Mobile - Be Where Your Customers Are

The Growth of Mobile

As businesses wake up to the growing momentum behind the mobile revolution it is worth reviewing the scale of change and growth forecasted in this market. Although in its infancy the mobile undoubtedly will present some of the greatest opportunities for marketing.

Why? - because it links together the time and place of marketing; it is the on demand / real time delivery of information and the blending of online and offline that creates amazing ways to engage customers.

• Worldwide Smartphone Market Expected to Grow 55% in 2011 and Approach Shipments of One Billion in 2015


• Mobile media use up 600% as unlimited plans tune out
  


• Econsultancy have a great infographic on the Mobile Ecosystem and lots of links to facts and figures


• and your guessed it Facebook has a focus on mobile using html5


• Facebook’s iPad Plans, Mobile Platform Strategy, and Traffic Growth

 

The smartphone is driving a new set of behaviours as people rather than switching on their mobile are consuming more and more media through their phones. Of course accessing social networks (Twitter, Facebook) drives a lot of the viewing but it is also the use of apps as well as the imediacy of being able to access the internet - Google for instance that makes it so useful. Interesting but not surprising is the use of mobiles during other media consumption and activities such as watching TV.

Where the Eyes Are?

Just as there has been a shift in how we consume media,  comes a subsequent shift in the move to increase mobile marketing spend. Borrell Associates forecast that by 2015, the mobile share will have grown to almost two of every three online marketing dollars spent will go to a mobile campaign. Other information - 53% of mobile users would share their location to receive more relevant ads (source: Mashable) and mobile coupon redemption is 10x that of traditional coupons (source: Borrell Associates).

This year more brands will experiment and explore how to use mobile to push the boundaries of user experiences.

Be Where Your Customers Are

When you search for a restaurant or takeaway on your smartphone using Google it will take into account your location (if you opt out of the location-based features). This local element is a vital ingredient in the search results. However, if a user then clicks through to a website that is not easy to navigate and find the information they are looking for e.g. your contact number, then users will simply click away.

Shopping habits are changing. Next time you are in a shop have a look around and see how many people are using there phones whilst in the store to look up products/reviews... There are now even apps that allow you to scan products whilst in the store and they will compare prices with other stores (often locally) there and then.

• ShopSavvy


• Twenga


• Red laser

The opportunities s to engage your customers on the mobile are expanding. QR codes for instance provide a rich and local context to blending the offline with the online world. A QR code can simply be used to connect to a website, Facebook page, mobile site...the opportunities are both incredible. See our feature on Scoopit for more examples and information.

• QR Code Marketing

This and more trends are explored in this presentation by Space150.

Mobile Trends - June 2011

View more presentations from space150

Key Takeouts

If the forecast is even remotely accurate to how real life plays out, harnessing mobile marketing will help you be where your customers are. It is important to have your digital touchpoints aligned so that whether a customer looks for you on their mobile, laptop, social networks....you branding and communications are easy to understand and relevant to your target audience.

With mobile you are putting your brand into the palm of your target audience’s hand. Mobile is overtaking the PC for how and when we access information, communicate, connect and share. Facilitate experiences for your customers and you will business will benefit:

• Whether you are a sole trader, SMB or large organisation you need to have a mobile website
  
  
  
  • (over 80% of brands do not have a optimised mobile website)
  
  
  • More than 90% of SMB's do not have a mobile website
  
  
  
  


• Research how your customers use mobile to connect


• Build your database of customers mobile numbers with an opt in campaign


• Provide relevant and timely information to them


• Use mobile advertising to reach your target customers

For larger organisations developing an app for your customers could well provide you with a unique way to provide value to your customers and develop a competitive advantage. In our next blog on mobile we will talk about developing a mobile strategy for your business and what you need to consider.

Don't throw marketing money away on a hunch! - Research improves your ROI

Using Research to Improve ROI

1. Define your strategy and then conduct research to understand how you can add value to your customers. This need not be hard and you can get some valuable information without it costing too much. Form many small businesses this can involve preparing a simple questionnaire and inviting existing or potential customers to meet up for breakfast, lunch... and discussing it with them. You will often be amazed at what you find out.

For larger businesses studying customers on-line can help. Digital ethnography (studying on line behaviour) now provides a wealth of information and access to customers and is often easier than offline research:

• social networks allow us to visualise relationships,


• people are more honest when they write behind a pseudonym


• respondents have control over what they share


• researchers are less obtrusive and less likely to affect the behaviour of the people they are studying

Strategies need to build sustainable communities rather than sporadic isolated campaigns

2. Too much data is no good to anyone. You need to focus on simple concepts and then build upon them to produce your creative concepts for marketing. Keep it simple, easy to understand and measurable. Test it on a small group of customers get feedback and then scale. Content then becomes relevant and of value to your customers and more importantly has a far higher chance of being shared.

Create relationships, drive conversions and deliver sustainable and profitable revenue growth.

