Mobile & Text Message Marketing

Goodbye To Jonathan Starets

Jonathan Starets, owner of this blog...Innovator, Speaker and Author who was light years ahead of his time in the Mobile Marketing Industry, Passed away on February 6, 2010.

Many Marketers Still Not Ready For Mobile Marketing

My first question is why not?  Read on and see for yourself, formulate your own opinion and leave a comment.

Are you one of the few marketers that knows mobile will be a big part of marketing to come and want to understand it as best you can now, so you will be prepared for it's arrival as a real medium..?   I love you guys, early adopters, always ahead of the curve...

Are you one of the brave just now sticking a 'shaky toe' into the waters of mobile?  Good for you, you are ahead of the curve and that will prove to be a good thing very quickly if you manage your program correctly.  But I love you guys too.  A shaky toe is better than sheer resistance.

By reading an article this morning about the latest mobile research... the study findings may surprise you quite a bit.  First let's look at the stats for marketer's participating in mobile.  Man, they are low.

I honestly thought the participation rates were higher, but I guess it goes to show you, you can still be in the early stages of mobile and reap all of it's benefits.  Let's look at this next graph, this is exactly why people should be investing in, and investigating mobile marketing in general. 

Please, don't think (even for a minute) that mobile is going to take away from your existing channels.   The results were staggering of this independent study highlighted in the article I have referenced.  People really do have preferred channel's of communication and it's just that some of them are now switching to text, and as the 20 & 30 somethings become 40 somethings they still know how to text and are open to it, especially with their busier lives.  In other words, it's going to help stem customer attrition, attract new customers and give an additional choice for those new to you store or brand the opportunity to be texted w/ relevant information in other words retain new customers.

Think I might be skewing things a bit..?  I know you are all members of the DMA...

Consumers who respond to mobile ads are most likely to engage with text messages, according to a survey of mobile users ages 15 and older in the US by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Seven out of 10 respondents to the DMA's "Mobile Marketing: Consumer Perspectives" study who had acted on mobile ads said that text messages for a product or service had prompted their actions.  

JStar Mobile Marketing

Why Was JStar Mobile Formed?

I have gained and given a lot of experience & knowledge to the companies I have worked for over the last 4 years or so with mobile marketing in general.  From how to get a short code provisioned  w/o it getting kicked back and now taking 4 or 5 months instead of 2, to the basic rules like some form of STOP & HELP for customers to reply with at anytime. Also some more complicated things like messaging strategy, content, my own version of best practices & what platforms are good and available for lease.  Basically, the enchilada from beginning to end, I know how to create & run successful programs...

I realized that this knowledge is extremely valuable as there is no school for mobile marketing and running successful programs is so much based on an inner intuition of what will work or not, & ultimately there are very few people with the total understanding that I have.  Many have a piece, but very, very few understand the entire eco-system like I do. 

So, a recruitment from a stable job leading to a horrifyingly bad job experience made me realize that it was time for me to branch out, to go out on my own & form a small agency focused on on quality not quantity.  I have no shame in saying I now lease a messaging platform, it's one I have recommended & also used before and it does everything I could ever need to do & more...  I can create short-term text in programs to make for engaging in-store, catalog or even online experiences to full fledged 6 month text as a CRM channel programs 'tests', which can fully integrate into your existing DB and be tracked for increases in yearly spend, ave. yearly transactions, ATV, etc.

What is JStar Mobile?

• Designed to be exactly the agency you need.  Whether that’s consulting on current mobile campaigns, pure message delivery, or a mixture of both. 

• Because interactive planning and client engagement is at the very foundation of what we do, clients experience personally managed, well planned and executed campaigns.    

• Give a man a fish or teach a man to fish…  We teach!  JStar wants you to understand how mobile works & how it works with your customers.  We believe this enables your own creative input to shine through & positively reflect in your ongoing mobile campaigns.

• Or, we can do 95%+ of the work and just create a program with a positive ROI / brand experience as soon as possible!  Some clients have preferred to venture into mobile without adding more work to their already busy plates...  very understandable and not a problem. 

I'm hesitant to post some of the strategies or ideas that I have on a public blog with such a high readership.  If I could control this and only let marketers from Retail or DR marketing read I would post away...  The website and professional email address, etc will be coming in a week or 2.  I will come back and edit this post at that time.

