75% of Worldwide Cellphone Users Texting

Social networking most popular in Israel (53%) and the U.S. (50%)

Texting remains the universal method of communication – around the world. According to a survey of cellphone users in 21 countries, 75% replied they send text messages. The Pew Research Center Global Attitudes Project study, published this week, studied the use of digital communication tools including mobile and social networks worldwide. The study found those young and well-educated are the most likely to adopt new technologies. Those under 30 who hold college degrees are most likely to use many mobile functions and social networks. And that only one-half of the respondents send photos or videos, and just 23% use the Internet.

MOBILE USAGE
Texting is most popular in Kenya and Indonesia, the two poorest nations included in the study. Sending photos or videos is most popular in Japan (72% reported the behavior), followed by Mexico (61%), Spain (59%) and Egypt (58%). Using mobile data still seems to be a behavior of wealthier countries, most popular in Israel (47%), Japan (47%) and the U.S. (43%). Complete results:

SOCIAL NETWORKS
The study also looks at the use of social networking, which corresponds with wealthy nations where Internet access is more common. Social networking is most popular in Israel (53%) and the U.S. (50%), followed by Britain (43%), Russia (43%) and Spain (42%). However, Internet users in poorer nations use social networks at equal if not higher rates than those in richer countries.

The study, conducted between March 21 and May 15, 2011 – surveyed between 700 and 4,029 mobile users per country by telephone or in person in the U.S., Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Israel, China, Indonesia, Japan, Pakistan, Mexico and Kenya.

For more information, see Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project

QWASI implements Mobile & Social Strategy for business. Contact us today to learn more about Social Marketing and Mobile Marketing strategies @ 877-747-9274.

December 22, 2011 in Blog   |   No Comments

Social Ad Revenue to hit $8.3 billion in 2015

Local Digital Ad Revenue to Hit $23.3 Billion in 2011

The latest research from local media research firm BIA/Kelsey, “Annual U.S. Local Media Forecast, 2010-2015 – Fall Update” reports that spending on local digital ads will grow this year from $23.3 billion to $37.9 billion in 2015. This revised inure is actually lower from previous expectations of combined digital and traditional local advertising revenues in 2011 from $136.2 billion to $135.9 billion. While social advertising & social marketing is quickly growing.

GLOBAL DIGITAL MEDIA BUDGETS
BIA/Kelsey sees a global increase in the share of digital media spend will increase from 14.6 percent of all local ad revenues in 2010 to 18.9 percent in 2012 and 25.4 percent in 2015.

RISE IN SOCIAL MARKETING BUDGETS
In addition, they also measured expenditures on social media by local and national advertisers, noting that $4.6 billion will be spent on social network ad formats in 2012, up from $2.1 billion in 2010. By 2015, that will go up to $8.3 billion. National advertisers dominate in social ad spending, though; in 2012, $3.5 billion of the $4.6 billion total will be spent by national ad buyers, however, the digital media spend in social will move quickly to local advertisers as they adopt social marketing strategies to promote their business.

Charting Local Digital Ad Revenue:

Contact QWASI today @ 877-747-9274 for Social Marketing and Mobile Marketing solutions for your business.

November 21, 2011 in Blog   |   No Comments

What Drives Auto Shoppers’ Behavior – according to Google

While reading on of my favorite blogs from eMarketer, I came across this article about how Google’s insight into the Car Buyer’s experience is very insightful. Having a strong presence in Mobile Marketing for the Auto Industry and Car Dealers nationwide for several years, I read the article top to bottom. It was very insightful and sheds light into what Google is tracking across their properties. In addition, it should come as no surprise, that many recent enhancements made to their ad serving capabilities further extends benefits to better local search results from their advertisers – especially local car dealers.

According to Google’s own Automotive Industry Development Manager, Kimberly Stonehouse, they have identify some key factors influencing the way today’s consumers shop for automotive products (their next car).

3 KEY TAKEAWAYS:
1) 3 Months to buy
2) Funnel Leads from National Advertising to Local Dealer
3) Mobile & Local Combination = SUCCESS

Questions & Answers from the Google/eMarketer Q&A session.
QUESTION: How long does it take a typical consumer to research and purchase a vehicle?
On average – Three months.

Google can see “an interplay between digital and the dealer. Digital media is used often for comparison purposes to determine the consideration set and narrow it, but it is not negating the importance of the dealer.”