3. Be consistent in how you deploy your communications. Reinforce your communications around your creative concept so that they reinforce your idea rather than dilute it. Make it interesting, an experience and build on the emotions; for it is the human touch that matters the most - this is what we share.

Reinforce and co-ordinate touch points to ensure the sum of the parts are greater than the whole

Linking Research to Value

Ultimately by using research the aim is to add value to a customers experience of your brand. Rory Sutherland provides some humorous insights into how advertising has traditionally gone about building intangible value. The reality for brands now is that value is being reshaped by our relationships and our networks.  (If you only watch one thing see the interviews for diamond shreddies 13mins - very funny)



Change the Perspective

The simple truth is that research allows you to make better decisions about the creative concepts and content that you use to market your brand.

However, many businesses simply throw their money away when it comes to marketing. They certainly don't intend to, but too often many make assumptions about their customers that are simply wrong.

But this is an over simplified explanation of what happens, for quite often there is a recognised need for data, but accessing it and relating to customer profiles is difficult. The reasons for this can be many, not least is the problems of knitting together data from disparate data sources (customer service, promotions, email marketing...) to form some level of customer segmentation.

From the many different views it is hard to pin point who the customer is and how their behaviours relate to your product; in short there is little available data that can form the basis for insightful decisions. The truth is the impact of a poor customer data management strategy goes beyond missed sales opportunities and links directly to the profitability of an organisation.

Taking a Bet



As a result many marketing directors gamble on assumptions that form the basis for creative ideas and concepts; which in themselves might be brilliant but simply do not bear any resemblance to the target customer.Yet most people shrewdly research and investigate suppliers before spending their own money. Why not then apply the same principal to customers.

Why does this matter so much?

Knowing your customer and understanding their needs forms the basis not only for marketing but also product development, customer service...it is at the heart of how well you serve your customers that determines how well you compete.

How and where we tell out stories has shifted, but they are the same stores. We now use our social networks not only to share these stories but to listen and participate in making them. As a result research has never been more powerful or more cost effective and can be used to improve decision making.

We must use new research technologies because technology itself is changing the way people move through life and transact their work. Part of the change involves privacy, mobility, and communications modes. People are harder to connect with, period: less use of land lines, heavy phone screening, growing perceived value of time, and more. In a word, people are more reachable and open if the marketing research technique fits with their lifestyle.

The Purpose of Research

from Tim Stock

Tips for Getting the Most from Your Facebook Page - Social Business

The Anatomy of the Facebook Page



A - The Brand Image & Photo Strip

You can use this space for your brand to allow you users to quickly recognise you. This is the image that shows up when people search. It can be up to 180px by 540px, but if you do this then make sure your main logo fits right for search.

Once you’ve done that, you can turn your attention to the new photo strip. At the moment you can't control where each of the images (they need to be 97px * 68px)  that are in that strip will go – they are randomly sorted by Facebook. They can’t be ordered like they can on personal profiles.

Top tip here is to use images with a similar design so they create a more uniform look. Alternatively you could use QR Codes or Tag to go here as well; offer your customers specials or exclusives - it is one of the biggest reasons people visit brand pages.

B - The Tabs

Each tab can now be linked to an icon which makes it visually easy to differentiate tabs. Our tip here is to keep it tidy - delete old tabs, keep a menu that is relevant and label them clearly. If a tab is not being used change the content, question if it is needed and if not remove it. We often see tabs like discussion with no posts, events with no events...keep it simple and up-to-date.

C - The Heart of the Page

This is the biggest part of the page and where you are looking to interact and engage your fans. Some key points:

• Point out the like - don't forget to remind people to like you


• Share - the share button invites people to share your page with their friends

A word of caution here, don't get absorbed in the tools - understand your customers, research their interests, passions and behaviours and you will then produce content that is relevant and engaging for them. Once you've decided on this the content production and delivery follows naturally.

Most brands now are using video on their pages to entertain / engage / interact with their clients. If you look at this link you will see that video is becoming interactive. The point is you can integrate virtually anything into Facebook now, graphics, copy and even e-commerce.

Use a video to:

• make a personal commentary about your business or products


• provide some interesting ideas that you are working on and ask people for their comments/feedback


• provide testimonials of happy customers and why they use you


• video interviews of why your people like working with your business


• you can also use motion graphics or animation here to explain your products or services in an entertaining way

You can even get people to try your new products!



D - Make it Easy to Find your Brand on Other Social Sites

Coca Cola also highlight their other networks - something few brands remember to do. You don't have them exactly in this position but remember to make it easy to find and recognise the icons for the other social networks like Twitter. Often this is on the information page which people don't often look at.



E - Make The Page Worth Exploring

People are increasingly spending more time on social networking (nielsen) and Facebook is the dominate player. Providing a a set of rich experiences on your Facebook page means that people spend more time with your brand than your competitors, are more likely to stay on your page and more likely to share your content. Use the page to enable people to explore opportunities.

