Will 2010 Be the Year of the Mobile Coupon?

EDITOR'S NOTE: MobCoupons and our current ComboText are in fact, the same product. Please contact our office if you would like the MobCoupons product. Call Susan at 954-583-9000.

Mobile marketing, and in particular, the mobile coupon, is about to hit its stride. In 2009, we saw large corporations test out mobile marketing campaigns to raise awareness of their brand and products, often giving away discounts and free products to tempt consumers into opting-in to their campaigns.

Looking back at 2009, we can predict how much of an impact mobile marketing will have in 2010. This year, many major players turned to mobile coupons for promotion in test markets, signaling that 2010 is ripe for mobile marketing and mobile coupons to take off.

Starbucks buzzed in on the trend in September, testing out a mobile barcode virtual
giftcard app in Silicon Valley and Seattle. JCPenney turned to Cellfires mobile barcode coupons, also in September, in a trial at 16 JCPenney locations in the Houston area. This month, Wendys is running a mobile promotion campaign with Options Media Group Holdings in the Northeast US, exchanging coupons if customers opt in to their campaign. Also this month, 7-Eleven is running an opt-in mobile barcode coupon campaign in a San Diego-area test offering free drinks.

These are just a few of many test campaigns run in 2009, and while the jury is still out on if any of them proved successful enough to merit follow-up campaigns, the growth of mobile and smart phones particularly will likely fuel the mobile marketing sector. While mobile handset sales have been on the decline throughout most of 2009, Justin reported last month that analysts predict strong Q4 sales. With Google's Android just starting to infiltrate the market, giving non-AT&T customers iPhone comparable devices, sales of mobile barcode-friendly smartphones will rise in 2010, which will all factor into making the start of the new decade the year of the mobile coupon.

Text Message Marketing offers 97% Read Rate

What is Text Marketing, how does it work and how can I use it to grow my business?

Text message marketing is relatively new in the USA but has been widely used in Europe and Asia over the last 5 or 6 years as a low cost advertising media with instant results. Our first exposure probably started with TV shows like American Idol allowing us to vote for our favorite singers of the week by texting a singer’s code to a short telephone number called a shortcode.

Today even small businesses are taking advantage of this system using a shared shortcode and web based systems to run their own advertising campaigns at a very affordable cost.

The way it works is giving a call to action in all your marketing efforts. These messages prompt mobile phone users to send a text message to your shortcode number to receive something in return like a access to information, a free gift, etc... The text marketing system will auto-respond with a personalized response. You now have a new contact to send proactive outbound marketing messages.

There are two different types of systems available. One is called a "Shared Short code". The other is a "dedicated short code". In order to benefit from this type of system as a network marketer, I recommend the shared short code system mainly because the cost of a dedicated short code is $7,000.00 for setup and $1,000.00 per month vs getting started for less than most auto-responder email systems with the shared short code.

There are two types of campaign options:

Inbound: This campaign is initiated by a mobile phone user to instantly receive information about your products and services. This campaign also saves the person's mobile number in your contact list for future correspondence. With a shared shortcode this type of campaign is run using Keywords.

EDITOR'S NOTE: For example, I use AdKing's Bounce Ad as a business card. I invite people to send a text message to our domain name (optin code) GET411 using the keyword of BRANDEL. The cell phone user would text the word GET411 BRANDEL to a shortcode (short phone number) of DOTORG (368674). The cell phone user would recieve a message back that has been pre-set similar to an email auto-responder, which explains they should contact us for more information about owning their own mobile marketing business.

The major benefit here is that statistics show that 97% of all text messages are read. How does that compare to your email campaigns?

Outbound: You can send text marketing messages to a mobile phone user or list of users once they are opted-in to receive text marketing messages from you. For example send a text message to MSAVE XYZCORP to DOTORG (368674) to optin to and experience a mobile broadcast product.

