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Jeff Hasen

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Nothing Personal

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For more than 300 days in 2017, signals were sent every time you and I and everyone else clicked or tapped.

We told marketers of our extraordinary interest in some things and our indifference in others.

Businesses knew – or should’ve known – every dollar that we spent with them with granular information that gave them daypart, offer acted upon, and purchase pattern, among other particulars.

Then the holiday shopping season came and for the most part we were treated by businesses as equals. The channels and screens were different from our youth, but the marketing was unquestionably mass as if we were still enthralled by the Ed Sullivan Show.

Nothing personal.

As I wrote in The Art of Mobile Persuasion, “I’ve never, ever had a meatball sandwich from your quick-service restaurant. You, Mr. or Ms. marketer, know, or should know, from my purchase history that my diet is vegetarian. Why am I still getting those damn meatball ads?”

If you wonder if it matters, 64 percent of consumers want personalized offers from retail brands, Salesforce says.

According to McKinsey, personalization can reduce acquisition costs by as much as 50 percent, lift revenues by 5-15 percent and increase marketing spend efficiency by 10-30 percent.

The stakes are high when you factor in loyalty programs. Consumers expect you to show them that you know them.

Yet in the often-cited Bond Brand Loyalty survey http://info.bondbrandloyalty.com/2017-loyalty-report, we learned that only 22 percent feel very satisfied with the level of personalization they experience with a loyalty program. Incredibly, that is down from 28 percent in 2015.

No one said that this personalization stuff is easy. As Gartner analyst Noah Elkin told me in an interview for an upcoming podcast episode, it is a crawl, walk, run process for most marketers who at best are implementing it in one channel.

The most egregious disconnect for me in the holiday season was after my wife and I were met with a dirty sock, used robe, and rumpled and unclean sheets upon check-in at the Magnolia Hotel in Denver.

Despite voicing our displeasure to three employees, our e-mailed bill the next morning came with this opening -- We hope you have enjoyed your stay with us.

To be sure, some brands noticeably stood out with personalization efforts (colleagues and others did an admirable job online and in mobile apps, for instance).

The most memorable one, again in the travel industry, came when the Kimpton Hotel Wilshire reached out to my wife to ask her if she would like to send along a photo of a loved one, pet or happy memory so it could be framed and set on the nightstand before she arrived.

In 2018, nothing personal just ain’t good enough.

If you are up for it, let’s take this improvement road together.

I’ll offer insights, actionable lessons, case studies and interviews in this space, on my The Art of Mobile Persuasion podcast https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/art-mobile-persuasion-podcast/id1156481550?mt=2, and @jeffhasen on Twitter. Expect a lot of it.

Your part of the deal? You’ll read, listen, engage, and maybe even catch my attention – and more of my business and loyalty – with a personalized ad, email or promoted tweet that speaks to me.

Thanks for being here. Happy New Year.

Tagged with The Art of Mobile Persuasion, personalization, Noah Elkin, Nothing personal.

December 24, 2017 by Jeff Hasen.
  • December 24, 2017
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Some Hits, Many Misses For Mobile in 2016

As I wrote in the previous post, personalization was more talk than action this year.

In a wide-ranging piece by Chantal Tole in Marketing Dive, I and peers recap the year that was.

The piece is below and here - http://www.marketingdive.com/news/mobile-marketing-growing-pains-future-strategy-2017/432768/

Mobile marketing experienced a few growing pains in 2016 as smartphone innovation stalled, questions arose around the importance of apps and marketers realized that putting customers first — and not grasping at the latest technology or channel — is the key to success.

While mobile clearly continues to grow, marketers in 2016 grappled with measurement issues and an increasingly complex landscape as they struggled to unlock its potential. High points such as healthy commerce numbers and a strong reception for interactive content showed that consumers are hungry for mobile experiences that meet their needs. Looking ahead, smart marketers will need to focus on location-based services, personalization and reducing friction through mobile services as they take a consumer-first approach to marketing.

“Two thousand and sixteen was pretty light when it came to major advancements, we did not see many, if any revolutionary steps but rather a number of micro evolutions,” Michael Becker, co-founder and managing partner at mCordis and The Connected Marketer Institute, told Marketing Dive.

“While mobile is a powerful current driving through marketing, in 2016 many are increasingly realizing that putting people before is the true force that is driving market success,” he said. “It is people’s behavior, needs and interests, at an individual level, that marketers must learn to understand and serve.”

There is no doubt that mobile marketing is still an important piece of forward thinking. Marketers are expected to increase their spend on mobile ads by 45% this year for a total of $45.95 billion, according to eMarketer. Mobile’s share of overall ad spending is also growing, and by 2019 could account for more than one-third of total ad spending in the U.S.

More broadly, the global market for mobile marketing is on target to grow at a compound annual rate of 28.1% between 2016 and 2021, reaching a total of $98.85 billion by the end of the forecast period, according to Markets and Markets.

Despite the overall positive trend, there were also signs in 2016 that the mobile market is maturing. The growth in adoption leveled out from its previous steep trajectory, with the global smartphone shipment growth rate expected to be just 0.6%, down from the previous year’s growth rate of 10.4%, according to International Data Corp.

With smartphone penetration levels reaching saturation, marketers will need to focus more on strategy as the perception wanes of mobile as the hot new thing.

There also were indications that marketing apps may have peaked. No longer are all marketers expected to have an app. Instead, more integrated mobile experiences are proliferating, such as communicating with a brand from within a messaging app via a chatbot or accessing the information and even services offered within an app from Google search results.

While these developments are exciting, they are also contributing to an increasingly complex mobile landscape. As a result, marketers – many of whom are still trying to figure out mobile — are feeling overwhelmed by the growing number of ways to engage smartphone users and are unsure about where to invest.

Despite the challenges in mobile, there were a number of new tactics and techniques that drove excitement in 2016 and promise to take engagement to the next level.

One of the biggest mobile success stories in 2016 was Pokemon Go, which showed how a phone can be used to bridge the online and offline worlds through augmented reality. This strategy is likely to influence marketing for years to come.

The success of Pokemon Go caught many by surprise, as did a broader receptiveness by mobile users to embrace interactive content, which included ads, 360 video, augmented reality and virtual reality. 

“The takeaway that brands and marketers got from VR’s success in 2016 is that consumers want a more immersive ad experience,” James Malins, VP of cross-channel solutions at Amobee, told Marketing Dive. “Whether that’s rich media ads, 3D ads or a full-scale VR campaign, brands should be looking to do more storytelling with their advertisements to stand out in a fragmented media landscape by commanding audience attention in a creative way that keeps audiences engaged.”

Location measurement, an important unique offering in mobile marketing, made significant advances in 2016, becoming both more granular and integrated across platforms.

The ongoing rollout of beacons is helping marketers get more accurate physical data about their customers while Foursquare teamed up with Nielsen and with Snapchat to help marketers hone in on hyper-local marketing.

And brands such as Walgreens and Starbucks are testing Promoted Places on Google Maps this holiday season, enabling mobile users to click on a pin for a specific location and see available sales and services.

