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March 26, 2013
Tips and examples for creating effective Facebook brand apps
Facebook applications can be a great way to increase a company’s fans’ tie to their social presence, while simultaneously delivering valuable user and customer data. For a large number of brands, apps can be essential to their healthy Facebook presence in order to add value to their growing fan base through online sales, personalisation mechanisms, incentives and competitions and more.
For the majority of brands though, producing their own apps is not essential, nor should they be. If you are perhaps thinking of a Facebook app for your brand I am not trying to convince you otherwise. If your current of future Apps work by definition because they have a function and output for the user that supports the brand, aids user discovery and interest and adds value to them as a consumer, then it's going to be a good investment of time.…
Defining the business case for a mobile strategy
I'm sure you will know from your analytics how important mobile site visits are becoming to your business. However, those of us who live and breathe mobile see the majority of companies have been slow to build mobile into their businesses. This is shown in a survey of 250 global brands by the Chief Marketing Office Council.
Amongst companies including Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch, JP Morgan Chase and Unilever just 16% surveyed have developed a mobile strategy aimed at building customer engagement. And only 14% are happy with their mobile strategy.
On the plus side, CMOs are acting: 53% have or are dedicating a team to look at mobile and 51% are looking at how to incorporate mobile into their business through internal training and development.
Yet at the moment, the vast majority of brands have yet to optimise their sites…
A reminder to factor in variation in conversion from mobile when modelling sales from mobile site visitors
Reviewing the latest statistics on increased use of mobile is useful for making the case for mobile marketing. Earlier in the week I shared 4 key sources on mobile platform usage.
What's of most interest to site owners though, is what happening in their sector, and on their site in particular. In this post, I'll share two examples. The first is most relevant if you work in travel. It's an infographic from Skyscanner. The headlines are:
30% of Skyscanner visits now from mobile (50% in some markets), but...
Mobile users are 39% less likely to book
It shows that, of course, you have to look at both volume and quality of traffic when creating the business case for investment in mobile.
The second company example,…
New research reveals increased mobile usage during holiday periods
Value : [rating=3]
Recommended link: Clash Group announcement
All marketers are familiar with the increasing adoption of mobile browsing, however, it’s worth considering the averages conceal seasonal changes in mobile usage, particularly over holiday periods.
New data from the Clash Group, a Performance media company that offers targeted advertising services in both mobile and wider digital markets is seeing significant increase in interest on mobile devices amongst its clients:
A 33% uplift in mobile ad spend during the first week in December compared to normal shopping periods, and a 100% increase on the period in 2011
Clickthrough rates on mobile rose 26% compared to the average for normal shopping periods, and a 5% increase on the same holiday period in 2011
This stands in contrast to a rise of 7% in CTRs on desktop ads compared to normal shopping periods, and a 1% increase on the same…
Earning attention is the key to mobile advertising success.
About time too! I was delighted to read last week that the UK’s Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has imposed a hefty £440,000 fine on the two SMS spammers responsible for bombarding me and the other 840,000 mobile users with unsolicited texts about personal injury claims.
This news is a timely reminder to all brands that they must respect consumers’ privacy when engaging in mobile marketing and mobile advertising: The Privacy and Electronic Communications Regulations exist to protect mobile users from receiving unwelcome messaging from brands.
Likewise, a scatter-gun approach to mobile advertising be viewed in the same light as SMS spam:
Responsible marketers should be aware of the risk of intruding on consumers’ mobile lives with unwanted advertising.
Richard Eyre, Chairman of the IAB UK, summed up the issue earlier this year at IAB…
Oxfam Ireland's new responsive design
With the dramatic increase in mobile site users all businesses are experiencing, there has been a lot of discussion of responsive design as an approach.
Responsive design gives the option to deliver a great experience for smartphone, tablet and desktop users without the need for creating a separate mobile optimised site or apps. So it can be a cost-effective solution.
If you want to learn more about the approach I recommend this primer on responsive design approach shared with me by Dan Croxen John.
Examples are often the best way to understand the potential of an approach, so in this post I focus on a single example which shows the benefits of the approach.
Oxfam Ireland responsive design example
I saw this Oxfam Ireland example mentioned in the excellent LinkedIn Web Managers Group and thought it was an interesting example of a responsive design that was worth sharing.
It was…
Consumer research shows the importance of getting mobile experiences right
The Going Mobile 2012 research by Foolproof undertaken from November 2011 to March 2012 assessed the quality of mobile user experience based on consumers' mobile behaviour and usage patterns. The research reveals some great practical insights around what consumers expect from their mobiles:
They see it as ‘big bang’ event: mobile is creating new time and space for consumers. Time that was previously unproductive or inert is now filled with mobile interaction. What are users doing with this time? What brands are they engaging with in this new, very intimate, digital space? Which tools and services create value for them...and which are just creating noise?”
Knowing the answers to these questions can be the difference between success and failure in the design of mobile services. Mobile helps today's time poor consumers to use 'dead time' easily and efficiently.
…
Virgin media Generation IP: 2025 video gives a glimpse of the future.
One of my students recently pointed out this new simulation to me and I thought it worth sharing since it’s interesting with it’s long, 13 year, view forward. Generation IP:2025 was created by Virgin Media Business in conjunction with The Future Laboratory.
It follows a scenario of a father and daughter spending some time together. While the blurb on YouTube says “it provides an exciting glimpse into a hyper-connected Britain in just thirteen years’ time”, I’m not sure about the “exciting” part. We’re all apparently going to be very calm and stress-free, empowered by our mobiles. The gestural interface and glass-like device look cool certainly, but there’s a lack of emotion and it all seems quite dark to me as the daughter mixes family life with business.
How do you find it?…
What is Location Marketing and how to get started for free
In this post I take a look at the opportunity location marketing presents, provide some ideas on the types of campaigns you can send and show just how easy it I to get started.
Why Should you Care?
A recent report by Deloitte showed that mobile influenced 5.1% of in store sales in the US, accounting for $159bn in forecasted sales for the whole of 2012, way over the $12bn forecast for mCommerce.
Radio Shack has noted that Foursquare users spend 350% more in store than non-users and a pet food brand in the US saw a 14% uplift in sales after using Foursquare to promote free dog food for every unique check-in.
Additionally there are 200 million people sharing location on Facebook, Foursquare is adding 1 million users a month and the recent report by Jiwire shows that 62% of us are willing…
The Who, Why and Where of using QR or action codes for marketing
We've had a lot of interest in our previous posts on using QR codes for marketing which shows their potential, but I've had a nagging doubt in my mind about the response rates - no one seems to be sharing success stories. Either it's working fantastically well for QR code vendors and brands and they're keeping it close to their chests or they're embarrassed.
Recent reports by Comscore, help with answering the response rate question and also gives an idea of the level of adoption amongst different demographics together with interesting data on how QR codes are being used, hence the title of this post.
This summary reviews consumer pull - adoption rates in the US, UK and Europe, but this is also driven by company push as they use QR codes more in their campaigns - we have…
