Big Boy Mobile Marketing. Change FAST

April 25, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I’ve decided to restart this series because quite frankly, “the big boys are fixin to EAT YOUR LUNCH. Thats right, the big boys are quickly moving into the mobile space, planning mobile campaigns developing strategies that will eat your lunch.

Here is what I mean;

1). Walmart buys Kosmix a company that organizes social media content. Walmart bought the company to “accelerate the development of our social and mobile commerce offerings.” according to Wal-Mart vice chairman Eduardo Castro-Wright.

2) Visa starts delivering real time deals to mobile consumers. Which means Visacompeting with Groupon, Living social and the other deal sites.

3) and lastly (not really) eBay buys Where, to “to strengthen its position in local and mobile commerce and as a multichannel commerce partner for retailers and brands.”

Here is the point, with all of these big companies buying claiming the mobile space, where will your business fit in. The point is if you don’t start thinking about a mobile strategy for your business, the big boys will “EAT YOUR LUNCH

Amplify’d from www.mobilemarketer.com

With the news that Walmart will acquire mobile and social commerce firm Kosmix, the big-box retailer became the latest of several large brands last week demonstrating a healthy commitment to the mobile space by investing heavily in related acquisitions or new business.

EBay’s decision to acquire Where, Groupon’s deal for Whrrl and Visa’s launch of a mobile deals business – as well as the Walmart news – all point to the growing recognition by big brands that mobile is a force to be reckoned with.

“These deals show that a company like eBay or Groupon is looking forward and saying, ‘How can we be a player in the emerging mobile commerce and mobile marketing ecosystem,’” said Neil Strother, Kirkland, WA-based practice director at ABI Research. “They’re not sitting back and letting others be the leaders.”

Driving consumers into stores
In the eBay, Groupon and Walmart deals, in particular, the companies acquire mobile marketing technology rather than develop it in-house.

“There is an acknowledgement that we’re rapidly shifting from a place where smartphones make up  a small population of phones, particularly in North America, to a large population of mobile phones – which makes a lot of these GPS/local or just high-quality interactions via mobile much more attractive,” said Nikki Baird, managing partner at Retail Systems Research, Miami.

But what all of the deals have in common is that big brands are placing bets on mobile in terms of driving in-store visits and to directly spur sales.

Read more at www.mobilemarketer.com
 
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Inbound Marketing Helps Car Dealer

April 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Inbound marketing works for any type of business and here is prrof. Discover how a car dealer uses inbound marketing to

1) Reduce pay-per-click costs by $2,700 in one month
2) Increased leads generated
3) Increased sales by 24% in a month

Amplify’d from www.hubspot.com

LaCrosseInfoPg3001Boyle Buick GMC Truck in Abingdon, MD has been a Buick dealer since 1968 and a GMC dealer since 2009. Working with HubSpot Certified Partner Meyer Baron, President of 1SmartPuppy, since 1989, the auto dealer has developed its inbound marketing strategies to become the #1 retailer of new Buicks in Maryland since 1997.

This case study published by 1SmartPuppy describes how Boyle Buick GMC Truck turned its website around and increased its organic search and referral traffic by 500% in six months.
  • Generated $2,793 in pay-per-click savings from organic search and referrals in March 2011 alone
  • Nearly doubled leads generated from landing page forms from January to March 2011
  • Closed nine new Buick and GMC and three used vehicle sales from the website in March 2011, accounting for 24.3% of total month’s sales

Read more at www.hubspot.com
 
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April 12, 2011 By Leave a Comment

“No one rises to low expectations” Jesse Jackson http://amplify.com/u/byv8a

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Are You Using Mobile Marketing?

April 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

Mobile marketing is expected to explode and that explosion will dramatically change business marketing. But the mobile marketing explosion will require business owners to rethink how they market. Not only will they have to change thir search engine marketing strategies but they should also plan on adding the following;

1) Businesses will need to get their website converted to mobile sites.
2) Businesses should claim all of their online real estate (Twitter, FB, Local etc)
3) Businesses should adapt attraction (inbound) marketing strategies
4) Business owners should start collecting customer info including cell phones

These changes are a good step toward preparing for mobile marketing and every business needs to take these steps.

Amplify’d from www.mobilemarketer.com

Many experts believe that Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo will increase their mobile search market share. And, as mobile search grows exponentially, marketers will need to rethink their search engine marketing (SEM) strategy and consider a different approach to mobile search.

