Mobile: Marketing "Cycle" Replaces "Funnel" - Paradigm Shift

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

---

Has the marked increase in the prevalence of mobile marketing begun to displace the traditional sales funnel with something more like an iterative sales cycle? To some extent (yet to be determined) it has. If you are a smart business person, you will apply this knowledge to your optimal use. If you normally read The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog, you must be an early adopter, lest you be tossed off of my guest list for the annual Caribbean get together [which does not really exist].

I received the following information on a news briefing from the American Press Institute in one of their June mailings:

OFFBEAT
Mobile has made customers' shopping pattern an iterative rather than a serial process (Harvard Business Review)

With the rise of mobile devices, the traditional sales funnel is no longer applicable and is being replaced by a “shopping life cycle” because “consumers no longer go shopping, they always are shopping.” Similarly in media, a single delivery channel and time for news has been replaced by a personal cycle of news where readers are piqued by a topic, then explore various channels when most convenient for them.
---------------
Following are some additional bits of information which tend to support this shift in marketing habits (consumerism) which much be met with changes in marketing tactics, marketing strategy and the media mix expenditure and market expertise focus and  allocation.

+  Local mobile advertising expected to double in2013 (NetNewsCheck)

+ Media consumption in the future will be about simultaneous usage of multiple screens by consumers (MediaPost)

+ Choose a mobile strategy based on the quality of experiences and frequency of experiences (Harvard Business Review)

----------------
In my opinion as the writer of The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog and of The InfoSphere Business Alerts And Intelligence Blog, I feel that this paradigm shift is real, and will grow in its dominance. the "fix" for sellers of services and products will have to incorporate the following aspects in terms of focus, emphasis and technological fluidity:

1) You must be increasingly mobile-friendly or actually mobile-based to accommodate the increase in tablets and smartphones. Your wares must be presented in a way that is friendly to the viewers' collective eye, must be easily device navigable, and must have a simple means to purchase and pay (with the necessary verifications) seamlessly and simply;

2) You must emphasize and promote the notion of automatic re-ordering, as well as the availability of text reminders about reorders and about sales, special events and new product or service developments. The idea is for the viewer/ consumer to have "things" that are automatically renewed and charged without thought or effort (if the item or service is not tremendously expensive) in a classical but technologically -advanced auto-renewal fashion. If the items are expensive or change from month to month, you must provide the customer with A) alerts, and B) a fast form [based upon the retention of a customer credit and shipping profile] to make ordering a select and click process; and

3) You must incorporate a subscription model and double-opt-in methodology in order to serve proven or motivated customers or clients rather than rely upon the rapidly-self-extinguishing model of the number of website visits and the percentage of conversions to sales;

The future of the marketing funnel is to be able to gain "subscribers" who become clients rather than to obtain potential one-time purchasers.

A sociological comment might be in order here; you might seriously look at having Millennials and your consumers who are tech-savvy be a part of your marketing tactics and strategy team, your focus groups, and your design contingent for product or service delivery.

As always, thank you for reading me, and for sharing these articles with your connections, colleagues and even CLIENTS (!) across you various social media channels by using your ever-growing arsenal of social media sharing tools and technologies.

Douglas E. Castle

Sponsored By: 
CFI - CrowdFunding Incubator LLC 
ICS - International Connection Services 
Global Edge Technologies Group LLC 
CFI Business Growth
Douglas E. Castle On LinkedIn - Join Me! 

#MadMarketing

---

***








 

Related articles

• The Mobile Shopping Life Cycle (blogs.hbr.org)
• 3 Tips for Terrific Mobile Marketing (mobilemarketingwatch.com)
• 5 Tips to Define Your Sales Funnel for Success (nyreport.com)
• 50 Amazing Mobile Marketing Statistics That Will Move You To Action (business2community.com)
• Mobile is surest marketing route to millennials, experts say (smartbrief.com)
• Online sales funnel - from traditional funnels to sales webs (slideshare.net)
• Marketing - Too Giant A Field To Be Covered By One Game-Changer: Time To Include Other News And Other Views (madmarketingtactics.blogspot.com)
• Tablet Growth Exceeding SmartPhone Growth! (infospherebusinessalerts.blogspot.com)
• Content Marketing: The Most Misused Marketing Term (business2community.com)
• North American mobile ad sales more than doubled last year (smartbrief.com)

Best SMS Marketing Strategy: 3 Steps.