“Location data is incredibly powerful — beyond just using it for understanding your consumer, it should also impact your marketing strategy,” Malins said. “Foursquare’s accurate prediction — within 1% — of Chipotle’s declining sales in 2016 based solely on the analysis of foot traffic patterns is an enormous advancement for mobile marketing, uncovering a more accurate way to understand your consumers and target them more effectively.”

Despite the gains made in location in 2016, there is also significant untapped potential in this area, reflecting marketers’ relative inexperience with location-based engagements. 

For example, beacons, which arrived on the scene with great fanfare several years ago, have yet to move beyond pilot deployments in many cases, despite the successes that some have seen delivering contextual marketing for in-store shoppers.

“The problem is that most marketers are overwhelmed by the complexity and don’t know how to really make all the data truly actionable,” Sheryl Kingstone, business applications research director at 451 Research, told Marketing Dive.

Location-based offers will be an important opportunity in 2017 as long as they are intelligent and personalized, she added.

Another mobile success story this year was mobile commerce, which made significant leaps forward as consumers became more comfortable not just searching on their phones, but also completing a purchase.

“On Black Friday alone, mobile saw $1.2 billion in U.S. revenue, showing 33% growth year-over-year,” said Jeff Hasen, founder of Gotta Mobilize. “Why? Likely several reasons. Consumers are more trusting of purchasing via their phones. Businesses undoubtedly made the buying process more intuitive and quick and given how much time we spend with our devices, the idea of having to put them aside to fire up a desktop is more foreign than ever.”

In 2017, the opportunity in mobile commerce will be in creating omnichannel experiences with smartphones as a focal point, per 451 Research’s Kingstone. Click and collect will help retailers compete with the growth in digital commerce while branded mobile wallets that unite payments, loyalty and coupons will provide a value-driven experience for frequent shoppers.

“Personalized, context-relevant offers are more effective, and basing rewards on real-world transactions ensures they are calibrated appropriately and promote stronger engagement,” Kingstone said.

Other mobile developments in 2016 were less clear. For example, the mobile ecosystem is increasingly dominated by two giants in the key areas of media and software. While such concentration of power is helping to drive short-term growth, it could present issues down the road.

“Duopolies have emerged, the duopolies of Google and Facebook on the media side and iOS and Android on the device operating sides, which can be seen as an advancement as they’ve helped produce focus and standards,” said mCordis’ Becker. “But they also may be a fail in the near future as they may stifle competitiveness and innovation. Only time will tell.”

Marketers also failed to take advantage of some important opportunities in mobile this year, contributing to a sense of stagnation. One significant shortcoming came in the area of metrics and measurement.

Marketers are investing billions a year in mobile, yet continue to complain that they cannot accurately track and measure their efforts, resulting in an inability to have a clear picture of mobile’s return on investment (ROI).

“Hands down, [the biggest fail of the year is] the fact that, according to Forrester, 67% of marketers say that they can’t measure mobile’s ROI,” said Gotta Mobilize’s Hasen. “More amazing is the fact that only 20% say that they have adequate budget for mobile initiatives.

Compounding the measurement problem was a series of announcements by Facebook that it had been inaccurately measuring activity across a number of its offerings, including video, live streaming and Instant Articles. As the second largest advertising platform, these revelations have left many marketers with questions about how to move forward.

Marketers also failed to take advantage of more organic engagement opportunities on mobile and instead continued to serve intrusive ads, one reason why the use of ad blockers on mobile is growing. While native ads and content marketing are making gains, too many marketers are failing to create quality experiences, risking turning off more consumers.

A case in point is the opportunity that mobile offers to create personalized, contextually relevant experiences, something marketers continued to struggle with in 2016.

“Despite all the discussion around personalization, I personally found no meaningful difference in outreach from brands, especially during the critical holiday season,” said Hasen. “I’m still getting generic newsletters, even from companies that know me and could and should do better.”

Ultimately, marketers recognize that mobile holds significant potential for reducing friction in their engagements with consumers — the trick is finding a way to do so that is valuable to consumers and drives measurable results for brands. Several successful examples from marketers in 2016 promise more marketers will hit the nail on the head in the coming year.

“More and more marketers, including Domino's, Starbucks, Sephora, have put a laser focus on reducing friction,” said Becker. “Starbucks’ mobile order and pay service now accounts for over 5% of revenue; CVS’ answer to this was the introduction of curbside pickup — people order from their phone and associates bring the goods out to their car; Amazon Go’s new store format illustrates a viable future for physical retail.”

 

 

Tagged with Marketing Dive, location, Pokemon Go, personalization.

December 21, 2016 by Jeff Hasen.
  • December 21, 2016
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Mobile Implementation For The Holidays Demands Planning That Blends Old And New

Successful holiday mobile implementation planning begins before the seasons change, well in advance of any holiday festivities. Now is the time to assess what’s changed in 2016 and what remains the same.

This year’s mobile user is clearly watching more videos and chasing more Pokémon. These topics deserve to be part of any session when you are looking at options for fourth-quarter programs, along with lessons learned from 2015 and prior years.

First, let’s take a look at the two new headline-grabbing occurrences:

1. Mobile video engagement

It wasn’t very long ago that the global mobile leader for a Fortune 100 company asked me how the company should use mobile video beyond YouTube. I told him that through technological advances, personalization is not only possible, it’s imperative to think one-to-one with video. The “If you build it, will they watch?” question has been answered, with consumers around the world spending slightly under 20 minutes a day watching videos on smartphones and tablets.

Facebook has made a major push in 2016 to offer marketers additional mobile video ad opportunities and has provided best-practice tips that include the promotion of videos that show behind-the-scenes footage, product launches or customer stories to raise awareness. Others have given businesses more options, including Twitter, which recently increased its allotted video upload length from 30 seconds to 140 seconds.

2. Pokémon Go and augmented reality

Now on to the phenomenon of the summer, augmented reality app “Pokémon Go” seemed to be an overnight sensation, merging the physical world with the imaginary one as users tracked and found Pokémon out in the world. Given the success of the app — it became the most downloaded mobile game ever — marketers have been asked to duplicate this feat. They will surely have more luck cornering Pokémon in the real world.

What marketers can copy in the mobile implementation phase is the fun and social sharing aspects as well as the opportunity to augment reality. What will prove to be a challenge is recreating the leverage and authenticity behind the beloved franchise. Pokémon has 20 years of history and brand recognition and its name is broadly recognized in crowded app stores.

This isn’t to say that you shouldn’t go for it, but the reality is that by definition, phenomena are rare.

Now, let’s have a discussion of lessons that we have learned in the past few years:

·      Nothing replaces work-back schedules, especially when you are asking others in your organization to do their part. Timelines set expectations and enable businesses to hold people accountable.

·      It’s all about details and dependencies. The back-end stuff makes the front end work for your customers. Note and plan for milestone dates.

·      Part of a mobile marketer’s job is to educate colleagues so they see the wisdom in teaming up.