Microsoft has its Bing search platform that includes mobile browsers and applications, and Yahoo also offers a number of mobile search services such as its in-browser search, mobile applications and a search widget for Android devices.

Bing’s mobile search engine emphasizes categorization and depth in search results.  

Mobile search provides a great opportunity for marketers. Many should take advantage of smartphone capabilities such as GPS and voice and image-recognition technology and incorporate those into their multichannel marketing efforts.

“We’ve found that when advertisers run a mobile-specific campaign, they experience, on average, an 11.5 percent increase in mobile click through rates compared to their mobile click through rates on a hybrid campaign that runs both on desktop and mobile.

“Advertisers should be constantly measuring, analyzing, and re-testing, always with their marketing objective in mind,” Mr. Slinger said. “If their goal is calls, they could measure the close rate on Google-supplied calls. 

“Mobile is just another way to reach an individual that you’re trying to have a relationship with,” she said. “You should be looking at the different key data points, what’s causing the most inertia and what types of products are being sold on mobile devices today.”

Read more at www.mobilemarketer.com
 
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Loans For Food & Beverage Entrepreneurs

April 8, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you want to or own a food or beverage business and are looking for startup or expansion capital check out this program from Sam Adams Brewery. Here is the issue, they are lending up to 25k but “are having a hard time find candidates”

If you are a serious entrepreneur looking for money. Check this out and as importantly, pass this info around

Amplify’d from newyork.grubstreet.com

Having noticed that our city is “a real hotbed of small-scale food and beverage” entrepreneurs, Koch says he’s looking for potential businesses to help, but is having trouble tracking down anyone worthwhile: “We have way more money than qualified applicants,” he says. “People don’t know that this kind of money is available.” So now you know. And if you’re like any of the bakers, baristas, sausage-makers, restaurateurs, or others the program has helped in the past (we’re betting some of you are), this could be a boon.

Koch and his associates decided to start the program because, he says, “if you need a loan of less than $25,000, there’s nowhere to get it.” (Brewing the American Dream’s average lend-out is $7,000 to $10,000 and they partner with micro-finance specialist Accion, which handles the nitty-gritty.) Koch also wanted to pass on some of the business knowledge he’s gleaned the hard way over 28 years, which comes in the form of free counseling sessions covering everything from branding to payroll.

If you’re interested, application information can be found here, and both restaurateurs and small-food producers are invited to apply. And don’t worry, any idea you have is bound to be better than the ones on America’s Next Great Restaurant!

Read more at newyork.grubstreet.com
 
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Who will win the Mobile Payments Push

April 1, 2011 By Leave a Comment

There is a war going on. No, not the war in Afghanistan or the war in Iraq and it’s not the war in Libya. This is a war being waged by every major player on the online and mobile business. This war is a war to get you to use your smart phone as a way to pay for goods and services and while it seems to be a war about payments, it’s really a war about fees.

Here is what I mean. I recently read a report that said that 1/3rd of US profits came from the financial services industry and that industry generates most of its profits from fees.

If Google or Apple or Amazon or Paypal can get you to pay for stuff with your cell phone they can charge fees and in many cases fees are pure profit.

So , here is the question. Who do you trust to process your mobile payments.

Amplify’d from mashable.com

Amazon, Google, Apple, Microsoft and others have their eyes on the NFC mobile payment market, setting the stage for a potentially brutal battle over the future of payments.

NFC, or near-field communication, allows for wireless transfer of data over short distances between two devices. This makes it an ideal technology for financial transactions between a phone and a device at a brick-and-mortar store.
  • Apple: The iPhone maker is reportedly considering adding NFC to the iPhone 5, though rumors that it would be added to the iPad 2 turned out to be false. From what we’ve heard, Apple has been testing NFC payments on its Cupertino campus for months, but is unsure about whether it should be made available in the next edition of the iPhone.
  • AT&T, Verizon & T-Mobile: Three of the four major networks teamed up last year to announce Isis, a joint venture between the networks to facilitate the addition of NFC technology into their phones.

And then there’s Amazon. While it doesn’t control a mobile OS or millions of smartphones, it does have the most payments experience and clout of the group. It has also proven adept at developing strong mobile apps. And even more important is its potential ability to convince brick-and-mortar stores to include its own NFC devices in their stores.

Read more at mashable.com
 
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