Mobile Phones Become Mobile Wallets?

May 31, 2011 by · 1 Comment
Filed under: Marketing Strategy 

Today consumers have a few options but with the new technologies like global positioning and data Internet downloads at the speed of sound…. new opportunities are arriving.

On a smartphone

users can input credit card data much as they do on the Web. They can also buy apps via Apple’s or Google’s app stores. Or in some instances, they can use “carrier billing” to make purchases that will later be added on to a mobile phone bill.

Ching, Ching, Ching

But a relatively new technology (a few months old) and some interesting new Websites present the capability to turn smartphones into easy-to-use payment machines. The addition of e-commerce to the mobile marketing equation may provide big benefits to marketers—even b2b marketers that often trade in bigger-ticket purchases.

Money in those chips

NFC chips embedded in mobile devices—and they will be coming to a mobile phone near you soon—make conducting a variety of e-commerce transactions, from making payments to mobile ticketing, as easy as waving a phone through the air.

Google is one player that has been trying to jump-start the NFC market. The search giant embedded radio chips in its Google Nexus S device. It also plans NFC support in future versions of its Android platform and is expected to begin NFC trials in New York and San Francisco soon.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt talked about the potential of the technology at a recent trade show, describing the power to “combine an ad and an offer, presumably at the point of sale.” In this formulation, there appears to be an opportunity for mobile devices to become conduits for point-of-purchase advertising messages.

While Google is big in the NFC technology, Apple has played in it. The company has hinted that NFC may find its way into its upcoming iPhone 5.

Mobile financial services vendor Tyfone delivered one of the industry’s first NFC banking solutions. The company aims to sell the product to banks and other financial services companies as a turnkey mobile payments solution. And in France, a startup called Think & Go is experimenting with NFC-enabled shopping applications.

While b2b applications have yet to emerge, business users are already heavily dependent on their smartphones. It is not difficult to imagine b2b marketers using NFC to enable instant payments on trade show floors or for “bumping” information between users in meetings.

There’s a lot at stake with mobile payments. Juniper Research estimates the mobile payment market will reach about $630 billion worldwide by 2014. Wilcox predicts 20% of mobile phones will be NFC-enabled in the next three years.

The next question turns to the other side of the transaction equation. Will merchants and businesses—perhaps enabled by payment players like Verifone or Mastercard—have platforms capable of accepting NFC payments in that same time frame?

*Quotes from Business to Business Magazine Rich Karpinski
Allow me to help you implement your next strategic marketing plan focused on your niche. I will make the most of what you already have by analyzing your biggest strengths and exploiting your competition.

Timothy Little – Direct Marketing Consultant

Tim Little
1 (888) 889-0552

Service Description

Let me use my researched methods that have been proven to work, implementation know-how, and optimization expertise to boost your company’s marketing ROI and sales performance.

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    Mobile Phone Marketing

    May 25, 2011 by · 1 Comment
    Filed under: Direct Marketing Strategy 

    Near field communications

    This is when NFC chips embedded in mobile devices make conducting a variety of e-commerce transactions, from making payments to mobile ticketing, as easy as waving a phone through the air.

    Many direct marketing researchers today believe that the cell phone will become much more than a wallet. It will contain coupons, loyalty cards and enable you to download information on products to smartphones.”

    Google is the player

    and they have been trying to jump-start the NFC market. The search giant embedded radio chips in its Google Nexus S device. Google also plans NFC support in future versions of its Android platform and is expected to begin NFC trials in New York and San Francisco soon.

    The CEO of Google

    mentioned that in this formulation, there appears to be an opportunity for mobile devices to become conduits for point-of-purchase advertising messages. He is saying that you will use your cell phone like

    Decisions by Apple and Google on NFC will help decide the fate of this new technology. Meanwhile, Amazon, Microsoft, Nokia, Sprint and others are rumored to be eyeing NFC payments as well.

    Even in these early stages, some companies are beginning to experiment with the technology.

    Business to Business direct marketers are not players yet but, business users are already heavily dependent on their smartphones. It is not difficult to imagine b2b marketers using NFC to enable instant payments on trade show floors or for “bumping” information between users in meetings.

    There’s a lot at stake with mobile payments. Juniper Research estimates the mobile payment market will reach about $630 billion worldwide by 2014. Wilcox predicts 20% of mobile phones will be NFC-enabled in the next three years.

    The next question turns to the other side of the transaction equation. Will merchants and businesses—perhaps enabled by payment players like Verifone or Mastercard—have platforms capable of accepting NFC payments in that same time frame?

    Another roadblock may have emerged as mobile marketing and payments speed down the road to reality. Concerns about privacy practices by mobile players such as Apple and Google could send mobile marketing and payments on a detour.

    A Senate subcommittee

    talking about technology privacy issues has called the two companies to Washington, D.C., to testify at a May 10 hearing to discuss mobile privacy concerns. Meanwhile, a similar House committee sent out letters to companies involved in this area, requesting additional information.