·      Regardless of the size of your business, it’s wise to be in a position to be nimble. The best plans anticipate and prepare for optimization. Think ahead of ways to enhance your program and other roads to take if your initiatives aren’t producing the anticipated results.

·      Build opt-in databases long before your customers and prospects get distracted by the season’s activities. Your calls to action should be designed in the mobile implementation and planning phase and be out months in advance.

·      Realize that it’s unrealistic (and even foolish) to rush an app if success is your goal. Pokémon aside, discovery by consumers doesn’t happen overnight, nor will awareness programs get your customers or prospects to immediately take notice.

·      Steer clear of “anticipointment” and ensure you can meet product demand. Align your efforts with back-end function leaders — communication is critical. It’s also important to ensure everyone has the same expectations.

·      Avoid surprises for your customer-facing personnel. Take the time to develop efficient training to deliver great experiences. Be certain that everyone in the organization knows the importance of the effort.

You would be smart to take note of Amazon’s approach to the crucial holiday selling season. Amazon determined that a mobile web page load slowdown of only one second could cost it $1.6 billion in sales each year, so it built faster-loading pages. Last year, it recorded its biggest season in its two-decade history when it delivered more than 200 million packages. Amazon added 18 warehouse facilities compared to just the six it added last year in anticipation of more demand in 2016.

As the holidays steadily approach, it’s imperative to plan your path for mobile implementation success by analyzing mobile phenomena and user activity from the past year.

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Article first appeared here - http://mobilebusinessinsights.com/2016/08/mobile-implementation-for-the-holidays-demands-planning-that-blends-old-and-new/

 

Tagged with Pokemon Go, Mobile Video, IBM.

August 28, 2016 by Jeff Hasen.
  • August 28, 2016
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5 Lessons For Better Mobile ROI

The results of a Forrester survey released a few months ago highlighted many marketers’ ineptitude when it comes to mobile ROI. The survey revealed two-thirds of marketers are unable to gauge the success or failure of their mobile programs. Newer information released from IBM http://www-935.ibm.com/services/us/gbs/thoughtleadership/mobileroi/ and discussed at IBM Amplify demonstrated that almost 50 percent of the largest companies doing mobile are operating on an ad hoc basis rather than in a strategic fashion.

Ladies and gentlemen, we need to do better.

The following are five takeaways from these reports and actions to take before you ask senior management for more mobile budget:

1. Establish business goals first

It’s clear that not enough marketers are starting mobile projects with the identification of business objectives. When objectives are detailed first, marketers can work their way backward and develop programs that lead with or include mobile. Take a lesson from the wireless carrier that addressed a concerning churn problem by providing personal and timely mobile videos that brought transparency and comfort to individuals. The result was tens of millions of dollars in saved business. That’s mobile ROI.

2. Focus on results, not budget

At first blush, smaller businesses may look at the mobile dollars being spent by enterprises and think they have nothing in common. In fact, according to the IBM study, the average number of mobile projects being done at enterprises is five, and the cost of each project is more than $2.4 million. The commonality in successful mobile programs from companies of all sizes is a commitment to engage users and key stakeholders to identify quick wins and impactful use cases.

3. Don’t cut corners

This should be a given, but judging by the evidence, it needs to be said. In all but rare exceptions, fast and cheap is dumb and dumber. An ice cream shop I visited as a child had a sign that said, “Good food is not cheap. Cheap food is not good.” All these years later, you can and should apply the same line of thinking to mobile.

4. Mobile benefits are clear

The mobile-enabled companies surveyed by IBM expect a 7 percent increase in revenue and a 6 percent cost decrease. It’s safe to say retailers can expect similar results. Not only can these stores sell more when they combine mobile commerce and brick-and-mortar, but they can often reduce overhead in terms of shelf space and service personnel with customer-driven mobile efforts.

5. More mobile projects needed

The expectations of mobile users rise every year. Many people have little to no patience for slow mobile web pages, irrelevant messages and experiences that are not intuitive. As a result, businesses of all sizes cannot afford to wait. In the IBM survey, 22 percent of companies plan to undertake 10 or more mobile initiatives in the next year, while another half of the group are planning between five to nine projects. Your numbers may not be the same, but the clear trend is that more projects are needed to remain competitive.

In summary, it all starts and ends with the ability to gauge mobile ROI. At IBM Amplify, Pete Teigen, mobile leader of the IBM Institute for Business Value and co-author of the aforementioned report, explained that what you don’t measure, you don’t get. That’s a lesson to be learned by all businesses, regardless of whether they have one employee or 1 million.

(article first appeared here - http://mobilebusinessinsights.com/2016/06/five-essential-takeaways-when-measuring-mobile-roi/#.V1rAGXUGkFA.twitter)

Tagged with IBM, Pete Teigen, Forrester, IBM Amplify.

June 10, 2016 by Jeff Hasen.
  • June 10, 2016
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Why Are Brands Still Falling Short On Mobile Personalization Efforts?

Personalization was supposed to be the tonic that brought brands closer to immersed mobile users, but as the midpoint of 2016 draws closer, vegetarians are still getting meatball sandwich offers. Customers have little reason to believe businesses understand them, not to mention have the interest or means to reach out to them on an individual basis. What gives?

“We have to realize how complex [mobile personalization] is,” Sean Lyons, US president of advertising agency R/GA, explained in “The Art of Mobile Persuasion.”

“Think about how well you know your close friends and how preferences adapt and change over time,” he said. “Could you predict with great certainty what they may want at a certain moment? Maybe only your closest friends.”

Lyons went on to explain that the personalization consumers crave is a big ask.

“We have really high expectations for the capability to personalize communications, but it’s a very complicated thing,” he noted. “It’s a mix of both a trail of data but also the feeling that I have right now, my mood, that we’re not factoring in. There are going to be a lot more mistakes made and personalization with the wrong people targeted. That’s part of the evolution of it.”

Though it may seem like more companies are failing than adapting, there are brands that have driven business results by creating mobile personalization through one-on-one interactions mobile users find valuable.

For example, one major wireless carrier understands the importance of personalized service and continuously works to decrease churn and increase customer satisfaction. One way it does this is through a personalized welcome video, powered by technology firm Vehicle. The video is the first point of communication with new customers. It thanks subscribers for their business, summarizes the account details and outlines what to expect when the first bill arrives.

As a result of these personalized mobile videos, the carrier has seen:

·      A significant reduction in customers leaving in the first 30 days of service, saving millions of dollars

·      A decrease in calls to customer support

·      A significant increase in average revenue per user and lifetime value

Elsewhere, Toyota targeted Facebook users with personal video advertisements for its new RAV, according to Mobile Marketer. The automaker worked with an agency to create more than 100 interchangeable clips and deliver personal experiences based on data around the viewer’s personal interests.

