by anton | Jul 18, 2014 |
Consumers are showing more and more interest in smartphones, tablets and mobile marketing as a whole. This is good news for businesses making use of LBS (location based service) marketing. What trends are starting to emerge in the industry? People love, love, love video There’s no denying the fact that human beings are lazy by nature. That is why the aim of mobile development is just that – to make life easier for us. Consumers have become increasingly reluctant to read long pieces of text and are shifting their favour towards graphics and video. Did you know that the mobile users are taking over Facebook, Twitter, Pintrest and Instagram? If you can combine your Location Based Marketing on social media channel with high quality images and video material, you will have an instant recipe or success! Location is part of everything we do – and beyond The traditional “word of mouth” marketing (one of the most powerful forms of marketing there is) has not disappeared. It only shifted from telling your friend about a wonderful restaurant (face to face) to regularly checking in or rewriting reviews/ comments on social media. Once again, being curious about what your friends do in their daily lives, is also one of those “human things” we do. People want to know what their loved ones are up to and they value the opinions of those close to them. If your friend is announcing his visit to a particular restaurant every week, it is no secret that he enjoys the experience. No words needed! Next time you want to try a new place, you will...
by anton | Jul 16, 2014 |
A quick and easy way to do market research, is by using mobile polls and surveys. How do you initiate this? Through USSD NI! Marketers always need to think of fun and interesting ways to do customer research. The needs of your customers do change over time – as do their age, geographical location etc. Sometimes a new product/ service might attract an entirely different consumer than what you thought it would. Or maybe you just want to get your customers’ honest opinion on how they experience your brand. Whatever the case, there are loads of reasons why you would want to conduct research. Okay, so what does this have to do with USSD Ni? You can use Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) Push messages to push out real time, engaging questions to your customers in the form of mobile polls and surveys. How does it work? You can either send your customers a link to visit a website containing your poll or survey. Or, you can send the actual survey to their phone. Why can this be effective? It is a great way to connect with your customers at the drop of a hat, as people have their phones on their person at all times. It can take people hours, maybe even a few days, to actually open and read their email – especially if they receive a great number of messages on a daily basis. For that reason, consumers usually respond better on mobile messages than email. It can work on old phones as well as newer phones (e.g. smartphones.) Users don’t need to download any additional...
by anton | Jul 14, 2014 |
In Africa, there are about 650 million cellphone users. The majority of them are prepaid users with an inexpensive phone, which means that SMS is still the best and most effective way to reach them. Marketers sometimes forget that their target audience isn’t necessarily following the latest trends – especially those in poorer communities. Just because you have a smartphone, it doesn’t mean your customers have one as well. But the one thing you can be 100% certain of, is that no matter how low-tech a customer’s phone is, it will be capable of sending and receiving texts. According to research done by Cellfind, the “majority of connections are still basic 2G voice and SMS services, and simple 2.5G data services, rather than 3G or LTE connections.” So before you say SMS messages are too simple for marketing purposes – think again. Eight out of ten people on our continent owns a cellphone. They might change their address, but they rarely change their phone number. And as we all know, nobody leaves home without their mobile. People’s love for their phones is exactly what makes mobile marketing as a whole (and especially SMS) such an effective way to reach your customers. We have talked about all the advantages of SMS marketing many times: it is personal, quick, cheap and interactive. But did you know: you could get a better response rate from consumers as well? According to the research, direct mail can give you a poor response rate of 2.6% with published media not faring much better by 8.5%. But. Texting (depending on your campaign, strategy etc.) could give...
by anton | Jul 11, 2014 |
Think cell phone billing is only about providing your customers with a convenient payment method? You would be surprised to know what you can learn from a customer’s billing information. Companies spend thousands on market research. Getting to know who your customers are and what they really want, is no easy task. Wouldn’t it be nice to gain some of that niche info without using extra resources? You can indeed – through something as simple as your customers’ transaction history! By analysing purchasing behaviour, you can gain valuable insight that will help you to create marketing strategies with pinpoint accuracy and products/ services that fit your customers like a glove. You could learn the following. What your customers actually prefer: you might think that your purple cell phone covers are all the rage, but your customers might be more interested in ones that are green or blue. So instead of only selling purple covers, you can rather stock a variety of blue and green coloured ones. Now you don’t waste money on stock your customers don’t want AND you could even sell more of your products. How to incentivise: cell phone billing can show you which type of products a customer buys on a regular basis (for example shaving cream). Rewarding a customer with something you know they want (shaving products), carries more weight than incentivising them with a random product (for example a pot plant) they most likely have no use for. If a customer is here to stay: no company wants to waste resources wooing once-off customers when they could be spending it to retain loyal ones....