    The issue flared up following news that Apple and Google track and store a user’s location and other personal data on mobile devices. It’s hardly surprising they would do so: Such information represents the lifeblood of the emerging mobile and local advertising industry, which is attempting, for instance, to serve targeted ads based precisely on a user’s street location.Allow me to help you implement your next strategic marketing plan focused on your niche. I will make the most of what you already have by analyzing your biggest strengths and exploiting your competition.

    Timothy Little – Direct Marketing Consultant

    Tim Little
    1 (888) 889-0552

    Service Description

    Let me use my researched methods that have been proven to work, implementation know-how, and optimization expertise to boost your company’s marketing ROI and sales performance.

    EXPERTISE<

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    Local Mobile Marketing

    May 17, 2011 by · 1 Comment
    Filed under: Marketing Strategy 

    Trying to Understand the Local Mobile Market?

    It is a fact that 80% of your local business comes from people who live or work five miles from your location.

    Many other forms of advertising are decreasing in response including telephone directory advertising – since no one uses anymore everyone is accessing from their smart phones or home or office Internet.
    Newspapers – circulation is declining since most people under 50 get their news from the Internet

    Print ads The high cost for printing and long turn around time and low response.

    E-mail list – lower response, high costs and spam filters are lowering popularity.

    TV– everyone hates commercials and cable is much more popular than networks

    Having a Google Places account just become more important – Place search results will begin appearing automatically on Google when they predict you’re looking for local information and you will find a new link for places in the left hand search page.

    The new enhanced listings

    –Will have more information than typical organic results.

    –They sometimes have pictures

    –They sometimes show reviews

    –They are linked to directions and maps

    –In many cases they are above organic rankings.

    20% of the searches on Google are related to locations as maps become the new yellow pages.

    Maps are Mobile

    –The winner will be Google in mobiles, Yahoo/Bing search alliance and Microsoft is in competition with Google.

    –Google has been involved with the development of smart phones.

    Google local is now Google Place Search

    Google has been aggregating local information from the Yellow Pages and reviews from sites like City search and Yelp.

    –Only 2% of those listings have been claimed by businesses in the US and Google is giving away a page on its site. This mean your clients do not have a website to be on the top of search locally.

    This is how to get to the top and stay there

    –Claim place page

    –Have places page complete

    –Picture, Video’s, coupons

    –Citations

    –Reviews

    If you do all of these things in your business today you will be better than 95% of the local businesses out there and the competitive advantage you will have in your market with little to no cost to you. Allow me to help you implement your next strategic marketing plan focused on your niche. I will make the most of what you already have by analyzing your biggest strengths and exploiting your competition.

    Timothy Little – Direct Marketing Consultant

    Tim Little
    1 (888) 889-0552

    Service Description

    Let me use my researched methods that have been proven to work, implementation know-how, and optimization expertise to boost your company’s marketing ROI and sales performance.

    EXPERTISE

    • Ability to perform all list brokerage duties for clients, including providing thorough list research and recommendations
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    Metrics to Measure Sales and Marketing

    May 10, 2011 by · 1 Comment
    Filed under: Marketing Strategy 

    Measure your Sales and Marketing

    Direct marketing is about being accountable and transparent. You do this by always testing, always improving your control program. The fusion of Sales with Marketing is new, this is because management wants to understand the productivity of each stage, status of key activities, and the emerging issues they need to worry about.

    In managing the revenue cycle, and by default sales and marketing alignment, visibility is critical to helping them temper their instinctive response to the deluge of daily email, phone calls and meetings.

    Direct marketers have known for a long time and are already familiar with, namely KPIs. With the right set of metrics, CEOs can better understand marketing’s effectiveness as well as the impact alignment has on the top- and bottom-line. While there are literally hundreds of sales and marketing metrics that can be used; it comes down to a few that measure alignment and frame that all-too critical joint conversation with sales and marketing about what’s working and what isn’t.

    Making customer metrics real


    Here are a few examples of metrics that both management : End-to-End Conversion, Revenue Diversity and Outcome Profitability.

    End-to-End Conversion Metric

    measures the conversion ratio for the full revenue cycle well as for each of the major stages – from market attraction through sales close and customer lifetime value. Benchmarked over time this metric highlights leakages and inefficiencies between stages, sales and marketing, and enables more accurate forecasting and target performance setting. Aligned organizations tend to have stable conversion ratios and use this metric to discuss how to improve the ratios between the stages and overall.

    Revenue Diversity Metric

    measures the productivity of lead generation. There are hundreds of lead sources like the web, direct mail, physical and virtual events, email, cold calls, eCommerce, other distribution channels, etc. This metric provides visibility into how broadly and efficiently marketing reaches target prospects, which lead sources are most productive and how effective sales converts them into revenue. Aligned organizations manage their revenue sources using portfolio management techniques to balance the diversity of lead channels. The key is to invest eighty percent of resources into high productive lead generation sources. The remaining twenty percent should be consistently invested in a wide and ever changing range of new channels.