Although these personalization wins are significant, the failures are often more memorable. For example, imagine this situation: In an attempt to deliver on mobile personalization, an optometrist’s office starts sending appointment text reminders at 4 a.m. a full 13 days before the appointment to patients who haven’t opted in. Not only would this be a violation of regulations and potentially cost the sender thousands of dollars per text, it’s a memorably bad idea to intrude with a text at such a personal hour. Ideally, businesses will employ more common sense as mobile takes hold.

Some consumers want the best of personalization and want it now, but Lyons explained that engaged consumers are more apt to understand the issues in getting to one-on-one marketing.

“People are going to be way more accepting of those mistakes if you are getting a truly remarkable service from the brand,” he said. “Differentiating what your products and services are is still paramount. That will lead the way and gives brands a lot more leeway in how they tailor their communications.”

This may be true, but brands are still leaving money on the table. According to App Developer Magazine, 6 in 10 consumers do not feel their mobile experience expectations are being completely met. Brands need to work smart and invest wisely to make the most of their mobile development budgets and deliver the top-notch marketing experiences their customers crave.

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(article first appeared here - http://mobilebusinessinsights.com/2016/05/why-are-brands-still-falling-short-on-mobile-personalization-efforts/)

Tagged with IBM, The Art of Mobile Persuasion, Sean Lyons.

May 7, 2016 by Jeff Hasen.
  • May 7, 2016
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"You're Being The Whale Guy"

In advance of IBM Amplify http://www-01.ibm.com/software/events/amplify/, where I will attend as an invited futurist, I answered some questions for the company’s QUICKBYTES column http://ibmevents.tumblr.com/post/143584665604/what-do-you-see-as-the-hottest-trends-in-mobile:

What do you see as the hottest trends in mobile today?

There has been more emphasis on the customer journey and personalization although I’m still getting meatball sandwich offers despite going to the same restaurant 300 times and always ordering vegetarian. So there’s more work to do there.

We have also seen the rise of the “self-sufficient” mobile user who doesn’t want to talk to humans. This has a major effect on traditional customer service. Retailers like REI have had to adapt since they spend time and resources developing “Green Vests,” experts on climbing equipment, bike helmets, and more. Part of the answer for REI is to equip the Green Vests with wireless solutions to serve the customer.

What are you most looking forward to at IBM Amplify this year?

The exchange of ideas is going to be awesome. I’m also looking to further identify best practices and success stories that prove mobile’s worth. And I’m most interested in seeing advancements in personalization.

What major developments do you anticipate in mobile marketing?

I’ve been in this for 10 years and we are finally getting to the point where we are looking to use mobile to solve business problems. The most successful mobile marketers who I interviewed for my The Art of Mobile Persuasion book are pragmatic–they are attacking business pain points like churn with imaginative, measureable and meaningful mobile programs. A wireless carrier has saved tens of millions of dollars by providing personalized, transparent experiences through the delivery of mobile video.

How can an organization stay relevant five years from now?

It has to stay nimble, be brave, and current. And while it has to take measured risks, it can’t bet it all on one thing in mobile. As Miles Orkin, the former head of mobile at the American Cancer Society, told me, “Not everyone can be Mark Zuckerberg. If you bet it all and lose, you could be selling coffee.”

Data without analytics is like [blank] without [blank].

Data without analytics is like words in an unfamiliar language without a dictionary or translator. It leads to confusion and ineffectiveness.

What do you consider most promising in the era of cognitive computing?

There is a marriage to be made between humans and machines. One exists without the other, but doesn’t realize its potential. Machines help us understand our customers and prospects, but there will always be a role for marketers to maximize the learnings with creativity, experience, and imagination.

What app can you not live without?

My FlightTracker app since I’m constantly not only traveling, but moving flights up and back.

Are you always plugged in or do you sometimes unplug?

I’m like the guy caught on camera in Redondo Beach, CA, who missed seeing a humpback whale two feet from his boat because he was so enthralled with what was on his mobile phone. In fact, whenever I do this, which is often, my wife says, “You’re being the whale guy.” And, of course, she’s right.

What was the worst job you ever had?

The one after I stopped being a sports writer. I used to go to Super Bowls, the World Series, Final Four, and more. My Dad said, “Enjoy it because one day you will have to work for a living.” Of course, he was right, too.

How short is your attention span?

Huh?

Tagged with IBM, IBM Amplify.

April 30, 2016 by Jeff Hasen.
  • April 30, 2016
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Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The Confusion Around Mobile's ROI

Few argue with the idea that more dollars will flow into mobile when we can get more clarity into the results of our efforts. But two studies apparently show how far we have to go. 67% of marketers told Forrester that they can't measure mobile's ROI. But 77% told Salesforce that they can.

Which is it?

Diving further into the Forrester study, we see that only 20% say that they have adequate mobile budget. Yet, as mentioned, 2 in 3 aren’t sure if it’s working or not.  I would love to be in on the conversations when these marketers are asked to justify the budget expenditures.

15% of Americans are “cord cutters” who used to have cable or satellite TV but now don't, per Pew.

The Associated Press – and therefore all of us -- will lowercase internet effective June 1. There’s more – in that same timeline, AP will lowercase web in all instances – web page, the web, web browser, etc.

A “suggested” Subway app in my Twitter timeline says that I can order a meatball sandwich. I haven't had one in more than 30 years. This is the best that we can do on personalization in 2016?

Along the same lines, 24% of U.S. respondents are “extremely frustrated” with restaurants for not making interactions and offers more relevant, Accenture says.

87% of B2B marketers struggle to develop compelling content, according to Forrester.

A study from Accenture finds that 60% expect the same customer experience across all touch points – from phone service to in-store & digital interactions. And that number grows every day.

Only 65% of U.S. marketers think that location data is accurate, reports the Location Based Marketing Association.

I was intrigued by a trending hashtag #IfIHadAnExtraFiveMinutes, but I didn’t so it remains a mystery.

StubHub is introducing a 360-view within app so buyers can see view seats before buying tickets.

Millennials living in their own home without kids spent 94+ hours on their PCs, tablets & smartphones in November, Nielsen says.

Tagged with Forrester, Salesforce, Accenture, Pew, Associated Press, personalization, Subway.

April 3, 2016 by Jeff Hasen.
  • April 3, 2016
  • Jeff Hasen
  • Forrester
  • Salesforce
  • Accenture
  • Pew
  • Associated Press
  • personalization
  • Subway
  • 2 Comments
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Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - The Smartphone/Rubber Ducky Combo For That Special Someone

A soap-proof, washable phone from Kyocera has a rubber ducky stand to prop it up on. My search for the perfect holiday gift is over. Rub-a-dub-dub.

According to IBM, 27.6 % of online Cyber Monday sales were reportedly accomplished from a mobile device.

United Airlines will equip 6,000+ customer service reps with iPhones.

Expedia ran Black Friday deals in its app that sold out in 7 minutes, according to the company.

Global smartphone shipments should see their first full year of single-digit growth worldwide in 2015 after years of double-digit growth: IDC.

82% of consumers aware of IoT devices don't trust them, per Google Consumer Surveys for Auth0, an identify platform company.

Black Friday shoppers spent on average 5 hours at the mall: Foursquare.

