the dark side | sms marketing

When mobile social networking is mashed up with proximity marketing, it offers consumers the ability to leave virtual mobile sticky notes at practically any location. Here’s how it works: Susie has lunch at a new Thai restaurant in her neighborhood. She likes it, and while she’s waiting for the waiter to bring her check, she uses her mobile phone to write a mobile review at a site such as Socialight. A few weeks later, Tom, who lives in her area, is going to lunch. He pulls into a parking lot and sees several options where he could go for lunch, so he goes online to Socialight. Because his phone knows where he is, it brings up Susie’s review as if it was just waiting for him. The next day Susie’s friend (in real life and on Socialight) Linda goes into the same parking lot. Since she is Susie’s friend in Socialight and has indicated she wants to know when any of Susie’s virtual sticky notes are nearby, she gets a text message telling her Susie’s thoughts about the restaurant. The mobile sticky note phenomenon may catch on with many people. It just depends on how useful it is in people’s lives and how easy it is to use.

Your role as a business owner is to be remarkable enough that your customers want to leave virtual sticky notes about your business. You can also remind them to do so with strategically placed signs.
You can use mobile sticky notes in your marketing by creating a channel on Socialight about your topic. If you are a restaurant, create a restaurant channel. If you are a nightclub, go for a nightlife channel. Check in from places that are interesting to your target market. Include a sticky note at your business. You can also put up a sign in your establishment showing your positive mobile reviews. This can encourage more people to put up mobile sticky notes and to think about doing it in other places as well.

Another tool that is used in proximity marketing is the 2D bar code, which is a two-dimensional bar code that mobile phone users can photograph or scan with their mobile phone cameras. Their bar code reader software automatically links their mobile browsers to a specific mobile website that was programmed into the bar code, or it sends a text message to them or even captures contact information into the address book of their phones.
Basically, this is a form of shorthand for digital devices to read in such a way that saves consumers time inputting information into their phones. These bar codes are widely used in Japan, and many people in the industry think they are soon coming to North America as well. The opportunity exists for smart marketing with them, but they are not common here yet for a few reasons. First, using them often depends on having a phone that has a full HTTP browser (a smartphone such as a Blackjack, Tilt, or BlackBerry) and can accept full software application downloads. Bar code reader software is not standard on most phones and will likely need to be installed by the user. Another big barrier in the bar code market in the U.S. has been that few consumers know what to do when they see a 2D bar code. If you want to market with 2D bar codes, be prepared to include adequate information to educate consumers on how to participate. Until we have a higher level of consumer understanding, wait a while before you construct an entire campaign around bar codes. It would be more effective if you use them in addition to a text message campaign or in addition to listing a mobile website URL.

You can create a 2D bar code easily with any number of bar code vendors, but you want to ensure you are using a very common bar code type so that the most people will have the bar code reader software on their phones. (It is much the same as creating an InDesign file, but if people don’t have Adobe InDesign software on their computer, they can’t open it.) You will likely also need to direct people to the site so that they can get bar code readers software, which is free.
A 2D bar code can be placed on product packaging so that additional information about the product is available with a click of your potential customers’ camera. The code takes them to a mobile website that offers them more detailed information than is on the package. Bar codes can also be used in advertising so that a person reading the ad can just take a quick picture with her phone and find out all the details of what is offered in the ad, which are instantly sent to the reader’s phone.

Here are some ideas for Bluetooth Mobile Zones that work well in a complete permission-based scenario. I am noting this again because some vendors that use Bluetooth technology in marketing maintain that customers don’t mind getting that initial message as a surprise. I disagree and suggest that businesses should only offer something via Bluetooth when the person who will get the offer will be expecting it.