For more in-depth information it would be best to contact me directly through the email me button on the side of the blog, jsmobilemktg@gmail.com.  Just a short, pls get in contact with me email will do just fine.

No More Livemercial, The Last Few Months & The Birth of JStar Mobile...

After a period of silence, amazingly enough readers keep coming to my blog through a variety of ways.  I am glad to see so many people are interested in mobile marketing.  My apologies for the lack of new posts, I have been really busy (haven't we all :), and I just haven't been able to find the time to do my blogging.

I spent a few months as the EVP of Mobile Marketing for a Direct Response Marketing agency.  I was hired to repair & finish their existing non-functional text platform & to expand their mobile service offerings.  Their main focus was on one product at that time & everyone was anxious to get it up and running.  The app allowed the end user (any customer) to purchase direct response marketed products via a few simple text messages.  It sounded doable to me so I accepted the job.  During day one on the job I knew the system was just not built right & after a week of thourgh inspection & testing I knew the platform and app needed to be rebuilt from scratch.  Our only other option was to lease access to another messaging platform and run it that way.  Leasing a platform was my suggestion due to VERY limited resources from IT made available to me.  All of this was unexpected to everyone involved & this now meant the one product they were banking on being the hottest new thing in direct response would now be delayed. 

Having worked in mobile for a few years now, I have a good grasp on what will work / won't work before an app has even begun to be built, what demographic of people will participate, & ultimately what will make it a great experience for the customer.  With that information I knew that this product was focused on too narrow of an audience to be an instant hit.  We were realistically looking at a slow growth app.  Yes it would work great for a few companies with the right demographic but not for the masses.  Anyone with a decent sense for business knows that the a small target demographic equals less sales.  And for any one service with that growth model, money must go in long before it is returned & profitable.  Now we are at a crossroad, their projections are obviously quite different then mine! 

All of this combined with their incredible resistance to acknowledge that while it was a great effort on their part to build what they had, but it was just built incorrectly, began to make me wonder why I had left a nice secure position heading up a mobile division at another company.  This rebuild of the system was not a want of mine, rather a necessity for this product to work and no one wanted to listen to it.  I spent almost 3 months asking for IT time & or a budget to allocate to this project.  They hired me to direct the creation of an app that people would actually use, not one that would be abandoned 1/2 way through because of confusion and system errors.  Why release a product that way, why not wait until it's built right so it can be easy to use & an enjoyable process. 

This meant we would basically need to start from scratch or recruit the help of another company, my suggestion was to lease a messaging platform.  We could re-create the product with only the lease fees rather than $10's or $100's of thousand dollars & time to build it ourselves.  In any event, solution after solution that I brought to the table was met resistance mostly in the form of requests for excessive paperwork justification.  All of this, constant travel, non-relevant meetings (and much more but I don't think you need more details, you get it now) further brought me away from the very thing they hired me to do, get them mobile... 

Eventually they let me go, no performance warning, no chance for me to explain in the proper setting with the 4 C-Level execs above me what was going on...  Hey, they now knew 1,000% more about mobile than before I came on board (they couldn't even get a short-code provisioned) & probably realized it was going to be a lengthy, expensive process & mobile wasn't going to make them the millions from this one product right away like they thought it would.  So, one day a phone call came that they no longer needed my services and were offering no severance pay.  I was just another executive recruited away from a great job and spit out.  A few threatening letters followed in the coming weeks about lawsuits if I slandered them or even continued to work in mobile...  Nice, huh?  They tried telling me the proprietary knowledge I learned working for them prevented me from working in mobile when they recruited me to teach them about mobile and certainly learned nothing new about it from them.  I don't think that's going to keep me from working in mobile...  Ha! 

It was one of those nightmare jobs, almost everything that wasverbally promised to me during the recruiting, then hiring process didn't materialize, and the difficulties of an under-defined position were experienced 100%, I'll explain that:  It's not like coming in as the EVP of Sales where you have a team, an established route for handling issues an very clear objectives...  Mobile proposes a new set of challenges; I have to build, sell, train etc. and then also need something from every team; lot's of programming, graphics, sales, account management.  It's a position that almost no-one is used to and no-one really understands how to fit into their resource planning.  Basically, there is no set operating standard for a mobile position in many companies today, even ones looking to become mobile.  I have run into this challenge working with clients struggling to unite multiple departments to get mobile to work in a cross channel environment (honestly where it works best), so I understood what was happening here.  It was not fun & I didn't even have long enough to work through these position issues here. I left feeling used for my knowledge, experience, worn out from excessive travel, LONG hours, knots in my stomach from constant tension, and then in my opinion inappropriately let go & hurt to be honest.  I should know feelings have no place in most places of work anymore, but still I was hurt & worst of all my family will suffer from an immediate loss of a paycheck. 