WiFi reportedly could slow down because of your Christmas lights. My reaction? "Have yourself a @gogo like Christmas"

79% of smartphone users feel their phones make them feel productive; 57% say distracted: Pew.

I saw a promoted tweet for lab coats and scrubs. I haven't even played a doctor on TV.

Disney announced that ESPN has lost 7 million subscribers due to cord cutting.

All these years later and many businesses still don't get that you need to opt someone in to send them a marketing SMS message. There are big financial penalties for such violations. Watch for some lawsuits.

I’m not ready to rely on voice recognition in 2016. I asked for directions home via my iPhone and Siri said, "I can't go back in time". WTF?

As dumb as they may seem, I still believe selfie sticks put smiles on faces and have a place in holiday memory-making.

My 86-year-old mother-in-law came to visit armed with two flash drives. The times, they are a'changin.

Mobile drove nearly half of all paid search clicks and over half on the key Thanksgiving and Black Friday shopping days, Kenshoo reported.

Tagged with Expedia, IBM, Gogo.

December 6, 2015 by Jeff Hasen.
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Personalization Is Mobile's Big Hurdle and Large Opportunity

Three out of four consumers like it when brands personalize offers and messages, according to the Aberdeen Group. But only 13 percent of companies personalize their mobile experience for users, eConsultancy/Monetate reports.

While that seems like a head-scratch in a time when vegans are still getting meatball sandwich offers, there are reasons why brands aren’t consistently delivering the individualized goods.

“We have to realize how complex that problem is,” Sean Lyons, Global Chief Digital Officer, at international communications firm Havas, told me in an exlusive interview for my new book, The Art of Mobile Persuasion http://www.amazon.com/Art-Mobile-Persuasion-Transforming-Relationship-ebook/dp/B0100RS81K/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1434858180&sr=8-1&keywords=art+of+mobile+persuasion.

“Think about how well you know your close friends and how preferences adapt and change over time. Could you predict with great certainty what they may want at a certain moment? Maybe only your closest friends.

“We have really high expectations for the capability to personalize communications but it's a very complicated thing. It's a mix of both a trail of data and also the feeling that I have right now, my mood. That we're not factoring in. There are going to be a lot more mistakes made with personalization, the wrong people targeted. That's part of the evolution of it.”

There is proof that personalization works today. In one of the most significant successes, a major wireless carrier utilizes individualized service to tackle that industry’s deadly disease: churn – the rate at which customers leave a business behind.

A custom welcome video, powered by Seattle mobile marketing and advertising technology firm Vehicle, is the very first point of communication with a new customer.  Sent to mobile devices, this personalized welcome video acknowledges and thanks the unique subscriber for his or her business and summarizes the details of the account and what to expect when the first bill arrives.

As a result, the carrier has seen:

·      Significant reduction in churn (customers leaving in the first 30 days), saving tens of millions of dollars

·      A decrease in calls to customer support

·      The highest recall of any other touch with the customer (over 50 percent measured at 90 days post-video delivery)

·      Significant increase in revenue (ARPU or average revenue per user and lifetime value)

But other brands are flailing in their personalization efforts. Why? One reason is that many marketers are running in double-time to collect data, but aren’t being smart when it comes to using it.

“There needs to be a specific need that benefits the customer,” Jonathan Stephen, who drove innovative mobile programs at JetBlue, told me for The Art of Mobile Persuasion. “We should not be selfish in our endeavors to reach customers. I think we get very greedy with big data.

“If possible, we want to know what our customer had for breakfast. We want to know how many sugars that they put in their coffee and if they used Splenda or Truvia or whatever.  There’s this grasp for data and the funny thing is people (marketers) find out that they don’t even know what to do with that data.”

Some are selling it. But others are using it to nurture relationships that are yielding more loyalty and sales.

The upshot?

Delivering on a more one-to-one basis is both mobile marketing and mobile advertising’s big hurdle and its largest opportunity.

(article first appeared on imediaconnection.com - http://blogs.imediaconnection.com/blog/2015/06/24/personalization-is-mobile’s-big-hurdle-and-large-opportunity/)

Tagged with The Art of Mobile Persuasion, personalization, Sean Lyons, Jonathan Stephen.

June 24, 2015 by Jeff Hasen.
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Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Does It Pay For A Retailer To Offer Apple Pay?

It may not pay to carry Apple Pay. Twenty-eight retailers told Reuters that lack of access to data about customers and their buying habits is a key reason why they don’t accept Apple Pay. But an Apple rep told the news organization that it expects half of the top U.S. merchants to feature the service by the end of the year.

Meanwhile, Kantar says that only 13% of U.S. iPhone 6 owners have used Apple Pay. What has held the other 87% back? Not enough locations, not enough consumer education, not enough benefit? Something else? I say that it’s all of the above.

Tweet of the week – from Rebecca Lieb ‏@lieblink: Smart jeans that tell you if you gained weight? My stupid jeans have done this for years.

Facebook Messenger now lets you send friends a map with your location.

True or false, fellow Apple Watch owners - if I left it at home, I'd make a special trip to retrieve it. I'm in the false camp.

Consumers are willing to trade personal info for value, per Forrester. 41% for cash rewards, 28% for loyal points, 15% for a better consumer experience.

Walmart announced new mobile programs that include a geofence feature that alerts associates to gather pre-ordered merchandise, saving time for the customer.

Periscope now offers a map view of active broadcasts.

Yahoo reportedly paid at least $20 million to stream October's Buffalo Bills – Jacksonville Jaguars game.

BlackBerry settled a legal dispute with Ryan Seacrest's Typo Products.

Expedia's Spanish-language mobile web site is part of an initiative to test and learn.

What irony: Gogo launched a "generous" customer loyalty program for airlines, not paying users who suffer with the service.

Seventy-four percent of people 55 and over in America used the mobile Internet in 2014, a 14% jump from 2013: comScore.

Fifty percent of people uninstall a poor app, IBM says.

Tagged with Apple Pay, IBM, Facebook, Walmart, BlackBerry.

June 7, 2015 by Jeff Hasen.
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Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - This Just In: Size Does Matter

The No. 1 factor for Millennials and Boomers in determining which screen to use for an activity is its size, reports Millward Brown Digital. But, according to the new survey, for Gen Xers, it is speed and performance.

Japanese schoolgirls ages 10-18 spend seven hours a day on their mobile devices, according to security firm Digital Arts. It’s four hours for male counterparts.

A separate study by the University of Basel said that teenagers who used digital media at night had an increased risk for poor sleep and depressive symptoms.

Every hour, 148,400 smartphones are sold around the world, according to CTIA. For those challenged with math, that’s 41 smartphones moved every second.

There was a 15% increase in sales via tablets during recent East Coast snowstorm, per IBM.

This year, Groupon reportedly will launch a targeted deals product powered by beacons.

CBS forecasts 2016 Super Bowl ads to cost more than $5 million. No word on whether mobile will make the big game in any meaningful way.

iPhone 6 Plus owners consume twice as much data compared to other iPhones: Citrix.