    Outcome Profitability Metric

    is applicable to companies that sell complex products or solutions. Since not every sale can have four walls and a roof where the buyer only cares about comparing product features; complex solutions need to link the buyer’s desired outcome, which is often role-based. Used in conjunction with customer-centric methodologies, this metric measures profit attributable to each specific business problem or “outcome” sold to. While this approach is counter to how revenue is typically analyzed, which is by product lines, it gives the CEO great visibility into how well sales and marketing understand the buyers, their business problems and how effective they are in pursuing those opportunities.
    Direct response accountability is the competitive edge that drives direct marketing success. Measurability of each direct mail response helps small direct marketers analyze the cost per response with list coding and to calculate expenses to the cent. Budgets can be forecasted with greater accuracy. I can teach you how to update your promotions both online and off.

    My professional direct marketing experience

    began in magazine circulation management from this I honed my skills in list purchasing, testing, and analyzing.

    I learned the importance of direct response planning and budget forecasting and most importantly, providing a follow-up with back-end analysis, fulfillment of orders and inquiries. I also gained some valuable job experience with Jackson National Life Insurance as Marketing Database/Direct Mail area.

    Allow me to help you implement your next strategic marketing plan focused on your niche. I will make the most of what you already have by analyzing your biggest strengths and exploiting your competition.

    Timothy Little – Direct Marketing Consultant

    Tim Little
    1 (888) 889-0552

    Service Description

    Let me use my researched methods that have been proven to work, implementation know-how, and optimization expertise to boost your company’s marketing ROI and sales performance.

    EXPERTISE

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      Coupon Marketing Is Hot!

      May 4, 2011 by · 2 Comments
      Filed under: Direct Marketing Mailing 

      Customers today are more value-conscious now than ever before because of the poor economy and the Internet.

      The popularity of online couponing…

      was recently confirmed in a shopper behavior survey by NCH, a global promotional marketing corporation owned by Valassis. The study’s highlights included the following:

      More than 88 percent of consumers reported planning their shopping lists with coupons, up 10 percentage points from the pre-recession level.

      Thirty percent reported using more coupons today than in the prior year.

      Nearly one in three consumers reported being more careful about their coupons to the store.

      On Monday it was announced that CouponNetwork.com, a website designed to help a fast-growing crowd of savings-focused shoppers connect with their favorite grocery brands and retailers online was launched.

      In addition to regular printable coupons, Coupon Network is the exclusive online for YourBucks rewards are coupons for dollars off anything in the store.

      About Groupon

      YourBucks rewards

      can be used to purchase anything in the store, there not subject to minimums or restrictions you can simply redeem a $2 YouBucks for a $2 item. This is exciting to shoppers because they can use them to save money on categories for coupons aren’t normally available like produce, meat and local products.

      YourBucks coupons are printed on the cashier checkout when you buy groceries and the shopper tells merchants exactly what they want. The launch of CouponNetwork.com is the direct result of feedback from the online couponing community.

      The new launch of these Websites is the direct result of shoppers telling merchants what they want. Customers are more value conscious now than ever. YourBucks provide them with the extra savings they are looking for, especially in the poor economy.

      Facebook became the latest participant in the daily deals marketplace on April 26, according to a company blog post.

      Users of the social network

      can find deals by signing up for emails and notification updates. Consumers can also browse the deals tab of their individual home pages. And, of course, users can share deals with friends by posting purchased deals to their news feeds.

      Allow me to help you implement

      your next strategic marketing plan focused on your niche. I will make the most of what you already have by analyzing your biggest strengths and exploiting your competition.

      Timothy Little – Direct Marketing Consultant

      Tim Little
      1 (888) 889-0552

      Service Description

      Let me use my researched methods that have been proven to work, implementation know-how, and optimization expertise to boost your company’s marketing ROI and sales performance.

    • Ability to perform all list brokerage duties for clients, including providing thorough list research and recommendations
    • Back-end analysis, marketing metrics Google Analytics, Market Samuria generates revenue & interest via email marketing, SEO, SEM and social media
    • Can target local business landing pages on Twitter, Facebook, Google Places, Google AdWords and other social networks and track results from coupon offers
    • Accelerates sales by tying email campaign and website tracking to CRM system.

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      • Coupon marketing tips – Free Internet marketing resources, web site development tutorials, ecommerce strategies highlightmenu(event,’on’)” onMouseout=”highlightmenu(event,’off’);dynamichide(event)”> | Web Marketing » | Ecommerce » | Web Development » | Misc. Internet marketing whereas overall Internet traffic growth was only 5% during the same period. The availability of a coupon can really make or break a sale.

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