'Net Features : mobile marketing

7 Key Principles for Mobile Commerce Success

Administrator — Thu, 16 May 2013 17:45:00 GMT

:: By Nathan Joynt, Volusion ::

There are currently 115 million smartphone users in the U.S. and an estimated 200 million users by 2017. According to Internet Retailer, in 2012 U.S. smartphone and tablet users spent over $24 billion in mobile commerce sales, accounting for 11% of total ecommerce sales. The digital age is advancing quickly, and with the boom of ever-increasing technology use and some promising statistics, online businesses can’t deny the fact that there is huge moneymaking potential in mobile business. Mobile commerce, or m-commerce, is the browsing, buying and selling of products and services on mobile devices. If being able to shop from your home computer wasn’t easy enough, smartphones and tablets enable you to research and compare products in a physical storefront. Often this can lead to a direct sale online – often from a competitor of the storefront. If you are looking to maximize your online business through mobile, this post will give you some important factors to consider when developing your m-commerce strategy.

7 Key Principles to Maximize your M-Commerce Strategy

To keep your m-commerce strategy running effectively and help your online business grow, make sure you adopt these principles:

1. Do on-going research to determine what mobile devices are popular with your target market.

This is about understanding how you need to prioritize your mobile strategy to maximize ROI. Not every online market makes use of mobile devices. You may have a business where users actually find it more difficult to research and shop for your products through a smartphone. What does your current analytics data suggest? Also, what is your competition currently offering in terms of mobile presence? A story can be formed by performing gap and opportunity analysis. The more persistent you are with research and analysis, typically the better you will be able to focus on what’s most important.

2. Keep brand consistency across your web and mobile properties.

Make sure your ecommerce and m-commerce sites are consistent and congruent in terms of design, product offering, content flow and overall brand messaging. If you are in a position to take advantage of responsive design, do so. Your visitors will expect a consistent branding experience, whether they know it or not. This builds trust, whereas any inconsistency is a sure-fire way to lose sales.

3. Try to keep it simple at first and then add complexity.

As a colleague states, “web users are finicky; mobile users are finickier.” Mobile users typically expect their content to load quickly. You have to take extra care to ensure your mobile content can be consumed in multiple formats. This means making the pages more light weight: use clean code, be careful with large data features like videos and make sure to test all your site’s features so you know what needs to be sped up, taken down or added in.

4. Remember to include mobile in your online testing strategy.

Smart marketers understand how to increase ecommerce sales through practices like user testing, landing page testing and conversion rate optimization. Due to the fact that the user interface and user experience on mobile devices are different, it’s important to understand what your target market expects from your mobile site and include these considerations in your testing strategy.

5. Remember to QA your mobile site.

The concept seems simple enough, but it can be overlooked, especially as websites continue to grow and stakeholders forget to take into account the mobile experience. Does the design break at any point? Is the site cross-browser compatible? Does the checkout process work? Are you able to track everything appropriately in terms of analytics? Do the forms work? Does every link and do all calls-to-action perform as expected? It can be frustrating to try and purchase something through a mobile device and encounter a broken link. This will typically lead to a lost sale.

6. Keep reading more about mobile optimization.

Things move quickly in this area. In order to correctly optimize your mobile business make sure all your mobile data is in order, know what metrics are key to your success and know the specifics of what your customers are searching for most. Mobile optimization is a key factor when looking to increase sales and improve customer satisfaction. This leads to…

7. Leverage customer feedback.

It’s very important to have a customer feedback page, suggestion box, review section, etc. Most businesses have drastically increased their online sales by listening to customer feedback, so why not do the same for your m-commerce business? Utilize your Facebook and Twitter friends/followers to understand their likes/pain points. Send out a survey to your email list. What one customer wants, usually many more will want. If you tailor your mobile business to your customer feedback you will keep them satisfied and coming back for more.

eMarketer estimates that by 2017, approximately 25% of online retail transactions in the U.S. will take place on mobile devices. As technology is changing and rapidly increasing, so is the way consumers buy their products, which means you, as an online business owner, has to change as well. The potential for your business to grow through m-commerce is extremely promising and is up to you, with a little help from the experts, to make the most of your mobile business.