JetBlue announced that it will soon accept Apple Pay at 35,000 feet.

73% of mobile searches result in an additional action such as a call, store visit, or purchase: Google.

How many knew this before Valentine’s Day? More than 60% of mobile dating apps put the users at a potential risk of cyberattacks, reports IBM.

Mobile now accounts for more than 60% of all digital media time spent: comScore.

Facebook delivers three billion video views per day, with 65% coming on mobile devices.

82% were likely to get a Valentine's Day restaurant recommendation or make a reservation via mobile, a Verizon survey says.

Mobile firms raised $4.2 billion in venture capital globally in January: Rutberg.

Seven in 10 mobile users would stop using an app if it uploaded personal info without permission, according to eMarketer.

Tagged with Valentine's Day, Facebook, Google, IBM, tablets, iPhone 6.

February 15, 2015 by Jeff Hasen.
  • February 15, 2015
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Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Facing 2015 Head On

Touch ID is so 2014. Among the advancements expected at next week’s CES 2015 are additional mobile applications that combine biometrics and selfies to enable authentication and access. Hoyos Labs unveiled one 12 months ago or about the last time we attempted to log into a site and remembered both our user name and password. A faceoff is ahead with more competition and innovation.

Smartphones and tablets accounted for more than a third of online sales on Christmas Day as well as 57% of all online traffic: IBM. Those are big jumps vs. previous years.

Also, iOS sales were 4X Android sales on Christmas. That is consistent with Thanksgiving and recent holiday seasons.

Amazon: sales made from its smartphone app doubled this year: nearly 60% of customers shopped on a mobile device. Cyber Monday remained its busiest mobile shopping day of the year, with customers ordering 18 toys per second.

35% had troubles holiday shopping on mobile devices (SOASTA) in what was called "early stages" for retailers.

Tweet of the week: from @ChrisPirillo: BREAKING NEWS: Santa can't be tracked for the rest of Christmas because he had to turn off his GPS to save battery.

From The Verge’s review of the BlackBerry Classic: "The only problem with the screen is that you can't fit a big enough line of coke on it."

Only 12% of ages 18-29 say television would be hard to give up, according to Pew.

While I was out shopping, zero attention was given to Apple Pay at Macy’s’ point of sale. No signage or discussion from clerk. That's no way to speed up adoption.

Meanwhile, Apple Pay launched at Walt Disney World on Christmas Eve. Disneyland comes on in in 2015.

It was great to hear from Apple that a package I sent was on a truck for delivery. Not so great was getting a 5 a.m. text about it. Common sense, no?

Headline: Consumer Interest In Apple Watch Has Been Steadily Declining Since September. Is that a surprise given that it’s not on sale?

I received several impersonal holiday email, including one from FreeConferenceCall.com. Touching.

70% of executives surveyed, more than in the previous four polls, agree that mobile technology use invades time between work and leisure, per CNBC’s Mobile Elite report. Six in 10 access business content via their mobile device over the weekend. 

Tagged with Apple Pay, Apple, IBM, BlackBerry, Apple Watch.

December 28, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • December 28, 2014
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What SMBs and Others Can Learn From Mega Computer Hacks

Common sense says that 2014 will go down as the year of the data security wakeup call for businesses large and small.

My experience tells me otherwise.

Backing up about a dozen years, I was working with Symantec during the very worst of the broad Internet security breaches. It was the time that worms and viruses were taking down computers across the world.

What I remember most is that despite the attacks getting front-page coverage in the likes of Time and Newsweek, the great majority of PC users were either too busy, too confused by it all, or were in classic “head in the sand” position believing that doom wouldn’t happen to them.

As a result, damage was inflicted when it could’ve relatively easily have been avoided with hardware, software, and sensibility.

Fast forward to now when dictators are allegedly determining what movies we can and can’t watch, and companies like Target and Staples have failed to keep our personal information private.

So every mega-firm down to the SMB is making security a top priority, right? And not just for PCs and data, but Enterprise Mobility Management that includes mobile phones, tablets and the machines tied to the Internet of Things.

I wish I could be confident. Maybe it’s a lack of information and solutions.

But it’s all out there.

Here’s some of what IBM’s MaaS360 says we should do to both be productive and safe:

- Be realistic with your policy by supporting multiple device platforms like iOS, Android, BlackBerry, Windows, and others. Putting all your resources on one operating system platform is foolish given none has complete marketshare.

- Gain insight into who’s mobile and what they’re doing – by using a lightweight reporting and inventory tool, you can keep tabs on how mobile devices are being used and by whom. This ensures, for instance, that you can separate your information and systems when an employee leaves your company.

- Cover the basics with passwords, encryption, and remote wipe. Best practices include requiring a strong password of at least four characters, locking devices after 5-15 minutes of inactivity, and configuring devices to automatically wipe after 10 failed login attempts or if they are reported lost.

- Let end users take care of device management . With employees relying on mobile devices to get their jobs done, you don’t want basic device management issues to get in the way of productivity. You also don’t want users calling the helpdesk with issues they can resolve themselves. Empower end users with a self-service portal that allows them enroll their devices, lock and wipe their devices if think they’ve been stolen, reset their own passcodes, and locate their lost devices.

- Adopt an MDM platform that can also manage PCs and Macs as well as mobile devices. The lines between laptops, tablets, and smartphones will continue to blur in both user functionality and IT operations. A versatile MDM solution will cut down on infrastructure costs, improve operational efficiency, and create a single user view into devices and data for operations and security.

More tips are here - http://www.maas360.com/resources/ebooks/maas360-mdm-ebook/

It will be interesting to see how many businesses learn from history and implement changes. And it will be just as interesting to see how many don’t.

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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.

Tagged with IBM.

December 22, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • December 22, 2014
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Notes From A Mobilized Marketer - Are You Ready For Some Football and Mobile Shopping?

We know where our eyes are on Sundays – watching the National Football League. But what about our fingers? It turns out that they are on our mobile devices making purchases happen.

Surprisingly, the most mobile shopping happens on Sunday and on Amazon, according to Opera Software. How does that compare? Desktop traffic to e-commerce sites tends to peak on Mondays and remains stronger during weekdays than on weekends. The day with the lowest mobile shopping traffic is Friday.

Has the Internet of Things made your 2015 marketing plan? Projections are huge for 2020 and 2025. Oh, I get it - nudge you around 2018.

Cyber Monday tablet users averaged $121.49 per order, per IBM.

Smartphones, which have lagged behind tablets in terms of mobile commerce, are making more of an impact as the year comes to a close. The majority (66%) of travel and retail (53%) mobile transactions now come from smartphones, according to Criteo, a performance marketing company.

High-end brick and mortars like Nordstrom are quite crowded these days despite the fact that 45% of affluents plan to all their holiday season online: eMarketer.

26% of people who call their cable companies are asking if they can cancel TV service, says Marchex. If your experience is like mine (yes, Comcast, I’m talking about you), it’s because of outages, overbilling, and a disregard for what matters – dependability.