QUESTION: What are OEMs doing to get auto shoppers’ to their sites?
According to Stonehouse, “Automakers aren’t trying to necessarily predict where a shopper is in their purchase funnel, but are providing choice so shoppers can determine where they want to go, where they want to find information. For example, if you search for Toyota on Google, you’ll typically see an ad for the brand, Toyota.com, you’ll see a site within the ad space for BuyaToyota.com, which is the national dealer site. And you’ll also most likely see an ad for a local Toyota dealer.

What Toyota and what a lot of our automaker partners are doing is recognizing that it’s difficult to predict from a search of Toyota, or something similar, exactly what the consumer is doing or is looking for. They can increase their efficiency and, in many cases, lower their acquisition cost or lead cost by providing that choice. It increases the likelihood that the consumer will click because they’re provided with all of the options that they could potentially be looking for, regardless of where they are in the funnel.”

QUESTION: How and when does mobile come into the picture?
According to Stonehouse, “Mobile is one of the biggest consumer trends this year, and we’re really starting to see automakers recognize the importance of mobile in the shopping process. Within automotive specifically, it varies among brands, but up to 20% of search traffic to OEMs comes through a mobile device. So that’s a tipping point for automakers to realize that mobile is a substantial portion of search traffic, and those consumers are ones they need to reach.

We’ve seen that mobile traffic doesn’t replace desktop by any means. It’s additive, and it’s complementary. Through our search data, we see more desktop search traffic in the middle of the day, but mobile will spike in the evenings. Although mobile usage is strong in the evening timeframes, it also has proliferated past what the typical uses and time periods you might expect.”

QUESTION: What advantage does the mobile platform offer to local dealerships?
“One in three mobile searches are local. When a mobile device can recognize a consumer’s location, it becomes a much more powerful tool. Dealers can provide an offer to a consumer who is driving around looking for a vehicle on a Saturday. This enables the advertiser to send a targeted message—and for the consumer to receive something useful and relevant. “

For the complete interview, visit eMarketer (eMarketer Total Access clients only)

July 2, 2011 in Blog   |   No Comments

The BMA Selects QWASI to Power Mobile Marketing for its 2011 International Conference.

QWASI brings real-time mobile interaction to the Business Marketing Association.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
PHILADELPHIA, PA May 26, 2011 – QWASI, a leading mobile marketing and communications company providing cross-market interactive solutions, announced today it has been selected by the Business Marketing Association (BMA) to power mobile marketing and event communications at The 2011 International BMA Conference in Chicago, IL June 1-3. In partnership with Syniverse, QWASI will power text messaging for all pre, during and post event communication for the show using the BMA shortcode – 26246 (BMAGO). The tools provided to the BMA are part of QWASI’s Mobile Marketing Center Platform that’s designed for companies to power mobile marketing campaigns and communication.

Along the lines of this year’s BMA theme – Unleash – QWASI plans to introduce many business marketers to the potential mobile marketing brings to their bottom line. “QWASI is pleased to have been chosen by such an important organization such as the BMA to power their message. We see an unique opportunity for business to embrace all that mobile marketing and communications hold to reach today’s consumers and business decision makers,” shares Leon Samuel, President & CEO of QWASI, Inc. “B2b marketers have been slow to adopt and implement a mobile strategy as part of their b2b campaigns. The time is now for them to use the mobile channel to attract and retain their valuable customers and future prospects. The results from other channels show its immediate effectiveness across various areas of business.”

One of the tools QWASI provides to its clients is a website widget for pre-event registration for alerts and notification. It also includes a Vote2Screen program that allows participants to vote on select questions with a simple reply answer. The live vote is calculated in real-time and can be broadcast via projectors and screens throughout the event. Text2Screen sessions also allow participants to pose a question or share a comment. Using a moderator display, the organization or presenter can choose select questions and post them on screen for attendees.

Other features include surveys, auto-responders, 2D Barcodes, a Mobile Website builder and reporting and analytics. Benefits of this powerful communication channel include driving participation, enhancing engagement, collecting valuable feedback, and building a mobile database. These conference tools combine the power and convenience of text messaging with great visuals that promote participation throughout the event.

ABOUT BUSINESS MARKETING ASSOCIATION
Started in 1922, today’s Business Marketing Association (BMA) works to increase the importance, impact and value of marketing in businesses worldwide. BMA is the only professional organization with an exclusive focus on business-to-business marketing and its key drivers: Customer engagement and relationships, product and service innovation, value pricing, channels, online/offline marcom, and analytics. BMA’s members represent state-of-the art expertise in business-to-business marketing and communications, and share best practices for the benefit of the global business community. For more information about BMA, call 630-544-5054 or visit www.marketing.org.