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

---

The fastest way to get your message, alert or poll out to the greatest number of individuals, and be assured the highest possible participation ("opening" or "response" rate) is to utilize SMS - simple text messaging from your company to each of your company's followers, subscribers or fans. It's amazingly powerful as it takes advantage of the every-present mobile device as your outlet, and the natural impulse (behavioral psychology) of the recipients to respond. We are dealing with a world of texters, and when one is sent a brief text (a "texticle" -- which is a Lingovation I enjoy) the sense of immediacy and urgency are completely impulsive. Pavlov, himself, would be salivating over this marketing approach.



1. GET YOUR OWN SMS SHORT CODE, OR GET A SHARED ONE

Every day, Americans alone send over 5 billion text messages. To help your company capitalize on this trend (whether it's a startup or an established organization looking for better, more spontaneous and pervasive marketing), Neustar’s solutions power the Common Short Codes Administration, the place to start when planning a text marketing campaign. By the way "CSC" stands for "Common Short Code."

There are three easy steps to obtain your own CSC. First, from the CSCA website search for the short code you want. If you don’t need a specific code, the system will assign one randomly. Next, apply for your code by submitting the necessary registration data. Once approved and paid for, your CSC is assigned to you for an assigned period. No one else can lease your code for the duration of your contract.

Once you’ve leased your SMS Short Code, it’s time to implement it. Visit the CSCA website for complete details.

Note: You may be surprise that the cost associated with leasing your very own dedicated short code can range from $500.00 to $1,000 per month. You may wish to offset the cost of having a code by forming an alliance with several other companies and spreading the cost of the lease over the members of the alliance.

If you do not wish to engage in putting this type of partnership together, there are a number of text messaging services providers which have already leased one or more short codes (usually numerical, although some can be translated from numbers into words) and can make their numbers available to you for a greatly reduced fee (either because of a large number of parties using the code, or because of some advertising which will be co-promoted in some way with your SMS messages).

If you'd like to save some money just to get started, the following quick report may be helpful for you:

Best Texting Solutions: Subscribe, Purchase, Polling Or Responding

An Exploration Of Possibilities

Memorial Day, 2013

The CFI Group Of Companies

Douglas E. Castle

So What Is “Subscribe, Purchase, Polling Or Responding Via Text”?

While many of your prospective customers will not always be carrying or in close proximity to their PCs, Notebooks or other “computer baggage,” they are highly likely to be carrying their smartphones or other similarly empowered mobile devices (i.e., tablets and the like) with them. If you are advertising, publicizing or promoting any type of product, service or membership opportunity, even if you are using the currently fashionable QR Codes, you will need to offer these prospects the opportunity to subscribe or purchase via text, which is still the most popular mode of communication amongst the ever-growing demographic (in terms of size and in terms of age range) of 18-year-olds to “50 somethings”. Texting is quick, comfortable and very simple. It also has the additional advantage of being accessible on smart phones that are technologically simple or somewhat outdated.

I am very much in favor of the simple approach of having the mobile device owner merely put a memorable series of numbers into his or her device, and then simply faxing either a word or a combination of letters. This approach also permits mini-questionnaires, polling, voting, contests and other types of very beneficial engagement and interaction. Going further, the results of these activities can be broadcast to the entire subscriber group, or sub-group, further generating the engagement, brand recognition, and the perception of user friendliness and involvement. It’s is a wonderful way to build up client or customer lists.

Best “Subscribe Or Purchase Via Text” Services at 05.27.2013

http://text-message-marketing-review.toptenreviews.com/  - This service is wonderful. It rates the “Top Ten” text message services provides across a variety of capabilities. If you’re in a rush now, just click on the above link, and come back at a more convenient time.

Pro Texting

http://www.protexting.com

Celly - They have a free version, and are very reasonably-priced, especially for educators.

http://www.protexting.com/

TXT180 - A bit pricey, but worth a look.

http://www.txt180.com/

Please do remember that all of the above (inclusive of  the "Top Ten" are shared services, where neither you nor your company have any ownership rights associated with the numerical Short Code, but you have, in substance, a license to use your own CODEWORD (in letters) for your subscribers to send to the Short Code. While this does not generally offer the same security, exclusivity and branding potential as owning your own Short Code (which can be expensive for a young business!), I believe that it provides all of the necessary functions -- your marketing, promotion and advertising specialists just have to be a bit more creative to maximize the mileage of your codeword, and in getting the maximum number of subscribers.