43% of U.S. consumers know Apple Pay but only 3% have used it, reports Kantar. Security concerns remain.

“Responsive” is a marketer’s watchword for 2015 or so says eMarketer. I thought that happened in 2013.

Amazon and Sears have been known to change prices on 15 to 20% of their products at least once a day, according to 360pi.

Next year, Iowa will allow the use of the mobile app version of a driver’s license as a replacement for a paper license.

United attendants will get the iPhone 6 Plus models to serve customers in-flight. Will they need to keep them in airplane mode?

Instagram is now bigger than Twitter with 300 million monthly users.

There are 4700 app downloads from iTunes every minute, Oracle reports.

I spent lots of time in airports last week. There were no sightings of fingers triple-tapping on feature phones. It felt like a milestone moment.

Tagged with amazon, Internet of Things, IBM, Comcast.

December 14, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
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With So Many Cyber and Mobile Sales, Should SMBs Even Open Their Doors?

Black Friday and Cyber Monday will get the headlines in what surely will be another record-setting year of sales via computer and wireless devices. But who will get the customers post-long weekend and should SMBs even open their doors in an attempt to compete?

It’s something far short of dire for small and medium-sized businesses, according to those polled for the American Express Small Business Saturday Consumer Insights Survey http://about.americanexpress.com/news/pr/2014/small-businesses-drive-holiday-sales.aspx. Nearly that one-third (31%) of their holiday shopping will be done at small businesses.

The patronizing of small businesses won’t wait until the holiday weekend and Cyber Monday are concluded.

Eighty-two plan to shop or eat at an independently owned store or restaurant on Small Business Saturday Nov. 29. American Express, which started Small Business Saturday in 2010, says that 77% see Small Business Saturday as a catalyst to shop small all year long.

Maybe.

What’s to get someone out of their warm home or off a mobile website at a bus stop that makes buying fast and easy?

-- Nearly all (94%) U.S. consumers say that shopping at small businesses makes them "feel good”

-- Two-thirds (66%) of consumers say the main reason they patronize small businesses is because they value the contributions they make to their community

-- More than half (57%) say they know one or more of their local small business owners personally

As I’ve written about in this space, SMBs are winning with mobile programs, especially via loyalty clubs that remind opted-in customers to return to the store and reward them with offers, exclusive showings, and more.

Of course, mobile shouldn’t live on an island. The increase in traffic makes Small Business Saturday and the entire holiday season terrific times for SMBs to build their mobile VIP clubs.

Before the doors open following Thanksgiving, these businesses should ensure that there are prominent calls to action on premises, calling attention to the loyalty club and quickly communicating what is in it for the shopper.

Also, store personnel should not only be up to speed on the ins and outs of the program so they are prepared for questions, front-line folks should talk up the club and be given incentives to grow the database.

What about those SMBs that don’t have a text-based loyalty club (only 38% of businesses use mobile messaging for marketing, according to a 2013 survey by StrongMail)? Given the time to find a provider, provision a short code, and promote the program, there is zero chance to make something happen for 2014.

But for 2015? Holiday efforts for these folks should start as early as January.

It could make a meaningful difference as the competition gets even more heated next year.

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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.

Tagged with IBM, American Express.

November 24, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • November 24, 2014
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Mobile May Not be A Fit, But It Should Be Considered By Every SMB

I’ve said and written repeatedly that there are no absolutes in mobile. Cash won’t be gone by Tuesday despite the advancements of mobile payments. Some will join and see value in loyalty clubs while others will shy away due to privacy concerns or misplaced worries that they will be “spammed”.

Given my “no absolutes” beliefs, I have to give a thumbs-up to the Why Mobile Marketing Isn’t a Fit for Every SMB headline http://streetfightmag.com/2014/11/04/why-mobile-is-a-split-decision-for-many-small-businesses/ in Street Fight Magazine. That statement is true.

But a more robust handclap for the story? Nah, I have some issues with the particulars.

“Small businesses are being bombarded by marketing programs that promise to deliver calls, customers, and sales right from a prospect’s cell phone,” the piece says. “And for some companies that may be true — mobile could be the answer.

But the facts on the ground indicate that mobile marketing is, at best, a mixed bag so far for most small businesses.”

Author Todd Bairstow, Founder and a Partner at Keyword Connects, said that he works with hundreds of home improvement and home services companies across the country to drive online leads.  He wrote that mobile works well for them, but less so for window companies, remodeling businesses and others that have high prices and usually require extensive research.

Where Bairstow begins to lose me is when he writes about mobile as if it’s a self-contained channel. It isn’t for me, you, and everyone we know.

SMBs should think about more closely integrating online, mobile, and brick and mortar efforts. Why? While mobile represents nearly a quarter of time spent with media per day, the majority of mobile-related conversions are offline – 60% come in store, according to xAD.

Smart business owners chart the customer journey. The purchasing funnel goes from awareness to action, and the consumer often goes from mobile to desktop to tablet, back to smartphone. We should all look at the entire journey and think holistically while understanding the role that mobile can play.

Also, several studies tell us that mobile users act swiftly after doing research on their devices. Microsoft says that 70% of Bing mobile users convert within five hours of their mobile search. PC users take weeks to convert. (Conversions include calls, store visits and purchases across screens.) 

Sure, mobile isn’t for every business. Few things are beyond heat and a lock on the front door. But, according to Nielsen’s Digital Consumer study, more than 4 in 5 smartphone and tablet owners are using a mobile device for shopping activities. Twenty-six percent of smartphone users plus 35% of tablet users do more shopping because of mobile devices.

Those are numbers that no SMB can ignore.

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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.

Tagged with IBM, Mobile.

November 15, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • November 15, 2014
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Is Convenience Without Loyalty Enough For Businesses To Want Apple Pay?

I realize that you might find this hard to believe, but it is my wife who is the actual jokester in the family.

Impossible, you say. Nah.

Here’s an example:

Her take on Apple Pay to explain how an expensive handbag may soon make its way into our house:

“What if I’m in the Louis Vuitton section of Nordstrom and my phone just happens to swipe?”

Of course, the technology doesn’t work that way. Thankfully.

Education is a big hurdle for Apple Pay and other mobile payments services with questions around everything from how the process works to how secure the transaction will be. Small and medium-sized businesses wonder, too, how available it will be for them in the near future.

Among the most interesting aspects of the Apple Pay rollout is the pushback by some retailers who have loyalty worries on their minds.

In a Bloomberg Businessweek story titled Apple Pay Is Too Anonymous for Some Retailers, http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-10-20/apple-pay-is-too-anonymous-for-panera-starbucks-and-other-retailers#r=read, a Panera Bread executive said that Apple’s new service is too impersonal.

As the magazine reported, “Apple Pay, with its built-in anonymity, won’t eliminate the need to swipe a loyalty card or give the cashier a phone number. ‘Obviously, that’s not where we want to be,’ says Blaine Hurst, Panera’s executive vice president for technology and transformation. ‘Why can’t I just walk up to a cashier with my phone and all that information magically appears?’”

