The Mobile Shopper Unleashed!

Black Friday 2009 was a success for mobile retailers – those who target and offer services for shoppers on the go. And while retailers are reviewing their sales targets and scrambling to hit end of year numbers for Christmas 2009, the holiday shopping season most notably will prove to be the year mobile commerce has arrived.

New Apps like Price Scanning and Deal Alerts are help driving the frenzy across online and traditional brick and mortar stores. While most retailers were hoping for greater consumer spending, some figures early figures on mobile retailing over the three-day Black Friday weekend are sure to raise a few eyebrows:

According to the Yankee Group, some of the surprising news include:
* Mobile Payments are More Popular than ever: The WSJ reports that the number of mobile online payments made through Paypal on Black Friday is 650% higher than it was last year.

* Mobile Product Search has Grown: Siva Kumar, the chief executive of TheFind.com (a product search engine), has stated that the number of searches on mobile devices on Black Friday grew from 5,000 last year to 200,000 this year.

* Price Comparison Shopping Apps are More Popular: ShopSaavy, a comparison-shopping application for the iPhone, has reported that 1 million users scanned at least one product with the App’s barcode scanner over the three-day Black Friday weekend.

It’s no wonder that consumers are using their mobile phones more than ever in the discovery, research, planning and actual shopping. Data from the Yankee Group’s Consumer survey indicates that the holiday shopper of 2009 will not only be far more price sensitive than his 2008 predecessor, but will also increasingly rely on sales and price comparison tools when he does decide to spend his hard earned dollar.

That’s where mobile steps in to solve the challenge of comparison shopping. Today’s Smartphone provides access to pricing and product review information, product availability at the store level. It’s certainly becoming the “emerging as the tool of choice for any holiday shopper” looking to save some dough.

If you’re a retailer looking for mobile commerce solutions, consider many commerce services and applications from QWASI including:

Text Ordering

Using SMS, this service allows customers to order via any cell phone, anytime, anywhere through a few texts.

Mobile Apps

Launching an iPhone App or Blackberry App targeting on-the-go shoppers. However, not all apps are worth building. Consult before building an App.

WAP Site

The place most retailers start – this allows anyone with a data plan to access product information, reviews and checkout. Check out the QWASI PCI compliant shopping cart.

SMS Alerts

Drive sales online or in store with alerts and notifications. Include CTAs (call to action) including click-to-call, trackable WAP site links,  MMS and other push methods.

Mobile Loyalty

Allows companies to offer specials and promotions vis SMS. Track activity and reward/incentivize customer activity.

Mobile Optimized Email

A must for email today. Browser detection can quickly format the message for readability on smartphones.

Store Locators

Utilize SMS or WAP and tapping into Google Maps and other local-based services, let shoppers find you while out and about.

Custom Application and Interactive Programs

Building mobile mash-ups and multi-mobile commerce apps, provide multiple campaigns targeting mobile shoppers.

Check out QWASI’s Mobile Retail methodology and let QWASI take your company mobile and start generating new sales from today’s mobile consumers.

Call QWASI @ 877-747-9274.

December 7, 2009 in Blog   |   No Comments

Google/AdMob – new focus on Mobile Advertising

Google Inc. is acquiring AdMob, a mobile display ad technology provider, for $750 million in stock. AdMob offers a variety of mobile advertising tools for creating, serving and analyzing emerging mobile ads formats.

“Mobile advertising has enormous potential as a marketing medium and while this industry is still in the early stages of development, AdMob has already made exceptional progress in a very short time,” said Susan Wojcicki, VP of product management at Google in a statement. “AdMob is the quintessential Silicon Valley startup — generating impressive year on year revenue growth — and we’re excited to welcome this talented team to Google.”

AdMob brings an extensive network of display ad inventory on 15,000 mobile Web sites and applications for iPhone and Android along with mobile web banners. To date, AdMob has been one of the largest (if not the largest) mobile ad network for in-app ad inventory on the iPhone. This has brought new implications for demographic targeting and audience segmentation to Google. The combination of AdMob’s display and in-app advertising coupled with search adverticing makes Google king of the hill again in mobile.

What does this mean for Mobile Marketing and Advertising?