-Fred Lacey

Global Mobile – Strategies for Growth

SUMMARY: The mobile media landscape is primed for accelerated growth. Smartphone sales are predicted to lead the way, accounting for nearly half of worldwide sales by 2013. Mobile consumers around the world weigh in on the features, functions and data applications they find most desirable. The key driver of mobile growth is good devices and fast, affordable data. Understand what vehicles are most effective in reaching consumers.

Growing from a niche opportunity for games and ringtones, the mobile media landscape has flourished into a full-blown marketplace for advertising, rich media content, ecommerce and unparalleled utility—bringing about one of the biggest changes in the media and advertising business in a generation.

Mobile media has flourished into a full-blown marketplace…A perfect storm is imminent. The market is primed for accelerated growth well into 2010. What will “phone” mean to the next generation of consumers and what applications, functions and features are the most effective in reaching today’s consumers. A review of these opportunities reveals important insights into what is driving mobile growth in the U.S and abroad.

Apps-titude
Nielsen examined mobile media usage across 14 countries and discovered some interesting patterns. China has the highest penetration of software/application downloaders, ringtone downloaders, and mobile Internet users. At 89% penetration, text messaging is nearly as prevalent as voice services in Mexico, which is also the highest penetration of any media activity in any country analyzed.

Canada ranked first for content uploads and game downloads. The United States clicked into first place for picture messaging/MMS (multimedia message services) and location based/global positioning services.

Cost was the top factor across the board…Purchase criteria
Mobile consumers around the world applied different criteria when deciding what phone to purchase. Cost was the top factor across the board—especially influential among buyers in Turkey, South Africa and India. Brand or previous experience also weighed heavily among shoppers in Italy, Spain, Sweden and Russia. Ease of use was second most important factor for consumers in Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Design and style factored in for mobile users in Mexico, United Kingdom and the United States.

The features most desired by global mobile shoppers on their next purchase will be camera capability (number one in all 13 countries examined), followed by a built-in MP3 player and Bluetooth connectivity.

Growth drivers
In the fast-paced world of mobile media, the U.S. mobile subscriber base grew 7% to 277 million by the second quarter of 2009, which represented 221 million unique users, adjusting for multi-phone holders.

Among the many applications available on mobile devices, the fastest-growing segment in the U.S. was web video, which expanded by 33% to 20 million subscribers/15.2 million unique users, followed by multimedia messaging which jumped 29% representing 174 million subscribers/68 million unique users, and audio/application/game downloads which increased by 25% to 71 million subscribers and 39 million/27 million/23 million unique users per respective download.

Get smart
Perhaps more telling for the future of the industry, was the increase in the number of U.S. smartphone subscribers during the 2008-2009 Q2 period—a jump of 72% to 26.1 million users.

The Gartner Group predicts that smartphone sales will account for 46% of all mobile phone sales worldwide by 2013.

Currently, smartphone penetration varies by country. In Italy and Spain, more than one-quarter of new mobile handsets purchased were smartphones, with 28% and 23% market penetration respectively. The United States followed at 17%, Sweden at 13%, Canada-Germany-United Kingdom at 12% and France at 11%.

The newest generation of smartphones, like the Apple iPhone, the Palm Pre and the Blackberry Storm, combine cellphone connectivity with handheld computer capabilities like email, Internet, ebook readers, QWERTY keyboards, touchscreens, video, cameras and navigation software to name a few popular features and applications.

Dialed in
Smartphone owners in the U.S. tend to be male, younger (between the ages of 18–34), affluent (income of $75k+), and they use the phones for a mix of both personal and business purposes, with more emphasis on business usage. The profile of the iPhone user is similar, but skews even higher for the more affluent (twice as many in the $100k+ income group). A higher percentage of iPhone users also use the device for a mix of personal and business purposes (index of 160 for the iPhone compared to 220 for all smartphones).

iPhone users spend nearly as much on data as they do on voice…One of the most appealing attributes of the U.S. smartphone owner, and particularly the iPhone user, is their appetite for data packages. All mobile subscribers spend $57.04 in billed services, with the monthly voice plan accounting for $35.40 and data extras adding $12.10 to the bill. Blackberry owners typically rack up $88.85 per month in charges, with $45.10 in voice plan costs and $28.20 in data extras. iPhone users spend nearly as much on data ($37.60) as they do on voice ($42.00) and have an average monthly bill of $89.35.