---------------

2. ATTRACT THE LARGEST POSSIBLE AUDIENCE, AND CONVERT THE GREATEST PERCENTAGE OF THEM INTO SUBSCRIBERS

Firstly, post the short code and your magical CODEWORD on all of your media, including websites, blogs, newsletters, email signatures, email campaigns -- one interesting addition might also be to show the QR Code of the message, like "Put 135711 into your mobile device, and then text the word DESPERATE in order to subscribe to all of our updates". In fact, the foregoing message translated to a QR Code would look (oh how cool!) like this:

If you scanned the above QR Code into your smartphone or mobile device, it would translate to the words in green above - except, for simplicity's sake, I created this code to present the words in plain black type.  

Go ahead. Try it with your iPhone or Droid. This nifty symbol would also work on a business card, a product label, a store sign, a sweat shirt, a coffee mug, or any advertising specialty or medium -- even on a roadside sign, a truck... the promotional possibilities are unlimited.

And the added advantage is that once the individual has "decoded" the little square, he or she has the numerical code and the key word (which you've chosen) right on his or her device, making the reaction impulsive or reflexive. The code also has the advantage of being photographed and decoded later.

I believe that QR codes make excellent email signatures, or newsletter emblems. Use them with great frequency, as they naturally lead the reader to act on the decoded instruction, and greatly increase your probability of acquiring subscribers.



3. USE YOUR FIRST OUTBOUND SMS MESSAGE TO CONFIRM THE SUBSCRIPTION, SAY "THANK YOU", OFFER A FREE BENEFIT OR GIFT AND ANNOUNCE A "BOUNTY" OR REWARD IF THESE SUBSCRIBERS BRING IN NEW SUBSCRIBERS.

While this last section is largely self-explanatory and in keeping with good marketing and customer service practices, don't forget [ If you're a Baby Boomer or some other assumed low-tech stereotype ] to leverage the technical advantage that exists for multiplexing your message by having new subscribers, customers or buyers simply send the QR Code or the decrypted message via text (more SMS!) to his or her circle of friends or acquaintances, adding yet another concentric circle outside of your core market and giving you more territory.

If you want to reward those wonderfully charismatic acolytes for their evangelism, you must create a way to track them as a source. One way to do this is to assign each individual a PERSONAL CODE (which you assign to them), and when newcomers sign up for registration, or to be customers, or for whatever reason, send them an SMS (or direct them to a very, very simple mobile-friendly form, which takes them back into your double opt-in email service registration loop -- such as MailChimp, AWeber, Constant Contact or whomever you use as a mail handler -- which requests only their email address, and the PERSONAL CODE of the person referring them for a free gift, premium, or special discount.
-------------

I've outlined three simple, sensible steps to a successful SMS marketing campaign. Once you've gotten everyone properly opted in for you newsletter (or whatever), you can alert them of specials, new product or service announcements, an occasional bit of humor, or anything which will keep your SMS messages, useful, interesting, and out of the realm of spam.

Dear Mad Marketing Tactics Blog Readers, Followers And Colleagues - Thank you for reading me, and for sharing me with your colleagues, connections and friends across the various social media platforms using the ever-increasing arsenal of social media sharing tools.

Douglas E. Castle

Sponsored By: 
CFI - CrowdFunding Incubator LLC 
ICS - International Connection Services 
Global Edge Technologies Group LLC 
CFI Business Growth
Douglas E. Castle On LinkedIn - Join Me! 

#MadMarketing

---

***








 

Related articles

• The Biggest Lie SMS Providers Tell Their Clients (mobilemarketingwatch.com)
• 5 Reasons Why SMS Marketing is Smart for Small Businesses (mobilemarketingwatch.com)
• PagerDuty SMS Alerts Now Sent Via Short Code (pagerduty.com)
• Kmart Making SMS Subscriber List a Higher Priority (mobilemarketingwatch.com)
• Salesforce.com acquiring cloud platform ExactTarget (smartbrief.com)
• Starbucks combines mobile message formats in multistage campaign (smartbrief.com)
• AMC Theatres uses concession discount to invite SMS signups (smartbrief.com)
• Twitter Introduces Two-Factor Login Verification For User Security (technorati.com)
• When Selecting an SMS Keyword, Don't Make This Mistake (tatango.com)
• Instant Messaging To Surpass 50 Billion Messages By 2014 (technorati.com)

Labeling For Marketing And Branding..."INFOTRATION"

Share this ARTICLE with your colleagues on LinkedIn .