Nathan Joynt is a Marketing Manager for Volusion, a leading mobile and ecommerce software company. He specializes in SEO, user experience and content marketing. Follow him on Twitter @nathanjoynt.

Trumpia Unveils Mobile Keyword-Capture Feature

Allison Howen — Thu, 31 May 2012 04:00:00 GMT

Multichannel marketing solutions provider Trumpia has launched a new Mobile Keyword-Capture tool to help marketers collect more data from consumers via text alerts.

The Mobile Keyword-Capture feature uses a set of auto-responders that allows businesses to send data-collection prompts to customers after they initially opt-in to text alerts. Marketers are able to collect consumer data including first and last names, email addresss and/or AIM and MSN screen names, as well as any other potential targeting information. Businesses can enter the consumer information into their marketing databases, which enables them to launch more personalized campaigns as well as leverage opportunities for cross-channel marketing.

“Our goal at Trumpia is to help marketers create more profitable and beneficial customer relationships by increasing the relevancy of their campaigns,” says Ken Rhie, co-founder and CEO for Trumpia. “Our new Mobile Keyword-Capture feature is just another example of what our subscribers have come to expect from our technology, offering them highly efficient, flexible tools for making the most of their marketing resources and quickly delivering the results they need.”

The first version of the Mobile Keyword-Capture feature, which includes the ability to collect first name, last name and contact information across multiple communication channels, is available now. The second version, which will include the ability to collect custom data, will be available in mid-June.

Potential Mobile Marketers Lack Resources, Strategy

Allison Howen — Thu, 24 May 2012 23:30:00 GMT

A new study from interactive marketing solutions provider StrongMail reveals that more than half of marketers still face challenges in implementing a mobile strategy.

The most popular forms of mobile marketing are mobile websites (70 percent), mobile applications (55 percent) and QR codes (49 percent). However, only 45 percent of marketers are currently running any of these mobile strategies, with 57 percent of those who are only doing so for a year or less.

The study also reveals that 75 percent of businesses not running programs plan to do so within a year or more – and of those businesses that are running mobile programs, 70 percent expect to see their budgets increase during the same time period.

Other statistics from the survey show that 37 percent of respondents cite a lack of strategy as the top reason for not having a mobile marketing program, followed by 22 percent claiming a lack of resources. More than half of respondents expect a mobile program to help them increase sales and acquire new customers, while almost half expect it to increase brand awareness.

Almost a quarter of respondents reported less than 1 percent of their budgets go towards mobile. On the bright side, 55 percent of respondents report an increased mobile budget during the past 12 months, and only 2 percent saw a decrease in budget.

Clickatell Launches New Mobile Marketing Platform

Linc Wonham — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 11:00:00 GMT

Mobile messaging provider Clickatell has launched a social mobile solution that aims to give small and medium-sized businesses the short message service (SMS) tools required for mobile marketing campaigns to engage new customers and deepen existing customer relationships.

The Clickatell Mobile Campaign Manager (CMCM) is designed to unite customer communication, community creation and customer analytics. The platform is potentially ideal for regional businesses and is scalable to be effective for marketing programs capable of reaching from hundreds up to hundreds of thousands of customers.

Early users of CMCM include restaurant and retail franchises, hospitality environments, entertainment venues and the advertising agencies that serve these businesses.

CMCM campaign tools include text for info, text-to-win contests, mobile couponing, question services for customer polling and entertainment, one-to-one communication such as appointment reminders and auto responder texts. Other tools help clients administer programs and comply with spam guidelines and include a Web widget with which customers can enter mobile information on a business’ website, subscription management features and a dashboard for campaign tracking and analysis and reporting.