Surf city
Smartphone utilization underscores the point that, if you build a better browser and user experience, they will come. Almost 60% of all software/application downloaders were smartphone owners. More than half (55%) of all streamed music users did so using their smartphones. Smartphone owners also account for half of all active mobile Internet users, 41% of online game players and 38% of mobile instant messagers.

iPhone owners lead the way in media usage…iPhone owners lead the way in media usage when it comes to mobile Internet (89%), text messaging (87%), software/application downloads and location-based services (75%), video/mobile TV (41%) and full track music (38%). The same market-leading usage pattern holds for iPhone’s built-in handset features like camera pictures (87%), Wi-Fi (77%) and speakerphone (72%). The sole exception is Bluetooth connectivity, where other smartphones feature a slightly higher utilization rate at 42% compared to 40% for the iPhone.

Transaction action
SMS (short message services), or text messages, reached 4.2 billion standard rate transactions in the U.S. on AT&T and Verizon in Q2 2009. The clear leader was Twitter with 1.3 billion messages, followed by FOX (due in large part to MySpace) with 740 million texts, Facebook at 465 million, and 4INFO at 257 million transactions. Total traffic was generated by 50 million unique users.

Stateside, social networking drove the growth train for mobile Internet, with a 187% increase in audience for the year ending July 2009. The distribution of 18.3 million unique social network users by the top three sites is Facebook (26% reach), MySpace (13% reach) and Twitter (7% reach).

One-third of all mobile data users were exposed to mobile advertising…Ad exposure
One-third of all mobile data users were exposed to some form of mobile advertising in Q2 2009. SMS and MMS comprised the two most popular forms of mobile advertising response. Roughly 16% of consumers responded to mobile ads most frequently via text message, a picture or MMS message, email or by visiting a designated web site.

Teenagers were the most accepting of mobile advertising—the acceptance rate declines as age increases. Perceptions of mobile ads were highest among all age groups if it lowered their bill. Consumers age 45+ were the least accepting of mobile ads. The Yankee Group forecasts mobile ad revenues could see faster growth than online, predicting a 60% jump in 2009 to $184 million. By 2013, that amount could reach in $566 million range.

Mobile marketing opportunity
Companies looking to drive sales should leverage mobile marketing activities like providing product information, coupons, discounts, event notification and mobile search. Another high-return approach would be to employ mobile’s innate capability to enhance the consumer interaction with a brand, providing information, inspiration or helpful functionality.

Companies who are finding success have developed specialized applications that were either fun or functional, scoring high on consumer engagement. Optimally, marketers will strike a balance between utility and enrichment, marrying the two into a unique, timely mobile consumer experience that makes best use of these dynamic devices.

-Jon Stewart, Research Director, Technology & Search
and Chris Quick, Mobile Media Analyst, The Nielsen Company

Dip in economy drives rise in coupons --- Coupon use rises for first time in 17 years

EDITOR'S NOTE: Any of Brandel's products can be utilized for coupon use. If you are looking specifically for a coupon-oriented product, call Susan at 954-583-9000 and ask for MOBILE COUPONS.


The coupon is back, thanks to the recession.

After almost two decades of decline, 2009 is on track to mark the first year that coupon use has increased in the U.S. since 1992.

Coupon clipping for the millennium isn't just for detergent and cereal. Retailers of all stripes, from Walgreens to Neiman Marcus, have latched onto the coupon to entice consumers to spend. And the Internet and mobile devices are making coupons more widely available.