I found out within a couple of weeks later one of my colleagues, a programmer I had worked closely with quit because of similar issues and I felt a little validation.  At least I wasn't crazy, these sorts of things were happening to others and not just me. 

What I realized from this experience was that now 3 agencies I had worked for had me running or building their mobile division, making most, if not all of the decisions, doing most of the selling and account management.  I now know all of the little pieces that make up the incredibly complex mobile eco-system that very few know how to do to make an entire mobile division run (many know a specific piece, but the whole process from beginning to end is what I am referring to here).  I decided to go out on my own and create a hybrid mobile agency, JStar Mobile.  I'll post more on what my new project is and does later, just catching up on the last few months and wondering how many of you have gone through an experience like this?  Post away my friends...

Why Can't I Just Test Mobile?

If mobile is working as well as I say it is, then why can't you just test out mobile for a month or so?

The answer is this:  Any DB, including one intended for mobile marketing takes time some time to build.  So after 1 month we are really just getting started building your database and using a few tricks to make your company some money as we do it. 

Why does it take time?

• We are just now into the mid stages of Mobile CRM understanding & acceptance.  This is really starting to turn the corner here in the US, with functional text programs like: When my stock hits a trigger price send me an alert, is my flight on time, or there is a sale at CB2 this weekend.  Programs like this, done respectfully and not leading to text message spam is resulting in noticably higher participation rates  in all demographics.  In my opinion, the last 12 - 18 months have seen a greater widespread acceptance of text messaging than any other period since American Idol first did text messaging years back.

• Remember - It's going to be a portion of our customer base that chooses to participate in a program like this.  But, the other side of the coin is that with an average response rate usually multiple times that of email and largely appealing to a diferent customer than email or DM, these are incremental increases in sales & such a large DB is not required to pull in a strong return on campaigns with these high response rates

What you can do to help speed this process up?

• Program awareness - We have to help let our new customers know we now offer text messaging as a way to receive alerts and coupons, but also alert our existing housefile to the program as well.  The one gut reaction that is most common here is then I will just be splitting up my existing sales into another channel.  This is 90% not true.  Mobile appeals to a newer breed of customers that email and often DM are no longer reaching.  More on the go, but high value customers are out there and mobile is proving to be the most effective way to reach them.

• Follow Direction - I have developed a formula for DB stimulation and day after day growth.  As many of these awareness programs, incentives to sign up & ways to opt in that you can implement are going to directly relate to how quickly your DB grows and ROI becomes positive.

What about renting a list?

• There are some lists for sale of "opted in" numbers out there, but I strongly caution again using them.  The numbers are questionably "opted in," they have no connection to your brand & these lists tend to be very overused by the people unwilling to spend time building their own database.  Would you ever opt-in to an email or text message DB that would allow anyone to send you emails?  I don't think so...

• Just think how you would respond to a text message from a company you have probably never shopped with before.  I personally wouldn't like it & I bet most people feel the same way.  I have actually spoken to large brands who have used a 'rental lists' to send campaigns & it actually harmed their brand.  Complaints and negative press, you get the idea. 

Mobile programs done right have unbelievable response rates and ROI.  And as with anything new, we have to test it before we completely fold it into our marketing plans.  Just understand a one campaign or a one month test for most programs just is not possible.  But did you know..?  For this harder to reach customer that mobile appeals to, when a campaign is structured right - a 50 yr old customer is just as likely to respond as a 25 yr old customer!

Hopefully I have helped answer this common question for you & have continued to shed a little insight into mobile marketing for you...  I believe everything here highlights the need for us to provide our customers with communication options that work for them today, not what works for us or what we are used to.  Also, the need for opt in status for any and all of these communications with legislation becoming ever more protective of the consumer in now an imperative.     

Hopefully I have answered this commonly asked question for you... 

