The Scoop on PromotionsProject Support Team Blog

July 12th, 2010

A Look Ahead at Mobile

Marketing to consumers’ cell phones has long been known to be valuable but frequently seemed beyond reach. Check out these mobile marketing trends you can latch on to today.

Text message marketing goes mainstream.
According to the Mobile Marketing Association, text message marketing is already the most widely used form of mobile marketing, but it’s hard to find it in use on Main St. U.S.A. This is changing. A text message promotion is similar to an online promotion, except instead of collecting an email address you collect a mobile phone number. But unlike email, you don’t need fancy graphics, just up to 160 characters of text. Your customers will instantly read your message 97% of the time.

Mobile apps will be offered by traditional media.
In 2010, large brands such as Conde Nast will be teaming up to create mobile versions of their media to generate more advertising revenues. Money Mailer, which traditionally direct-mails coupons to households, is selling a mobile coupon that gets placed into an iPhone application.

Retailers will use more mobile marketing.
In 2009 Wendy’s, Burger King, Subway, Taco Bell & Pizza Hut launched text programs and iPhone apps that enable a consumer to order food for pick-up. 7-Eleven stores in San Diego are testing scannable bar codes on consumers’ phones to get up to one free drink per day. Ace Hardware is combining weather forecasts with text alerts to sell more shovels.

Smartphones will amaze us with new technology.
‘Augmented reality’ applications like the Sekai Camera iPhone application lets a consumer point his phone at any store or object and create ‘Air Tags’ – virtual notes that are linked to a real-world location. The app was downloaded 100,000 times in its first four days of availability in Japan.

2010 promises to be a breakout year for how businesses use mobile marketing technologies. With all of the low-cost, powerful smartphones & high-speed connections, you now have many choices. Perhaps the biggest question is where to start?