Mall of America shoppers will now have access to last-minute sales, in-store coupons and up-to-date event information via the device they never leave home without – their mobile phone.
Visitors to Mall of America will be the first in the country to use the new text messaging service called MallCall. Mall patrons have to sign up for the service to receive real-time information about mall vendor deals and promotions.
Mall vendors can now market directly to customers already inside the mall directing traffic into their store and company Web site. Customers can control which messages they want to receive by selecting a particular mall category of interest.
Mall of America is the nation’s largest retail and entertainment complex. The 4.2 million-square-foot complex is home to more than 520 shops, the indoor family amusement park Nickelodeon Universe, Underwater Adventures Aquarium and a 14-screen movie theater.
Click here to read the full article by Giselle Tsirulnik.
Mark Cohen of the NY Times recently work a great article that every small business owner/operator should read. Mr. Cohen clearly lays out 6 key areas of text message (SMS) marketing that is easy to understand and unbiased.
Mr. Cohen writes, “SMS is still a relatively uncluttered and spam-free marketing channel. It’s also the one form of communication that many people are tethered to 24/7. Which helps explain why, at a time when in-boxes fill with hundreds of never-opened e-mail messages from direct marketers, 97 percent of all SMS marketing messages are opened (83 percent within one hour), according to the latest cell-carrier research.
I recently submitted a posting for the MN AMA blog on the topic of making your first mobile campaign a simple one. I believe SMS text messaging is the way to go. SMS is low cost, easy to execute and has the widest reach among your audience. It doesn’t require special mobile apps or sophisticated tools. Think of it as mobile email that is limited to 160 characters. Click here to read the posting.
Over the past few months, Twitter has experienced explosive growth, attracting celebrity users such as Oprah, and a growing mountain of media and blog coverage. Sysomos Inc., one of the world’s leading social media analytics companies, conducted an extensive study to document Twitter’s growth and how people are using it.
Alex Cheng and Mark Evans of Sysomos Inc. put together this fascinating demographic survey on how much (or how little) Twitter is really being used by the masses. It may give you a different perspective on Twitter as an effective wide reaching social media tool for marketing your business or brand.
After analyzing information disclosed on 11.5 million Twitters accounts, they discovered that:
5% of Twitter users account for 75% of all activity
72.5% of all users joining during the first five months of 2009
85.3% of all Twitter users post less than one update/day
21% of users have never posted a Tweet
93.6% of users have less than 100 followers, while 92.4% follow less than 100 people
If you design websites for PC viewing then you need to consider how your sites will look and work on mobiles. The bar for mobile specific sites has been raised by some good sites and others need to close their gap. As the mobile Internet has developed savvy users have come to expect higher standards when browsing on their handsets.
These 7 guidelines are based on actual user research conducted with mobile phone users. Users were asked to carry out typical tasks on popular websites using a mobile phone browser. The issues they encountered were used to produce these guidelines.
Event planners are starting to use text message and other mobile strategies to communicate with attendees, exhibitors and sponsors. for examples, simple text messaging is ideal for sending last minute reminders and alerts to these groups. It’s also a fun way to engage event attendees with contests, scavenger hunts, prizes, etc.
Think in advance about how you plan to measure the value of the text communications. If you put in a call-to-action, such as a link to a site or a number, texts should be easily trackable by measuring how many follow-throughs occurred based on that action. If the texts are more information based—such as updates or session changes—ask attendees and exhibitors about the texts, including how useful the communications were, in your regular post-show surveys and follow-ups. Event Marketer magazine asked mobile marketing consultant Kim Dushinski to offer some suggestions on how to get started. Read the full article.
The Camera Culture Group at MIT Media Lab will be demonstrating a barcode replacement at Siggraph 2009 in New Orleans next week. Called Bokode they consist of an LED under a mask and lens. Information is encoded in the light shining through the mask which varies in brightness depending on the angle it is seen from and can be read by a standard mobile phone camera.
With recession and cut-backs on everyone’s mind, how does Mike Wehrs, president of the Mobile Marketing Association, convince brands to invest in mobile? What technologies and trends will map the future of mobile Web marketing? Find out what makes the MMA boss tick in this in-depth interview from MobiThinking.
Here’s the straight talk from Chief Revenue Officer at Crisp Wireless and former member of Yahoo Search’s Strategic Alliances team, Tom Foran.
It’s too bad they didn’t interview Mr. Foran before he joined Crisp. His comments and insights could be viewed as biased and self promotional. Still good info if you take that into account. Read the full article by Chris Crum at WebProNews
Teenagers are obsessed with their mobile phones and this opens the door of opportunity for marketers.
Wirefly claims the most popular phones for the teen demographic are those that are text-friendly. Touch screens and QWERTY key pads are at the top of the list when it comes to teen favorites because of the functionalities these types of phones offer. Read the full article by Giselle Tsirulnik at Mobile Marketer.
Mall of America shoppers will now have access to last-minute sales, in-store coupons and up-to-date event information via the device they never leave home without – their mobile phone.
Over the past few months, Twitter has experienced explosive growth, attracting celebrity users such as Oprah, and a growing mountain of media and blog coverage. Sysomos Inc., one of the world’s leading social media analytics companies, conducted an extensive study to document Twitter’s growth and how people are using it.