• A restaurant can offer a Bluetooth coupon on its outdoor menu so that passers-by who stop to read the menu before deciding whether to go inside can be financially rewarded for doing so. The menu board would clearly indicate that it is a Bluetooth Zone so as people approached, they could be advised to turn on their Bluetooth and make it discoverable to get a message. If this campaign pushed the coupon offer to everyone walking by, it would not be permission-based.
• Concert -goers can get a picture of the performer they came to see, a teaser audio from an upcoming release, and a coupon toward buying the new CD. This Bluetooth Zone can be set up on the way into the concert, and fans could grab content on the way into the concert, but only if they approached the signs/kiosk to do so.
• At a trade show, a business can offer a video that demonstrates its product or service, a virtual business card, a brochure, or an audio message. Anyone who steps into the booth space can receive the initial message with the offer.
• Games, videos, or audios can be distributed in waiting rooms or places such as amusement parks, where there are long lines. Screensavers from the rides can also be offered, along with coupons for snacks or other items.
• Sporting event attendees can have the option of buying screensavers of the most famous players or the team logo and a coupon for buying a souvenir before they leave the venue.
• Museums can offer interactive information to go along with exhibits. including videos that give additional background on a particular exhibit. a game that makes the exhibit more interesting for kids. or even an audio guided tour that includes a gift shop coupon when they are done the tour.
• Tourist towns can offer a Bluetooth Zone at the visitors’ center. Signs can be placed in businesses all over town reminding visitors to get their Bluetooth Guide to the city at the visitors’ center. Coupons. audio tours. videos. scavenger hunts. and event
calendars can also be given away from the Bluetooth Zone at the center.
• A shopping center can have a Bluetooth Zone positioned at key places such as the food court. each of the entrances. and the kids’ play zones. Merchants at the mall can also offer a variety of coupons. events can be promoted. and even walking guides can
be offered for mall walkers.

Surely you see the huge difference in businesses randomly reaching out to anyone with a phone nearby and offering people in close proximity the chance to choose to participate in something they find attractive. The offer that is ultimately made to consumers may be exactly the same. but the initial approach that proactively pushes it on them or attractively pulls them in is different. The results will be as dramatically different for both individual campaigns and mobile marketing in general. There is huge potential for consumers to be annoyed with pushed Bluetooth marketing. and they may not want to participate in anything via their mobile. This is much the same as how consumers quickly learned to give out temporary. fake. or not -of tenchecked email addresses to avoid aggressive email marketers. They will also quickly learn to leave their Bluetooths turned off or at least make their devices undiscoverable. So stick with mobile zones that entice people into participating for your sake as well as the entire mobile marketing industry·s.

Bluetooth, a short -range wireless technology that essentially sets up a small wireless network between multiple devices, is one of the most exciting and controversial mobile marketing tools available. It is exciting because it offers the ability for multimedia files (ringtones, MP3s, graphics such as coupons or wallpaper, jpg, gif, and others) to be distributed to mobile devices quickly and without cost to transfer the files to either the business or the mobile user. This gives businesses and consumers what they want: a rich multimedia experience that doesn’t cost anything to accomplish. It is also exciting because the marketing campaign is location specific, making it a uniquely mobile experience. It is controversial because the way the technology can be implemented is by making an initial outreach to a mobile device that is unsolicited. Here’s how it works: Businesses using a Bluetooth marketing system can automatically send messages to any mobile device within a certain distance (usually about 30 feet) that has Bluetooth on and is open to being discovered. This initial message will give the consumer a “Yes” or “No” choice as to whether they want to accept a Bluetooth download. Proponents of Bluetooth marketing believe that since this first message is asking permission to send the Bluetooth message that it is a permission-based campaign.

But many others, including the Mobile Marketing Association, do not agree. This unexpected first message is what gives Bluetooth marketing the potential to be a sleazy marketing technique if used incorrectly. If you think I’m exaggerating, just read these snippets of sales copy (which have been changed enough to protect the companies that produced them but not enough to change their meanings) from websites selling Bluetooth marketing software: “The system can be used covertly by undercover personnel in situations where handing out written materials would either not be proper or permitted.” Another site says, “Our software turns any computer into an advertising server that sends out your message 24 hours a day to unsuspecting cell phone users who come within 300 feet of your computer.” Eye opening, isn’t it? Not only is aggressive marketing like this ineffective, but it leaves a bad taste in consumers’ mouths for interacting with businesses via mobile. For both those reasons, I do not advise marketing with this approach. The good news is that Bluetooth marketing can be handled with a more consumer friendly.
approach, and this permission-focused method is exciting and offers some tremendous opportunities for value-based campaigns.

If you are going to use a customer initiated strategy (when consumers decide to share where they are located and explicitly ask for location-based information to be shared with them) and you have a tech -savvy audience, you can proceed with proximity marketing using the techniques covered in this chapter. However, if you are thinking of going ahead with the type of location-based marketing that is an unwelcome surprise to the consumer, then I advise taking a step back to reconsider. Even though it seems like a marketing dream, proximity mobile marketing has the greatest possibility for being perceived as “creepy and invasive” by the consumer when the initial contact is not made with permission. While consumers know that their phones always know where they are, it is quite another thing to realize that their phones are sharing that information with outsiders who are trying to market to them. Proceed with caution when using proximity marketing, but don’t be afraid to use it in the right circumstances. Be aware that some tactics in this chapter are more advanced techniques; either they require a more complex approach or they need specific hardware or software for implementation that is not yet widely accessible.