by Marius du Plessis | Aug 23, 2016 |
At the end of last year we wrote about the incredible expansion of video in mobile marketing and pointed out the little-known fact that YouTube is the second-biggest search engine after Google. As the use of video expands and marketers incorporate more video in their mobile campaigns, it is pertinent to remember that a short 60-second video has the same impact as literally tens of thousands of worlds, and possibly more when you add emotional impact. To quote eMarketer, a great resource often referenced on this site, a whopping one-third of the entire US population is already watching “video content on a mobile phone at least once a month.” South Africa may lag in some areas, but certainly not in mobile, so there’s no reason to suspect our mobile video viewing stats would differ wildly. When the client brief demands it, InTarget is able to work with a host of content providers to execute multimedia campaigns across our various mobile marketing bearers and publishing platforms. We’ve built up a formidable amount of knowledge when it comes to knowing what video content works on which bearers and platforms. If your own client, or employer, is delaying the move to producing video for mobile campaigns, here’s a few points to let them chew on: Video Displays Perfectly Across Different Devices When visiting a website using a laptop, tablet or smartphone very often the text doesn’t look great or very readable, even on some sites that are supposedly optimised for mobile. The opposite is true for video. It always look great and there are no screen size limitations that affect mobile phones...
by anton | Aug 23, 2016 |
While much innovation typically springs from the corporate sector, business people are naturally conservative. This cautious approach comes from the basic business need to make scarce resources work as efficiently as possible to deliver the best results. That’s the essence of capitalism. It’s natural then for the mobile marketer, who is a business person after all, to want to revert to mobile tactics that work. There’s nothing wrong with this approach besides the obvious downside of never exploring beyond the old reliable mobile channels of SMS and Please Call Me text tags. These are wonderful tactical tools, but as we have seen from the launch last year of InTarget’s USSD-based mobile research survey product, for example, there is so much more brands could be doing with the mobile marketing technology that’s available from world-leading specialist firms like InTarget right here in South Africa. With the above in mind, did you know that brands can create rich mobile experiences for their customers based on location and proximity? InTarget is able to bring location-powered mobile marketing to consumers using micro-location Bluetooth technology as well as macro-location geofencing. Our location and proximity mobile engagement platform can be tweaked to build rich, intelligent and compelling mobile experiences and campaigns to cellular users in the right place and at the right time. For example, a location-based mobile marketing campaign developed by InTarget could mean a conference organiser might provide attendees with a greeting when they land at the airport, the details of the closest driver to escort them to their hotel, and check-in information as they approach the venue’s concierge. Once settled in their...
by anton | Aug 12, 2016 |
It is becoming something of a corporate cliche to quote Gartner when making a point. However, what always seems like the businessperson’s favourite research house really does produce some quality research. This is equally so in the world of mobile marketing. For instance, a recent statistic from Gartner revealed that in 2016, 89% of marketers expect to compete primarily on the basis of the customer experience delivered by their brand, product and service. What that’s really saying is forget corporate history, throw away brand pedigree and all the nice-to-have activities that have polished your brand over the years, what really matters is the here and now of customer service. I believe that the post-recession years have meant consumers are counting every cent and brands are only as good as the last time they impressed the consumer during a direct interaction. And it appears Gartner’s research agrees with this view. What this means for the mobile marketers is that direct, personal and upfront is where’s it’s at. Consumers are no longer impressed by a 100 foot billboard in the distance. The days of blasting out uniform advertising to consumers are finished. Today’s mobile users want personalised marketing and companies need to respect this by building relationships with their customers. Fortunately, mobile marketing technology offered by knowledgeable specialists like InTarget allow us to connect with individual mobile users in new cost-effective and powerful ways. Central to all of this is the collection of the data that makes personalisation possible. Brands simply have to collect data if they are to propose more relevant offers to individual consumers. Today’s blog is not the...
by anton | Jul 12, 2016 |
During a recent skim through some international mobile marketing news headlines, I noticed a press announcement from the parent company of America’s second-biggest pharmacy chain, Walgreens. Apparently, in-store and online chemist customers now have the ability to redeem mobile coupons. I thought surely this has to be some small tweak to the current mobile marketing offering of this massive 370 000 employee business as they cannot be that far behind in the game? I had recently played around with the mobile coupon offering of one of South Africa’s major retailers and I recalled, looking at the Walgreens press release, how impressed I had been. We really have some outstanding retail organisations in this country that simply get mobile marketing, and mobile coupons in particular. Of course, a major reason why South African retailers understand the power of a potential 55 million population accessing mobile discounts is because they have great mobile marketing advice from specialist advisors like InTarget. Shoprite Checkers, for example, launched Eezicoupons mobile coupons as far back as four years ago, in the process becoming the first SA retailer to enable consumers to get instant shopping discounts on their cellphones. InTarget’s experience is that a huge number of consumers admit that they actively search for mobile coupon rewards on their phones before making purchase decisions. That’s significant. In conclusion, coupons are not the sexiest of mobile marketing tools but they have come a long way from mom cutting up pages of the things over the kitchen table. Their appeal to consumers will only increase as our sluggish economy keeps shedding jobs. They definitely are worth taking another...
by anton | May 27, 2016 |
Forbes Magazine, that illustrious periodical known to make appearances in boardrooms and rap songs, just this week wrote about mobile marketing. It presented some excellent advice to consider when embarking on a mobile marketing campaign. Let’s take a look at two key points highlighted by the magazine. The first mentioned a fairly new phrase recently coined by Google: ‘micro-moments’. Forbes says we’re seeing users turn to their mobile devices for quick, in-the-moment advice, help or information. Essentially, instead of sitting down to research a topic or issue in depth, they’re more likely to take immediate action, and to expect instantaneous answers. Google terms these rapid, mobile-driven queries ‘micro-moments’. Users want an accurate, bite-sized piece of information in that moment. No graphs, chart or other data-heavy overkill information. It’s great that Google has come up with a special turn of phrase for this phenomenon. However, here at InTarget it’s just called keeping it simple. Secondly, Forbes mentioned the importance of using QR codes to streamline the user experience. QR (or Quick Response) codes are a type of barcode that can be read by smartphone users who have downloaded a QR code reader. We believe QR codes are still a neglected – although growing – element of mobile marketing today. Forbes confirmed that they really do help provide relevant info as quickly and seamlessly as possible to mobile users. One of the most popular uses of QR codes among consumers is for comparison-shopping. This is when a smartphone is used to scan an item’s QR code to compare prices. Having a QR code for product comparisons means being present for those...