The CMCM platform can be accessed from any Web browser and provides simple, straightforward setup and operation.

“With 85 percent of the American population owning a cell phone, mobile marketing is the best way for small and medium businesses to reach today’s on-the-move customer,” says Clickatell CTO Bill Wolfe. “Clickatell’s Mobile Campaign Manager brings the universality, immediacy and flexibility of SMS to every regional business in an easy-to-use, customizable package.”

CMCM uses a 5-digit U.S. short-code origination address to send text messages to U.S. mobile phone numbers. SMS and mobile marketing guideline compliance is built into the product, with systematic safeguards against spamming, including a double opt-in feature, help and managed stop features.

The platform is available now with a promotional price of $199 for the first three months with SMS beginning at $0.02 per outbound message. Visit Clickatell for more information.

Android Owns 60 Percent of Mobile Market Share

Linc Wonham — Tue, 06 Mar 2012 15:00:00 GMT

In its newly released MobileSTAT report, mobile advertising network Jumptap reveals that Android and iOS together make up 91 percent of the mobile operating systems (OS) market.

Based on data from the Jumptap network of more than 95 million monthly users, both operating systems reached new heights in January 2012. Android hit 58.8 percent and iOS reached 32.2 percent market share, respectively.

Blackberry, on the other hand, sunk to a record low of 6.7 percent. The data supports Nielsen’s recent report that showed 89 percent of smartphones that were acquired in Q4 2011 were Android or iOS, and only 6 percent were Blackberry.

“With Google activating 850,000 mobile devices daily, it’s no surprise that Android has continued to outpace every other OS on the market,” says Jumptap chief marketing officer Paran Johar. “What advertisers should take away from this data is the importance of advertising cross-platform. Both the Android and iOS operating systems continue to grow while the remaining competitors represent only a fraction of the market."

Additional findings in the new report include the following:

• Exponential Tablet Growth: The launch of the Kindle Fire has helped fuel exponential tablet growth in the last few months. Overall tablet traffic on the Jumptap network has increased over 50 percent since December 2011. In that same time period, Kindle Fire has grown from holding a 4 percent share of tablet traffic to a 33 percent share. Jumptap predicts that 2012 will be a year of heavy competition between the iPad3 – launching in March – the Kindle Fire, and other low-cost tablets.

• Mobile Devices of CES Attendees: The largest consumer electronics show in the world, CES, brought hundreds of the best and brightest in tech to Las Vegas -- and with them, their mobile devices. In analyzing the types of devices used in Las Vegas during the event vs. devices normally used in the area, the Jumptap February MobileSTAT found that Apple and Blackberry made the strongest showing. Additionally, iPad traffic increased 100 percent and Blackberry traffic increased 111 percent during the show. To no surprise, the report also found that tech-focused CES attendees were less likely to use feature phones as compared to Las Vegas locals.

• Politics is Mobile: Political candidates aren’t the only ones using mobile for the primaries. Mobile users in South Carolina took to their phones to check results of the state’s primary election on January 21. Significant spikes on the Jumptap network ‘News Channel’ occurred on the day of the primary resulting in a 35 percent increase in traffic at 7 p.m. ET when the polls closed, and a 40 percent spike at 10 p.m. when results were announced.

MobileSTAT (Simple Targeting & Audience Trends) is a monthly view of the top targeting and audience trends in mobile advertising. The results are derived from large quantities of network data to identify targeting and audience trends.

Weekend Warriors: 7 Steps to Successful QR Codes

Linc Wonham — Sat, 03 Mar 2012 16:30:00 GMT

QR Codes have become the new marketing piece for businesses and their brands. The awareness of a QR Code is becoming more evident than ever; you can see QR Codes on billboards, magazines, television commercials – even on houses.