WalMart's Use of Text Messaging Gets People Talking

I recently responded to another blogs comment string about WalMart's use of text messaging this holiday season.  The article said 10% of all WalMart customers presented with the option of joining did so, although I believe there might be some confusion as to just who might have opted in and how they knew it was 10%.  I thought my response covered a lot of commonly asked questions and shed some light on alternative ways to handle these types of campaigns, and most importantly to aid in dispelling the text message myths of the nay-sayers...

It was certainly must have been a quick rate of adoption as this all started in November, & to have any kind of sizable database in one month w/ little promotion is quite a feat. Although I don't feel WalMart's messaging program was handled properly, sending 3 or 4 messages at a time with hard to understand abbreviations and periods with no spaces, etc.  It actually looked very amateurish for such a big brand, I was quite surprised.  I don't however believe that the US public was soured in general from participating in such programs because of this experience. 

Today's consumers are changing; Many of them are often high value but they are more on-the-go than ever and harder to reach through our old bag of marketing tricks. Text is proving to appeal to four groups of consumers, maybe even more than I thought of when writing this post below.  Keep in mind, this list is not gender or demographic specific as I have worked with clients who target teens and 20's through 40's & 50's.

1. Your most dedicated shopper and brand enthusiasts. 

2. People that are checking their personal email less, using TiVo to skip advertising & have become in general harder to reach but still want to hear from the sender. 

3. People who see the convenience of text over or in addition to the other channels & because it's all opt-in and now have a basic understanding that these numbers cannot or will not be shared has helped. 

4. For CPGs, the opportunity for a consumer to receive information right in store via text is becoming recognized as a valuable tool & there are things that can be done to increase the amount of information contained in a text message such as the inclusion of IVR.

5. The just plain curious, maybe a mobile savvy new customer, maybe someone who signs up at checkout on their first or subsequent purchases or when they are entering their email address (if that's an option to opt into text as well)

One thing I noticed about Wal-Mart's program was I signed up but was never sent a welcome message or notified at the time of sign up that I would receive 3 or 4 text messages each time they sent them out. That really turned me off and I was honestly shocked when I saw that many come through. I've never seen it done that way before and can't imagine a large portion of the consumers without text messaging built into their phone plan enjoyed spending 40 to 60 cents each round of messages.  It's not that much, but they didn't know it was coming.  The opt in message should alert the consumer to anything abnormal in the message patterns with a "Thank You" for participating.

How about a using a web address or WAP page where I can view these products from my phone. Or an IVR line with more info to avoid having to send so many texts and having to jam up and abbreviate so many words.... The age of marketers being concerned about consumers being charged to receive a text message from their opt in programs should now be over. The overall participation rates of this opt-in medium range from 5% - 70%, totally dependent on how the program is structured, opt-in is offered and who the retailer or brand is and what the program is about.  But one message programs will never make your customer upset, I have never heard of even 1 complaint about this with all of the programs I have started and managed.

Text is here in the US and it works really well, I know that for sure. There are obviously a range of best practices out there by different companies that vary from mine.  I can only speak for myself, but I have yet to have a client not renew their contract with me - and while they don't always share their results with us, it must pass the ROI test or else it would get canned.

Open your perceived judement of what will work a little and explore text with an open mind...you may be surprised what you find."

Since everyone is either talking about it, considering it, doing it or just never going to consider it, we have 3 out of 4 or let's say 75% of marketers that need to learn how to:  Entice customers into text programs to build their own database, use text or mobile to communicate to their customers, keep them engaged and drive sales.  That's why I write this blog, to compile what works, what doesn't & help keep you readers up to date without giving up all my secrets :)

Award Winning New Media - Mobile Marketing For Retail

Just about a month ago, I picked up an award from 1to1 Media for New Media Optimization in Phoenix.  It was an honor to have a campaign that I worked on with my team from start to finish recognized with such a prestigious award.

Just the fact that there are categories for New Media Optimization which now include Mobile Marketing signifies to me that the cell phone has truly & finally been recognized as a legitimate marketing tool.  Honestly, cell phone's are direct marketing at it's purest & when executed correctly become a brand enhancement by adding to the consumers communication choices and providing the abilities of direct contact otherwise not previously available.  You don't have to log into your computer's email to check your text messages...

Here's a quote from our client who won this award expressing some of his reasoning for entering into Mobile Marketing.  Click Here to read SmartReply's release on this award. 