First, it’s clear that Google is serious about mobile advertising and sees the space as a growth market. We too are excited about the space and the future mobile advertising holds for marketers, brands and consumers. Google also brings credibility (think about online advertising BEFORE AdWords). The ease of use AdMob is able to demonstrate with it’s platform will also lead to a better advertiser experience when researching and placing mobile advertisements. This deal also brings better ad formats and options to Google – something Google knows very well how to monetize.

In addition, Google will ad focus to this emerging market opportunity of self-service advertising. Google will help bring mobile to an entirely new audience. Google has been testing mobile advertising for several years with their own mobile search, banner and in-app ad networks and now mobile analytics.

What Admob did was to help businesses and agencies navigate the space with a platform that is easy to use and has evolved from text links to interactive banners and in App advertisements.

Next, this move will lead to a shift in mobile acquisition and bring new investment to mobile. Let’s face it, it’s great to run a mobile ad, but to covert traffic is an entirely separate event. Then to resell or market to these new prospects and finally, lead them to water – the Holy Grail – a purchase or some sort of transaction. This will also lead to greater focus on Mobile Analytics too over the entire mobile ecosystem.

This purchase is very similar to other acquisitions made by AOL (Third Screen Media), MicroSoft (TellMe and ScreenTonic) and Yahoo (Actionality and RightMedia).

With Google sitting on top of the mobile advertising scene, it still leaves other competitors to focus on their edge over the other companies. These companies include Quattro Wireless, Millennial Media, Jumptap and 4INFO to name a few.

Mobile Advertising Projected Growth

Gartner projects that the worldwide revenue for mobile advertising will be $13.5 billion in 2013, up from around $500 million in 2008. This includes mobile banner ads, SMS, text links, search and maps, ads in applications and games, ads in videos and TV shown on a mobile phone. Until now, Google has focused mainly on search advertising, but this deal signals that it has its sights set on other areas as well.

Focusing on display, search and messaging-based advertising, eMarketer predicts that U.S. mobile advertising spending will grow from $320 million last year to $416 million this year to more than $1.5 billion by 2013.

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QWASI brings results to your mobile advertising buy. Contact us today to learn more. Call us toll-free at 877-747-9274.

November 10, 2009 in Blog   |   No Comments

Mobile Marketing versus Email Marketing

Many companies getting into Mobile first ask the question: where does mobile fit within our organization. Well, it first depends on your company structure, next your current marketing structure and finally, and most importantly, your marketing strategy.

A few years ago, several organizations outsourced their mobile campaigns through their ad agency. Early results showed huge promise. Customer adoption followed with phones & devices that got more personal. And the demand for interaction increased. Today, consumer’s view mobile and social communication as their primary form of communication.

Corporate websites and email marketing helped organizations prepare for today’s interactive boom. Having a website was not enough without constant growth in traffic. Driving web traffic focused on natural, organic search marketing and email marketing to communicate with customers.

Then SPAM infiltrated email as people received unsolicited email. People were getting more and more upset and technology was put into force to protect customers from these emails. This lead to  decreasing open rates and response rates from email. Most companies tested email campaigns with great success, but over time, even email lost it’s luster.

Then mobile marketing entered the marketing mix. It resembles email in main ways to corporate executives. However, while it too is trackable, mobile is near real-time, extremely responsive and viral, ubiquitous (accessible anytime, anywhere) and requires dedicated resources and a budget.

Unlike mobile, email marketers have to address a high turnover rate of email addresses. Within a year, it is reported that 33% of email addresses in your opt-in list of email addresses are no longer valid. However, mobile phone numbers have a far lower turnover rate. Many people keep their cell phone number for life.

While email suffers from deliverability issues, mobile delivers on delivery (carrier-grade messaging ensures your message is delivered). Today, nearly 100% of cell phones SMS enabled and more people have a cell phone than a television or computer. Finally, most text messages are read within 30 minutes versus up to 48 emails for many emails.

In order to receive high response rates, there is a need to have an educated mobile marketer. This is someone who understands the strengths of the mobile channel and how to build and execute a mobile marketing strategy. Since mobile is opt-in, a good mobile marketer will work hard to keep the messages targeted, relevant, and provide value to their customers through the mobile communication channel.