The beauty of the QR Code is the interaction with the mobile phone. Scanning a QR Code offer is like a box of assorted chocolates, never knowing what you will get next. That’s why we recommend that to maximize scan rates, you should tell the customer what they will receive.

With the increasing growth of QR Codes, businesses need to find a way to increase the number of scans and stand out from the crowd. QR Codes can often be associated to the Ugly Duckling in product placement. The black and white barcode does not match up to social media logos from Facebook and Twitter. Many may look at the QR Code and are unaware of what they are scanning. This is due to the lack of branding and direction.

How do we improve our QR Code Campaigns? Here are seven tips to help maximize success:

1. Use a QR Code Expert
QR Codes are extremely fragile and can be broken when adjusting sizes. Using a professional graphic designer will set up your campaign for the best possible success with a QR Code. Please note that creating a code can require much more than a free online generator might have to offer.

2. Tracking and Analytics
It is always good to know the success of your QR Code by the numbers. Using sites like bit.ly, you know the number of scans your QR Code receives by the minute. With tracking sites, you will be able to find the stats of each code scanned and hope to build on future campaigns. If you are using a mobile site with your QR Code, you should also track these pages with Google Analytics to help manage future success.

3. Call to Action
Letting your users know what they are getting can increase your scan rate tremendously. QR Codes are like Christmas presents; we want to be excited when we open them. Give your fans a hint to what will be inside. For example: “Scan to Win”, “Scan for Exclusive Content”, “Scan to like”. Giving these clues will hopefully attract the user before scanning.

4. Other Forms of Entry
Not everyone knows how to scan a QR Code. Using an alternate point of entry will help your campaign in succeeding its goal. Sites like 84444.com offer text message marketing campaigns that pair perfectly with QR Codes. Here is an example on how to incorporate text message marketing into your call to action: “Scan the Code or text “Promos” to “84444”.

5. Add Branding and Color
Standing out among a crowd can be difficult, especially in the realm of QR Codes. By branding your QR Code with both logos and colors, your code will shine. Would you prefer your television picture in black and white or full color? Taking this measure can be difficult and it is recommended to use a professional QR Code designer for the best possible scan rate.

6. Mobile Landing
Have you ever seen a movie that had an amazing preview, but the end result was dissatisfying? If you give the user a clever QR Code or incentive to scan, be sure your result is MOBILE optimized. If your site is not mobile, your fan will have a terrible experience. Add social media links, incentives to win, and don’t forget mobilized contact information (a great way to generate leads!).

7. Testing, Testing and Testing
The final and most important step in a QR Code campaign is testing your end result. Before sending to print or any sort of live campaign, please be sure to thoroughly test your QR Code. Every smartphone device as well as scanner applications give different results (based on error). This means you should test your QR Code on at least one iPhone, Android and Blackberry device. It is recommend you also use at least two different QR Code applications to test these codes. The last thing you want to see is your campaign fail due to lack of testing.

If a user decides to scan your QR Code, they are interested in your product or what you have to offer; and this is exactly why you need to ultimately satisfy them. Going low budget on a QR Code campaign is possible, but will also limit your success.

Lack of experience may also hurt your chances of a successful campaign, which is why it is recommended to use experts. If you incorporate all of the above in your next promotion, you will be rewarded with a captivating QR Code Campaign.

About the author: Frank Mazza is the mobile developer and QR Code expert for mobile marketing firm Advanced Telecom Services (ATS), which has developed Custom QR Codes and mobile Web campaigns for clients such as Polo Ralph Lauren, CNN, Subway, Sprint, Garnier, Comcast, USL Lacrosse and the National Football League. See some of ATS’ unique QR Codes here.

Solving the Mysteries of Mobile Marketing

Linc Wonham — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 18:30:00 GMT

The explosion of smartphones and tablet devices is challenging Web marketers who are tasked with effectively translating user experience (UX) from the desktop to mobile applications and mobile websites.