---

This is truly a wonderful label - Douglas E. Castle

Using Labeling (on packages, inserts, follow-up mailers, alerts, updates, coupons, sweepstakes, referral bonuses, prize giveaways, boxtops, and the like) is an underutilized and understated marketing and branding tool. When using labeling for these purposes, we Mad Marketing Mavens utilize the descriptive Lingovation "INFOTRATION" -- it is a hybrid term which melds together providing information and infiltrating the mind and defenses of your existing or prospective customer or client. It is also proof positive (for those who require this) that print media is still alive, well and useful.

The article excerpt which follows appears courtesy of SmartBrief. It is a contrarian choice of example because it actually talks about misperceptions, confusion and potential harm done by poor labeling of food labels. These labels are provided in compliance with disclosure regulations, but could actually be used to help sell the products. Please review the article, and then hit the "BACK" button on your browser to return to The Mad Marketing Tactics Blog. Thanks in advance. 

• Nutrition labels confuse 59% of consumers, Nielsen says
  In an online Nielsen survey of 25,000 consumers in 56 countries, 59% of respondents said they find nutrition labels confusing, and 78% said they are trying to lose weight by dieting. "Consumer-friendly nutritional labeling can be a powerful marketing tool as consumers are hungry for easy-to-understand information," said James Russo, Nielsen's vice president of global consumer insights. FoodNavigator (1/24), Packaging Digest (1/24)

The bottom line is that mislabeling or poor labeling can be either a strong sales deterrent or a violation of the law, while proper, sales-oriented labeling can help move a product off the shelves or the cyberwarehouse.

Packages that reward the consumer for mailing in "x" number of proof of purchase labels still promote brand loyalty and ramp up sales. Packaging that includes coupons, sweepstakes entry forms, suggestions (or recipes), club memberships, and free giveaways are perceived as representative of better companies than those which don't incorporate these terrific extras.

In labeling and packaging, don't miss a single opportunity to sell more product, build brand loyalty, gain referrals (with rewards programs) and build your marketing muscle.

Douglas E. Castle

p.s. If you've not already done so, please visit The Twitterlinks Hubspot Blog to find a list of wonderful Twitter Feeds on a wide variety of topics which may be very worthwhile to follow. Each Twitter feed stream incorporates a flow of information from a variety of interesting and diverse sources on a specialized topic. More information = better perspective = better decisions.




#MadMarketing

---

Related articles

• Sixty Percent of Consumers Worldwide Are Confused by Food Labels (fooducate.com)
• Glaser says Mercedes brand loyalty is peaking (smartbrief.com)
• Webinar: Driving Sales, Engagement and Loyalty Through Mobile Devices (smartbrief.com)
• From Nielsen- It's All In the Mix: Maximizing Return on Brand Investment (shanecrombie.com)
• Arbitron mobile service to compete with Nielsen, comScore (smartbrief.com)
• Is IT Eliminating Jobs? The Shocking Truth... (infospherebusinessalerts.blogspot.com)
• Branded websites homepages (newmediaandmarketing.com)
• Does 'Liking' a Brand Drive User Loyalty? (connectedexperiences.me)
• Food Labeling Confusion Weighs Heavily on Minds of Global Consumers | Nielsen Wire (shanecrombie.com)
• PBR & Jones Soda: The Fan-Defined Brand (bostinno.com)
• Beverage brand loyalty is tied to "delight" (smartbrief.com)
• For AT&T, "Rethink Possible" includes some consumer love (smartbrief.com)
• Slice and dice your data using AdWords labels (adwords.blogspot.com)
• CBS' "Amazing Race" clear winner in brand-integration recall (smartbrief.com)
• Nestle will pay $11.9B for Pfizer's infant-nutrition business (smartbrief.com)
• Study: 3-screen ad buys improve recall, interest (smartbrief.com)
• What Shoppers Read on Nutrition Panels Depends on the Food - The Soy Connection - Food Manufacturing - United Soybean Board (soyconnection.com)
• Solve ANY Math Problem! - Braintenance (braintenance.blogspot.com)
• How Marketers Target Kids (wisdomwithinus.wordpress.com)