Some other important considerations:
* The ideal first step in a mobile strategy is to provide access to a mobile touchpoint.

* Create incentives that are unique to mobile users.

* Provide customers the ability to double opt-in to campaigns.

* Manage customer expectations using the proper type of messages they will get, using the frequency you communicated (1x daily, per week, per month) and provide them with a means to opt-out.

* Promote the mobile channel in everywhere. Integrate it with radio, television, online and email.

* AND use email to promote mobile to existing subscribers. Mobile is central to your marketing mix.

The success of mobile marketing lies in ability to empower the customer. Be sure to have someone educated on mobile marketing and today’s mobile consumers.

QWASI’s team of mobile consultant’s are ready to help you get mobile. Contact us today @ 877-747-9274.

November 2, 2009 in Blog   |   No Comments

Holiday Shopping Season gets boost from Mobile & Social in 2009

A recent study published by Deloitte shows that 17% of adult shoppers say they will use social media in some aspect of their holiday shopping, and 19% will rely on their mobile phones. That means if you’re checking your list, you are likely being aided by through social and mobile media.

The survey — part of Deloitte’s 24th Annual Holiday Survey, a poll of more than 10,000 adults in the U.S — says that of the nearly 1 in 5 plan to use social media sites. Of that group, 60% say they will do so to find sales, discounts, and coupons; 53% intend to use sites like MySpace and Facebook to research gift ideas, and 52% say they will check the wish lists of friends and family.

While young people certainly have greater amounts of social-media savvy than more grizzled consumers (52% of those in the 18-29 group will use social media to shop), interest is relatively strong among other age groups. In the 30 to 44 age bracket, 33% will use social media as a shopping tool, and in the 45 to 60 age group, 10% plan to do so.

Also revealed in this study is that of the shoppers who plan to use their smartphones, 55% say they rely on their devices for a mobile store locator, 45% to research lowest prices, 40% to find general product information, 32% to get mobile coupons and 31% to find reviews. And this year, 25% of consumers say they will also use their phone to make a digital purchase.

The Deloitte study also found strong interest in shopping online, with 22% of respondents vowing to shop primarily via the Web, and 44% planning to use coupons they find on the Internet. It also found plenty of evidence that consumers love the luxury of shopping through multiple channels. About 78% say they have made an in-store purchase after viewing the product at a store’s Web site, for example, and 65% have done the reverse — seen an item in-store, then gone home, done some more research and purchased it online.

These trends will play out as retailer rush to distribute and promote their iPhone Apps geared toward gift buying and to move customers toward signup of offers and specials throughout the holiday through us of proximity marketing and mobile alerts. The reality is that mcommerce is here.And QWASI helps get you there.

QWASI takes retail mobile.
Get started today. Call us toll-free @ 877-747-9274

October 30, 2009 in Blog   |   No Comments

Google Analytics adds Mobile Analytics to Reporting

According to Google’s blog, Google Analytics will now include reporting for mobile Websites and mobile apps with a new soon-to-be-released server-side code-snippet in the coming weeks.  This will allow Google Analytics to track traffic to your mobile website from all web-enabled devices, whether or not the device runs JavaScript.  The release is reported to support PHP, Perl, JSP and ASPX-based sites, and will be in addition to allowing users to track visits to their regular website coming from high-end, Javascript enabled phones.

In addition to expanded mobile reporting, Apple’s iPhone and Android mobile application developers can now track how users engage with apps. For Android devices, usage can be tied back to ad campaigns: from ad to marketplace to download to engagement. In the future, Google promises the ability to see breakout data on mobile devices and carriers in the new “mobile reports” area of the Visitors section.

While it has taken some time for this to be introduced, it certainly is a welcomed improvement. The ability to include Mobile Analytics to further help break out ROI and Campaign Response Rates will allow marketers to see the value of delivering converts through mobile communication and applications. Mobile publishers and advertisers using this solution will be thrilled to have these new Mobile Analytic tools at their finger tips.

QWASI offers advanced mobile analytics and mobile reporting so clients can have a complete view of the mobile ecosystem and their customers. Contact QWASI today for more information @ 877-747-9274.

October 22, 2009 in Blog   |   No Comments