For developers, the challenge is equally difficult. Simply sizing down an existing website to work in a mobile environment isn’t a mobile strategy. Desktop websites are designed for desktop users —and mobile users have different needs.

Resizing a website for mobile use can alienate users. Even worse, it opens the door for competitors to take market share by leveraging the value that mobility offers with a better user experience.

It’s critical to get UX right. Whether it’s an application or a mobile website, mobile services can offer a serious boost to brand penetration and e-commerce. Each sets the stage to help increase competitiveness, customer loyalty, quality analytics and targeted promotions.

It’s not just about knowing what you can do; it’s about understanding what you should do to make an exceptional user experience. Great experiences define the perception of your business, and early investments in quality UX can improve productivity, reduce costs and increase sales in the long run. The ROI on UX is undisputable.

To ensure the most effective user experience, marketers and UX designers need to work together. But marketing executives often overlook key ways to provide insight and direction to UX designers for defining the right user experience. Three considerations for guiding UX are at the top of the list:

•    Are business objectives clearly defined? Speed-to-market is important, but it is equally important to set the business objectives and mobile strategy before development begins. This will save time and money in the long run.
•    How important is e-commerce to your business? Shoppers typically use applications for purchases because it’s easier to make purchases with a mobile application than on a mobile website.
•    Is there adequate investment in discovery and UX design? Without it, ROI and competitive edge could be at risk.

It’s also important to take time to learn what mobile buyers want. Early investments in a high-quality UX can often make or break the mobile effort. Marketing executives should work with their Web development teams to answer basic questions before starting the development of a mobile experience.

•    What is the demographic breakdown of your customer base?
•    How can UX be used to distinguish your brand from competitors?
•    What do potential customers want to achieve when mobile?
•    What mobile features must be included to establish brand loyalty?
•    What is the customers’ ideal workflow? How will they navigate through the experience?
•    What is your plan for online data? How can you use analytics to improve your business?

Once the basics are understood, the work of UX design can begin.

Design for the Experience
Websites and applications are used in inherently different ways. Consider how content is used in each environment. A traditional website content model does not apply to mobile user experience design because mobile users are different than desktop users. The goal is to create a great a mobile experience.

Early mobile efforts often miniaturized the Web experience for mobile, but brands often can’t make the full breadth of their Web content easily viewed on mobile devices. Mobile websites and applications need to offer content that is relevant to a user on-the-go with great functionality and features. If a content-rich experience is needed, a smart mobile strategy is to simply drive users to a desktop website for more in-depth content.

Solve Interaction Mechanism Riddles
Solving interaction mechanism riddles begins with answering the right questions.

• How will you adapt your design for natural user interface and touch navigation on a smartphone?
• Are there features and capabilities in a smartphone that could be applied to your mobile experience, such as voice recognition, cameras, and back buttons?

There are a number of ways to craft a UX that takes advantage of the unique characteristics of a smartphone, and there’s no one recipe for success. It’s critical to consider the device and the interactions between the application and the hardware when designing a successful UX.

App or Mobile Website?
Although mobile applications and websites are delivered on the same devices, they aren’t the same. The marketing world is abuzz with the proliferation of mobile apps, but it’s important to be aware that a brand can give its customers a great mobile experience with a mobile website, too.

Although there has been a spike in applications in the market, the fact is that users visit mobile websites more than they download applications. There are important considerations when deciding whether you need a mobile website or application.

As a marketer, it’s important to avoid the hype and temptation to build a mobile app for your brand without also considering the advantages of a mobile website. Here are some critical issues to help in making the right decision for your brand:

Advantages of a mobile website:

•    Runs on any mobile browser
•    Updates appear on users’ devices automatically
•    Available to all Web-enabled devices and platforms
•    No approval required by a third party
•    More people use the mobile Web than use apps
•    HTML5 and CSS3 will make available many of the cool features of apps such as geolocation, offline Web app support, gesture support and the ability to access video and audio.
•    A well-built mobile website can be supported across multiple platforms, saving development costs.