Not to be left out at the launch, Panera decided to be an Apple Pay merchant despite its concerns about what the new service is supposedly missing – personalization that rewards loyalty.

Study after study tells us that the modern-day technology user wants personal experiences.

Personalized emails improve click-through rates by an average of 14% and conversation rates by 10% (Aberdeen Group).

Nearly 75% of online consumers get frustrated with websites when content (e.g. offers, ads and promotions) appears that has nothing to do with their interests (Harris Interactive).

What we don’t know is whether consumers will trade a personal, loyalty-driven experience for a speedier one. And that’s provided that they get over any concerns that they may have about privacy and where individual purchase data may or may not go.

As stated in the Bloomberg Businessweek story, the world’s largest retailer, Wal-Mart Stores, is rejecting Apple Pay altogether. It has said it has no plans to accept Apple’s payments, and is working on its own system developed by Merchant Customer Exchange, or MCX, in conjunction with a handful of other big merchants.

MCX and Wal-Mart declined to discuss their reasons for not working with Apple Pay. Analysts told the publication that the primary reason for the parallel effort is to make sure that merchants retain control of the relationship with their customers.

As of now, ApplePay is unavailable to many merchants, including those small and medium-sized businesses on Main Street. If, and when that changes, entities of all sizes will get to decide if Apple Pay pays for them – and their customers.

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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.

Tagged with Apple Pay, Panera Bread, IBM.

October 21, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • October 21, 2014
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  • Apple Pay
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Print It – Print Advertising Is More Meaningful to SMBs Than Mobile Advertising

You may recall that last month I wrote http://www.jeffhasen.com/blog/2014/9/29/assessing-a-forecast-of-slow-mobile-advertising-use-by-smbs about a forecast by BIA/Kelsey that it will take until 2019 for mobile to be a “big player in the local advertising space.”

What has caught my eye since is a statistic from Borrell Associates that says that “37% of SMBs claim that print newspaper ads are the best source for attracting customers”.

Notice that Borrell phrased this as SMBs “claim” rather than these businesses actually see those type of results from print advertising. Regardless, if that perception is there, it makes the 2019 prediction that I considered pessimistic that much more possible.

Something else has happened since my September post. Facebook introduced a new ad category principally targeting small businesses: local awareness ads.

Facebook is marketing the initiative as a way for SMBs to “create ads that will reach your local audience at the lowest possible cost.”

It works this way:

Businesses choose an area around their business, then select a photo and headline within the Ads Create tool. SMBs can pick an area as small as one mile and get guidance from Facebook based on its physical location. The budget determines the maximum amount of people that will see the ad. There are no contracts or minimum spend requirements.

Once the ad is approved, it will start showing in customers’ News Feed.

Whether a significant number of the more than 30 million Facebook Local Pages owners go this route remains to be seen.

Another large question is whether a business’ consumer will turn on location services within their mobile device settings. Some don’t because they are unaware, while others opt out of this scenario due to privacy concerns.

“Local awareness ads were built with privacy in mind,” Facebook said in a blog post https://www.facebook.com/business/a/local-awareness. “Advertisers select locations, not specific individuals, for local awareness ads. Facebook does not tell advertisers which specific people are in any audience and, as with our other advertising products, all audiences must meet a minimum required size. People have control over the recent location information they share with Facebook and will only see ads based on their recent location if location services are enabled on their phone.”

The way I see it, the fate of this program will be determined by whether consumers see value in the ads, and act accordingly – visit a business, try a new product, redeem a coupon, etc.

Also, Facebook needs to be responsible, ensuring that the location information is used in ways that the consumers can trust.

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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.

 

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Tagged with Facebook, IBM.

October 14, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • October 14, 2014
  • Jeff Hasen
  • Facebook
  • IBM
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The Time Is Now To Develop Mobile Campaigns For The Holidays

Tree branches will be bare this holiday season. How about the shelves of SMBs and other brick and mortar businesses?

That, in large part, depends on efforts put forth now for engagement with consumers via their mobile devices.

Digital interactions will influence 50% of in-store sales by the end of 2014, according to Deloitte. And much of it is in front of us. The holiday season accounts for up to 40% of a retailer's annual revenue (ExactTarget)

What’s the new norm this year? Smartphones, showrooming, beacons, as well as greater consumer expectations.

Consumers have long memories, especially if you disappoint them. But what if you wow them instead?

Here are 10 ways to use mobile to fill your stocking this holiday season:

Build opt-in lists early before distractions

-- We all get busy with family visits, parties, and time away from our routines. Entice customers and prospects to join your mobile VIP clubs now via prominent calls to action. Then nurture the relationship in the weeks and months before the frenetic holiday season.

Feature and promote mobile-only deals

-- Consumers love any deal, especially those that are exclusive. Incent mobile users by giving them discounts, access or other perks to be active and to talk up the program to family and friends.

Enhance metrics around coupon redemption

-- More than 66 million digital coupons were redeemed in 2013 – a 141% increase over 2012 (Inmar). If you weren’t able to optimize last year, what have you done to track redemptions in real or close to real time to have accurate measure of a program’s success?

Listen while you work

-- Your customers and prospects – and your competitors’ customers and prospects – are using their devices to talk to those in their networks. Follow sound social practices, and, listen, at the minimum. Better yet, be proactive and strategic.

Consider new payment options

-- Nearly everyone can be a small business with payment technology via Square, Amazon and others. Apple’s entry into mobile payments with Apple Pay will raise interest and push adoption. What will you say to customers when they ask why you don’t use modern payment methods?

Realize that the customer journey is cross-screen

-- Story-tell along the customer journey. Rely on each medium's strengths. Make efforts in different places and at different points of the day. Capture interest and tap into existing behaviors.

Ensure that your organization has capacity to fulfill

-- Avoid anticipointment – ensure that you can meet demand. Align efforts with back-end functional leaders with communication being critical. Ensure that everyone has the same expectations.

Be firm but also be nimble

-- The best plans anticipate but also prepare for optimization. Think ahead of ways to enhance your program and other roads to take if your initiatives aren’t producing the anticipated results.

Establish key performance indicators (KPIs)

--  It might be redemptions of coupons. Or sales off your mobile web site. Or clicks to your product pages. Or a sizeable increase in your opt-in database. Determine what you want to measure, then do it.

Determine how you can add mobile to your other campaigns

-- Does your direct mail piece have a mobile call to action? How about your newspaper ad or radio spot? Do you have mobile engagement opportunities in your brick and mortar locations?

It isn’t too late, but you don’t have a minute to waste. Do the majority of the work before the eyeballs and foot traffic increases.

Your year may very well depend on 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.


Tagged with IBM, SMB.

September 15, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • September 15, 2014
  • Jeff Hasen
  • IBM
  • SMB
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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.

Tagged with IBM, SMB.

August 25, 2014 by Jeff Hasen.
  • August 25, 2014
  • Jeff Hasen
  • IBM
  • SMB
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Jeff Hasen

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