"We work together as a close team focused on common objectives. All of our employees recognize that they play an integral role in our customer interactions. This shared knowledge excites and motivates us to continually focus on how we can best communicate and provide the highest level of service to our customers."

Victor Essoka  -----------------------  SVP & General Brand Manager  -------------------------   Redcats USA

New Ways To Use Traditional Technologies

Hi, it' been a while since my last post, these blogs on top of everything else I do sometimes just don't have the time.  That being said with my apologies:

I wanted to show you something brand new: SmartReply has partnered w/ Dave Mustaine from Megadeth to create TheLiveLine.  It's a truly unique site that utilizes almost all of our services in a whole new way.  Artists from bands now include In This Moment, Megadeth, Exodus, Stryper, Machine Head, Anthrax, Dream Theater, Lamb of God, EVILE, Vallenbrosa, Alpha Galates, Ministry, Arch Enemy, Annihilator & a few more. 

I think even if the bands and artists that are on the site are not your favorites, the concept and technologies will blow you away.  This is truly creative uses of our services of our voice, mobile, IVR and web and really shows they can all be combined to create unique ways to interact with customers and that SmartReply is more flexible than you might have ever even imagined. 

The best way to save you from a long blog is to just direct you to the site.  Have a look and come back and leave a comment on what you think. 

And, a challenge for you, is there a way to mix text with IVR and voice that could benefit your in-store shopping, online or catalog experience?

All The Best - Jon

 

New Media Leading 2 Fragmentation & Diminshed Personalization?

With so many new media channels emerging and everyone racing to embrace them (well, almost everyone) it leaves many of us with lots of questions. The two biggies that I hear from marketers all the time are: 

A) Where do I start?  OR  Which one do I choose  to try first?

B)  Will adding new channels of communication further fragment the media landscape and if so, will it somehow diminish personalization to our customers? 

Fragmentation of participation within channels is a good thing!  We all know one message and method of delivery doesn’t work for everyone, let them choose, the more options the better.   Manage these new channels so that they stay cleanly segmented, thus allowing personalization and you have yourself some winning new media strategies. Adding value or improving a process are always good places to start with new media but can be lofty goals when just getting your feet wet with a new channel and learning it’s ins and outs…  In any event, we just addressed the two potential 'scary' items listed in this topic. 

For example: How about just positioning mobile (text messaging) as a communication alternative for the email non-readers, direct mail no-look trashers, but who still like your brand and want to know what you have to say, but are just so tuned out of traditional media from overuse and in some cases, abuse, that they don’t even pay attention anymore. Offer them some ways to identify what they want from you to start and you’re segmented from the get-go.

One casual observation from the front-lines: I betcha everyone selects coupons as one of the things they'd like to receive.  I figure it's because who doesn't like to save a couple of bucks now and again?

A "No Hassle" Loyalty Program

I love loyalty programs.

I am for the most part, a creature of habit & loyalty programs reward me for shopping at the same stores over & over again.  Perfect for me. 

The downside to all of this loyalty is that my wallet and key chain are both overstuffed with cards belonging to these various programs.  I am also a guy, & unless I'm willing to carry a fanny pack (which is never going to happen), it all ends up in my back pocket making my wallet uncomfortably large.  Every time another store adopts a new loyalty program and I am forced to add another card to my wallet or key chain, I can't help but think there must be another way to do this... A better alternative for someone like me.

Working on the front lines of mobile technology & marketing, a program has emerged providing an answer to this dilemma of having 'too many cards'.  A loyalty program that for those who can participate (anyone with a cell phone) is paperless, convenient & doesn't require me to carry around yet another card. Heck, it doesn't even require me to bring coupons into the store... just my cell phone which I would have brought anyway.

Utilizing the cell phone as the unique identifier at POS removes the need for a card based program.  Text messaging removes the need for mail or email & means I will never forget a coupon at home again.  Let me say that one more time... I will never forget my coupon at home again! 

We have just solved two of the most frustrating points of brick and mortar shopping... Cards & Coupons.  By my count that's two birds, one stone.  Keep the cards in place for those that don't want it all on their cell phone, understandably not every one will.  But just like not everyone wants another card, some will gladly join this new concept program & it will surely improve their overall brand satisfaction & your bottom line.