Advantages of a mobile application:

•    Users spend more time with an individual app compared with the browser, and they return more often once the app is installed.
•    Premier placement in the app marketplace will lead customers to your app.
•    The user interface is designed for the platform and form factor on which it will be used.
•    Can use native phone functionality, such as the camera, gyroscope, offline usage, location/GPS, push notifications and voice recognition
•    E-commerce considerations: It’s easier to bill back to a central marketplace, like iTunes, with mobile applications.

Get in the Mobile Game
More users are going mobile with smartphones every day, and the demand for untethered access to brand content shows no signs of slowing.

Just as mobile services can uplift brands, sales figures and competitiveness, poorly executed user experiences can erode brand loyalty and result in lost revenue.

“The best advice I can give a company that wants to launch a mobile offering,” says Andrew Martin, vice president of global digital marketing agency Metia, “is to fully integrate the mobile plan of attack into the overall marketing strategy. It’s Marketing 101 — know your users and how to serve them.”

The most important consideration is the experience you're creating for your customer. Is the purpose to make it easier to transact business? To share your marketing message? To gain exposure for your brand? To support your customer? If you don’t have a world-class experience on your mobile website, start there. If you do, look for ways to improve it, or consider investing in a custom application.

About the Author: Cassandra St. Louis is the creative director for Metia/Seattle, where she leads a team of designers and user experience developers. She is an expert in mobile application UX, gaming, user interface and visual design. Metia/Seattle is the North American headquarters of global agency Metia Group, with headquarters in London and offices in New York and Singapore.

Are Businesses Drinking the Social Media Kool-Aid?

Mike Phillips — Fri, 05 Feb 2010 21:30:00 GMT

E-mail marketing firm Exact Target, in conjunction with Econsultancy, has released results of a report on digital marketing budgets that shines some light on what businesses are planning to do this year - and not do. What's very interesting (and alarming) is that many companies have decided to spend their budgets on some marketing channels somewhat blindly.

The survey included data from more than 1,000 respondents in December 2009 and January 2010. Of those, 648 are client-side organizations, and 385 are agency/supplier-side, both from the US (45 percent) and the UK (33 percent).

When asked about their planned marketing spend on social media for 2010, 70 percent of respondents said they would increase spend on off-site social media (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) while 64 percent said they would increase spend on on-site social media (blogs, or ratings and reviews). Also, 56 percent say they will increase spend on mobile marketing. At the same time, just 54 percent said they would increase spend on e-mail marketing.

But when asked about measurable ROI for these channels, respondents appear to be rolling the dice. In terms of ability to measure, just 19 percent of respondents say that measurability is "good" for on-site social media and 17 percent for off-site. As far as mobile marketing, just 17 percent say that measurable ROI is "good." That's in stark contrast to e-mail marketing, where more than 50 percent say measurability is "good."

It would appear that measurable ROI is much higher for a proven channel like e-mail and significantly less than social media or mobile. Either these businesses are measuring social media and mobile through unseen means, or they're drinking the social media Kool-Aid.

Does this fall in line with your marketing budgets for 2010? Please leave a comment below and tell us if you're on the bandwagon, or sticking with what's worked in the past?

And don't miss Website Magazine's upcoming April 2010 issue, where we address concrete strategies for e-mail marketing.

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BlackBerry Still Dominates Smartphone Market

Mike Phillips — Tue, 05 Jan 2010 19:07:00 GMT

A recent report by ComScore shows that, while the iPhone gets all the press, BlackBerry remains the smartphone leader. December data shows that BlackBerry commands 40 percent market share, compared to iPhone's 25 percent. And that number does not appear that it will change in the near future. In a survey, ComScore found that shoppers of smartphones will be purchasing more BlackBerrys (51 percent) than iPhones (20 percent). At the bottom of the pack is T-Mobile's MyTouch (5 percent), Palm Pre (2 percent) and Palm Centro (1 percent).