"Coupons are just more accessible to more consumers than ever before," said Todd Hale, senior vice president of consumer and shopper insights at Nielsen Co. "Without question, the economy has caused consumers to make pretty significant shifts in where they shop and how they buy and use promotions."

Retail sales this holiday are expected to be no better than 2008, which ranked as the worst season in four decades. The difference this year: Merchants are better prepared to protect profits and have reduced inventories going into November and December.

Sparse shelves mean retailers aren't forced to take the 60 percent and 70 percent markdowns that prevailed last year. That puts the onus on consumers to work harder to find a good deal, leading shoppers in droves to discover coupon sites.

Searches on Google for "printable coupons" and "online printable coupons" more than doubled this year, and Yahoo Inc. reported that "coupons" ranked first on its list of economy-related searches for 2009. Of consumers surveyed by the National Retail Federation, 42 percent said they plan to use a coupon for their holiday shopping.

At Coupons.com, one of the first and largest online coupon sites, consumers printed coupons worth $313 million in 2008. The site surpassed the 2008 annual figure in June 2009 and expects a total of $1 billion in printed coupon savings by the end of the year.

Dozens of websites and blogs have cropped up dedicated to tracking retail and manufacturer coupons, gathering coupon codes for online deals and hosting forums in which shoppers share coupons and analyze the best and worst deals. Deal sites that once relied on members to share coupon finds with each other now have relationships with retailers eager to reach recession-weary consumers.

"It's a great channel for retailers to boost sales, especially as more shoppers move online," said Brian Nickerson, director of shopping for Internet Brands Inc., which operates Bargainist.com.

Asa Candler issued the first known coupon in 1894 when he gave away vouchers for a free Coca-Cola at his new drugstore. The following year, Post Cereal issued a coupon for a penny off a box of Grape Nuts. Coupons went on to gain widespread popularity as Americans scrimped during the Great Depression, and coupons reached their heyday in the advertising boom of the 1950s and '60s.

Coupon use peaked in 1992 with 7.9 billion coupons redeemed, according to Inmar, a coupon processing firm. The practice has declined steadily since to 2.6 billion coupons redeemed in 2006, where it remained until late last year.

As housing prices fell and unemployment rose, consumers searched for ways to save and rediscovered coupons. Redemptions jumped 10 percent in the fourth quarter of 2008 and kept rising: 17 percent in the first quarter, 33 percent in the second quarter and 29 percent in the third, according to Inmar.

When 2009 ends, the firm projects coupon redemptions will have gained 20 percent to 3.2 billion and remain strong even as the nation emerges from the recession.

Today, newspaper circulars still dominate, accounting for about 90 percent of the coupons distributed and more than half of those redeemed, but the Internet is rapidly making inroads.

Some stores, including J.C. Penney and Sam's Club, are testing mobile coupons, which allow shoppers to call up a coupon on their mobile phone for the sales clerk to scan.

While mobile coupons represent less than 1 percent of coupons distributed, the redemption rate is high. Shoppers may forget where they put a clipped coupon, but they almost always have their cell phones.

DealTaker.com President Kevin Strawbridge noted shoppers began favoring coupons over other deals earlier this year.

"What's interesting is usually the mix is 50-50 deals and coupons," he said. "This year it is 70 percent coupons and 30 percent deals. A lot more people are checking out coupons."

-As seen on Sun-Sentinel.com, By Sandra M. Jones, Chicago Tribune

Excerpts from “The future of mobile application storefronts”

Smartphone sales forecast

Wireless Expertise forecasts the number of smartphones sold per annum will increase from around 165.2 million in 2009, to 422.96 million in 2013, with the total number of smartphone users approaching 1.6 billion. This figure indicates smartphone penetration will be approaching approximately 28-30% of the total mobile market in 2013.

Wireless Expertise expects this growth to come from the increasing number of mid to low end mass market smartphones being launched in the market by incumbent handset vendors and new market entrants.