ABOUT QWASI
QWASI, Inc. is a leading mobile and social communications and solutions provider of interactive applications for clients around the world utilizing Social Messaging, SMS, MMS, Mobile Web and Apps. Through its world-class Synchrosy® methodology, QWASI creates and implements mobile strategy for enterprise business simplifying complex problems with mobile marketing, social messaging, mobile commerce, text ordering, mobile coupons, mobile chat, and customized interactive alerting for Fortune 1000 businesses.

May 26, 2011 in Press Releases   |   No Comments

QWASI unifies Mobile Marketing, Mobile Messaging and Short Code Services

Mobile Two-Way API 2.0 from QWASI brings together SMS, MMS and Interactive Mobile Marketing.

PHILADELPHIA, March 7, 2011 – QWASI, a leading mobile marketing and communications company providing cross-market interactive solutions, announced its Mobile Messaging API 2.1 for enterprises, agencies and brand marketers. By using the QWASI Mobile Application Programming Interface, known as an API, a company can program mobile marketing services including mobile coupon delivery, mobile ticketing, mobile voting, polling, keywords, text2win, info-on-demand and more. The two-way messaging gateway utilizes either a shared shortcode or dedicated short code to power messaging via SMS (text messaging) and MMS (multi-media messaging) to users in the US.

“The time for companies to tap into the power of mobile is now. Over the last twelve months, we have seen a tremendous push by small and medium size businesses to adopt mobile marketing for their customers,” states Dave Geipel, Founder of QWASI, Inc. “With the ability to use our mobile marketing platform, a company of any size can now embrace mobile marketing for pennies a customer. We are seeing many new Fortune 1000 companies moving to dedicated short codes to support their business needs.” QWASI provides an easy short code search tool from its website.

Recent reliability and delivery issues for many companies using low-cost providers and second and third tier aggregators have mounted and have brought many new customers to QWASI. This has forced many corporate clients to find an alternative to low cost “bulk messaging” which often isn’t delivered to end users by wireless carriers. It requires a dedicated team to monitor campaigns and traffic to ensure maximum up time for their clients.

QWASI recently released several new updates to its Mobile Marketing Center Platform. The Mobile Marketing Center is a self-service portal that allows companies to create, launch and manage their campaigns with relative ease. The Mobile Marketing Center is available to customers using a their own dedicated short code and works across multiple US aggregators. Mobile Marketing services available through the two-way SMS API include:

• SMS Auto Responders: drip marketing campaigns via text messaging to opt-in users.

• Info-on-Demand: information sent to opt-in users via custom Keywords. Capture opt-in users for future message blasts including email addresses.

• SMS Alerts and Blasts: send text messages to a subscriber lists. Keep customers informed of promotions, offers & events.

• Mobile Coupons: distribute coupons to cell phones of customers who have opted-in to receive your promotions. Track promotional code usage.

• Text-to-Win: Enable potential customers to text in a special keyword to instantly enter-to-win a prize.

• Text-to-Vote: Provide a poll or vote and gain valuable feedback – in real-time.

• Web Widgets: Build a subscriber list from web-widgets.

• Custom Applications: The Marketing Center API allows companies to build any custom mobile messaging application.

With twice as many users of SMS than email globally and over 200 Billion text messages sent every month in the United States, consumer brands continue to look for new, innovative campaigns to reach today’s mobile consumer. QWASI is also bringing two-way MMS to market in the US with innovative MMS Applications to allow end users to participate with brands using picture and video messaging. With a huge shift toward social marketing, QWASI is bringing the power of mobile and social together creating new engagement. And through an easy-to-use white label mobile marketing platform, launching campaigns and monitoring performance is now possible for any client with powered by their own short code.

ABOUT QWASI

QWASI, Inc. is a leading mobile and social communications and solutions provider of interactive applications for clients around the globe utilizing Social Messaging, SMS, MMS, Mobile Web and Apps. Through its Synchrosy® methodology, QWASI creates and implements mobile strategy for business, simplifying complex problems with mobile marketing, social messaging, mobile commerce, text ordering, mobile coupons, mobile chat, and customized interactive alerting for Fortune 1000 businesses.

March 7, 2011 in Press Releases   |   No Comments