For Web professionals, this is something worth noting. iPhones are slick, but the raw numbers show that the "pedestrian" BlackBerry is much more widely used. This has plenty to do with the number of businesses and employees using BlackBerrys. That means when planning your mobile strategy for 2010, don't get hung up on the iPhone. Make sure your mobile marketing is aimed across all available mobile devices and that your campaigns will render on every screen, not just the iPhone. For example, perhaps a big-budget app for the iPhone can wait, instead focusing on mobile campaigns like SMS coupons or something as simple as email geared toward reading on a mobile device. After all, the smartphone (and BlackBerry's dominance) is still centered around communication and connectivity.

The coming release of Google's phone should make these numbers even more interesting later in 2010. ComScore reports that 17 percent of consumers plan to buy an Android-supported smartphone in the next three months. With the abundance of devices capable of running Android, this is furtner proof that the iPhone should not be the sole, or even majority focus of mobile marketing.

In light of all of this is a very interesting bit of information for mobile Web developers. iPhone users and Android users interact with mobile media at a stronger clip (94 and 92 percent, respectively) than average smartphone users, including BlackBerry (80 percent).

This is going to be a big year for mobile. Keep an eye out for data like this to ensure you are aiming at the largest possible target.

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Ready for a Mobile (Advertising) Storm?

Pete Prestipino — Tue, 25 Aug 2009 18:27:00 GMT

A report from Juniper Research has found that growing consumer adoption of mobile Internet services and heightened brand engagement with mobile services will be reflected in a sharp increase in expenditure on mobile Internet advertising. How much of an increase? According to the report, ad spend on the mobile Internet will reach $500 million globally in 2009 and rise to nearly $2 billion per year by 2014.

The catalyst for all this future spending is of course the technology which will enable companies to spend that $2 billion, but how accessible are specific programs for marketers. Case in point, mobileStorm, yesterday announced its new “Go” and “Pro” product packages for online marketers needing email and SMS marketing solutions.

mobileStorm Go allows for the quick setup and delivery of mobile and email campaigns and features personalized support for every client (with a real, U.S.-based representative), 24/7 Web-based access to the mobileStorm Go platform with email and SMS marketing channels, and a reporting system with full export capabilities. mobileStorm Go also offers APIs, an Event Manager and on-demand campaign management services.

mobileStorm Pro takes marketers to another level entirely by adding dedicated account management personnel to manage the system and campaigns, including marketing channels like RSS, Voice, Fax and Video, Database Management, extended reporting, and full integration services with APIs.

Stay up to date on the latest Internet trends:
Request a professional subscription to Website Magazine,
the most popular print publication on Web success.

Mobile Market; Reseller Opp for Agencies

MaureenA — Wed, 08 Apr 2009 23:26:00 GMT

Last week Website Magazine reported on research from The Nielsen Company that noted 71 percent of survey respondents said they plan to use the mobile Web over the next two years. There remains a lot of disagreement on what the "mobile Web" truly means, but it does present an exciting opportunity for agencies that see the potential in mobile marketing.

While there are few agencies specializing solely in mobile marketing at the moment, there are many companies out there aiding in its development. TxtImpact, a provider of mobile solutions since 2002, is one such provider. The company just announced the launch of a white-label reseller mobile marketing platform for agencies this week. For agencies that want to add some additional new media offerings, this might just be right.

With the ability to administer mobile marketing campaigns and track the effectiveness for clients, agencies could be poised nicely to help satisfy the lofty goals expected for the mobile Web. Plans for the white-label program range based on usage and depth of customization, but start at $299 per month. This level would allow agencies to create up to 10 campaigns, and take advantage of TxtImpact's suite of business marketing tools including text alerts, text polls, text trivia, text info on demand, and mobile ringtones.

Would you use a white-label marketing platform or would you want it developed and operated completely in-house?