Mobile Application downloads to generate $16.60 billion by 2013

We expect smartphone growth to have a positive impact on the number of application downloads in the short- to mid-term, as operators and handset manufacturers take app stores to the mass market. In 2009 Wireless Expertise forecasts that the global mobile app market – including games – will be worth $4.66 billion in 2009 rising to $16.60 billion in 2013.

The market opportunity

With mobile phones outnumbering PCs around the world by 4:1, mobile applications represent a bigger opportunity for the mobile industry than the fixed-line perceived the Internet a decade ago. With over 4 billion mobile users around the world compared to approximately 1 billion PCs, mobile will become the idealistic channel for businesses to reach their consumers.

Print Publishers Leaping into Mobile, Says Survey

Print media might be on its way to extinction, but mobile is content's CPR. The digital advertising and publishing market is poised for growth, thanks to new mobile devices and advances in applications and technology.

A new survey from the Audit Bureau of Circulations says that print publishers are focusing on the mobile market as the major opportunity to expand their brands, reach new audiences, and generate additional revenue, all while offering advertisers the chance to reach hyper-targeted audiences.

Although the mobile market is in its early stages, it offers tremendous opportunities for marketers to reach and interact with audiences, said Edward Montes, executive vice president and managing director of Havas Digital North America, in a statement.

With nearly 4,000 members in North America, ABC is a forum of the world's leading magazine and newspaper publishers, advertisers and advertising agencies.

Survey Highlights

More than 80 percent of newspaper and magazine respondents believe people will rely more heavily on mobile devices as a primary information source in the next three years.

Nearly 70 percent of respondents agree that mobile is receiving more attention at their publication this year than last.

Forty-four percent of respondents who track mobile's impact on their Web site traffic said the devices increased visits by up to 10 percent today. Half believe mobile traffic to their Web sites will increase by five to 25 percent in the next two years.

Among senior executive respondents, 56 percent said their publication has plans to develop a smartphone application in the next 24 months, in addition to the 17 percent of respondents who already have an app in production.

Nearly a third believe that mobile will have a significant impact on their publication's revenue in just three years.

Google Wanted AdMobs iPhone User-Data

There's been a lot of speculation as to what plans Google has for AdMob, and why it spent such a large chunk of change to acquire it. While it's obviously interested in its broad mobile reach in terms of advertising, Google likely had its eye on something else only AdMob has- all that iPhone user-data.

With the onslaught of smartphones in recent years, the complexity has increased dramatically and so has the advertising targeted to them. AdMob spearheaded the movement to focus on creating unique ways to market to smartphone users, and particularly iPhone users one of the most advanced and widely-used smartphones around.

By doing so, the company gained massive ground and quickly become a primary force in iPhone-centric mobile advertising. As the company grew, so did its massive collection of iPhone-specific user-data. This data is very valuable in that it defines how iPhone users interact with various forms of targeted advertising on a very large scale. Since the iPhone represents a new breed of smartphones and mobile devices in general, this data becomes even more valuable as it can be used to define the methods that work best for targeting new-age smartphones.

Both Google and Apple knew what AdMob had in terms of data, and the implications of harnessing that data. Apple is becoming increasingly interested in mobile advertising now that it's a powerful force in the mobile realm, and AdMob could have been a perfect fit, but Google realized the company was even more valuable.

Android is quickly gaining momentum and becoming a well-rounded competitor to the iPhone, and Google can leverage AdMob and its wealth of information regarding iPhone-users to make Android the best it can be. More importantly, Google can leverage the ad-targeting data AdMob collects from iPhone users to determine the best ways to monetize Android in the future- something Apple was interested in too.

AdMob is a big deal in the mobile world, especially a mobile world filled with cutting-edge smartphones that are only getting smarter. It would have been a big deal if Apple had acquired AdMob and the potential possibilities that would have provided, but it's an even bigger deal that Google got them first. It will undoubtedly shape the future of Android.