historic point-and-shoot cameras. Approximately 144 million of those were sold in 2010, eclipsing all other years. Today? I know no one who has bought one. Do you?

Google is testing a method to bridge the ad-targeting gap between mobile web visitors and mobile app users, Advertising Age reports. Following a consumer from one screen to another is the next frontier.

68% of consumers engage in "content grazing" - multi-tasking using several devices at once, Microsoft Advertising found.

GroupM is seeing 20-30X lift on beacon beta testing. It was called “potentially transformative” by Jesse Wolfersberger (@jesseberger), Director of Consumer Insights at the company.

Nielsen says that 32% of mobile payers are age 25-34. 46% are multicultural. Hispanics have long led in early adoption of mobile products and services.

In the U.S. in Q2, smartphone penetration increased to 70%. Roughly 93% of the devices sold now are smartphones. Both stats came from leading industry analyst Chetan Sharma.

Looking to learn how to on adapt to the changing mobile shopper? I recommend following Ryan Craver (@ryanmcraver) of Lord & Taylor/Hudson Bay.

“Everything is a screen” - do away with the term “mobile”, urges Rachel Pasqua (@rachelpasqua), Head of Mobility at MEC.

Headline: Wireless Charging Is One Step Closer To Being Reality. My take? This is taking as long as improvements to in-air Wi-Fi.

Price savings more than privacy was on the minds when smartphone users were asked about receiving offers in-store, eMarketer said.

We're more than midway through 2014 and we're still being asked "why mobile?" Really.

The first video uploaded to YouTube was an explanation of what’s cool about elephants, Pew said. As I saw on safari during my “Mobilized Marketing” book tour, lots of things are cool about these majestic animals. I loved the experience.

First locker rooms, now the field - the NFL will let teams use tablets on the sidelines during games.

Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - 6 Clicks To Make A Reservation? See Ya

More than half of the higher-end hotels require 6 clicks or more for consumers to make reservation via the mobile web, according to digital think tank L2. I would be gone after 3 and never return. You?

Only 3% of retailers today that have technology that can identify customers when they walk in the door, according to Boston Retail Partners. But 75% say that they plan to implement this technology within the next five years.

31% of advertisers put 21%+ of 2013 budgets to mobile, Nielsen reported.

I saw a tweet about USB thumb drives. Talk about something indispensable then, not needed now. The cloud changed all.

The San Francisco Airport is testing a beacon system to help blind travelers navigate.

Years later, I still can't figure out why Apple hides the scroll bars on Macs by default.

The iPhone 6 may not be available until October, later than expected. Cripes. Another month of rumors then.

Facebook had over 1.5 million active advertisers during Q2. 12 months earlier? One million. Half a million 24 months ago.

Tablet sales are "crashing" because not enough innovation has come to push the need to upgrade, says Best Buy’s new CEO Hubert Joly.

Sprint will sell a $12 wireless plan that only connects to Facebook or Twitter.

A third of cell owners say that their primary internet access point is their phone, Pew says.

Headline on print edition of GQ - A Boob-ier Tube: GQ's Guide To The New Naked TV. Whatever it takes to revive "old" media.

The pace of Promoted Tweets has seemingly picked up. My interaction with them has not.

An app that dims your phone so that other concertgoers won't hate you? What we need is one to silence yappers. I had that frustrating experience recently.

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.