Don't forget to also offer specials/exclusives to fans. The top two reasons to follow a brand are for promotional benefits (84%) and because the fans already enjoy the product (89%). 83% of fans would like more exclusives from the Facebook page, whether via special offers or Facebook-only content.

F - Highlight and Link to other Products Brands or Partners



If you have other brands/products or services then you can like them as a page; these then show up in the space highlighted as F in the Coca Cola example above. If people like your brand then the chances are they might explore and like your associated pages.

A FEW MORE TIPS

Information page

Take a look at the Pepsi and Nokia information pages. Pepsi has been a bit lazy just duplicating links whereas Nokia have made a clear statement for their followers. Use this space wisely and fill it in to tell people about why they should follow you and how you want to build your relationship with them.



Frequency of Posting

Posting too frequently is the 2nd most cited reason for unfriending a fan page. Most experts recommend 2-3 times a day as a maximum. Here are some reasons as listed on Mashable and some further reading. To see some other great examples of how brands are using Facebook here is a list from Econsultancy.

Rules and Policies

Some brands ignore this and don't put up a clear statement of their policy for their walls. However, best practice is to post up a clear statement that allows people to understand what is acceptable and what is not.



Brand Engagement on Facebook

Here is Jeff Ragovin who gives a great talk on Facebook brand engagement - enjoy :-)



If you have any questions or are looking for advice you can post on our Facebook wall and we promise to get back to you with an answer - you never know by sharing it we may help other people with the same question.

Have you noticed that not all Facebook pages are equal;  not just in the presentation of the brand, but the interactive media, the conversations on the page, the comments and likes. In getting a Facebook page to look good there are some basic points you need to consider.

We are going to take you through some key areas of a Facebook page and what to do to make it stand out from the crowd and how to make sure it works for your customers.

Why Facebook is important

Here are the number of fans/likes for celebrities and brands, so you can see the who's who on Facebook popularity - Top pages on Facebook and here are some further figures. Brands are due to increase their Facebook investments to $4Bn this year. According to a new white paper (pdf) from Webtrends:

• Websites that do not engage in e-commerce are losing traffic to their Facebook pages at a startling rate


• Websites with e-commerce activity seem to sustain traffic in spite of Facebook's influence, but are experiencing drops in unique visits compared to last year - signs of losing traffic in the future to Facebook


• This proves a gradual shift in traffic from a brand's website to its Facebook page and hence the need for marketers to closely measure their Facebook activity

and highlights on Social commerce:

Facebook stores are very efficient at traffic acquisition acquiring visitors at no cost through wall posts and establishing a store monthly user base equal to 1-10% of the retailer's fan base

• Facebook stores on average generate a 17% social engagement rate (merchandise "likes" and "shares" per visitor)


• Facebook commerce conversion rates ranging from 2% to 4% are on par with Commerce websites.


• Facebook commerce conversion rates range from 2% to 4% and are on par with e-Commerce Web sites. (avg. 3.4%, according to Forrester/Shop.org).

If you haven't got a Facebook page now is the time to get one. A good start point is to plan how you want to engage with your target audience and here are a few tips on how you can do this.

Content - Do You Know How to Add Value?

Efficient with Knowledge


“The greatest challenge of the 21st century will be managing the productivity of the knowledge worker.” asserted Peter Drucker, the father of modern management.

Whether you are a business owner or a community manager, you will recognise the need to efficient with information. We are all constrained by time and that is our most valuable asset. But being part of the knowledge economy means we need to find, aggregate, filter, select curate and often publish high quality information relevant to our work or interest. We will strive to personalise it and make it relevant to our interests. This is both a personal and business issue and for Enterprises it is estimated that between 16% - 25% of knowledge workers time is spent searching for the relevant information.




Why you need to be a curator?

First it is important to understand the differences between aggregators, curators and indexers. Being an authority and expert in your field establishes a trust and builds your reputation with your customers. By becoming a source for other you build on-going relationship with customers, which in itself helps generate word of mouth marketing and drives important traffic to your site. By harvesting important content from the sea of information and sorting, filtering and producing contextually relevant material you are adding value.

Developing Quality Content

Many of us have tried RSS feeds and "thematic" or "topic-based aggregation" utilizing a selective number of quality sources of published content on specific topics. But TechMeMe and social sites like Digg whilst helpful are still aggregators. The solution to the ever-expanding cacophony of consumer content lies in using the intermediate layer of human filters and the use of ‘smart’ systems (algorithms based on preferences).

“Interacting directly with an automated news engine makes it clear that the human+algorithm combo can curate news far more effectively that the individual human or algorithmic parts.” - Gabe Rivera - Techmeme.

There are many tools to help now but it is how you add value that will separate you from your competition.

Some useful 'aggrefilters'

Clearly we need to be more efficient with tiemly and relevant information and part of this is the ability to quickly assess it as it comes to us. Whilst current tools do not have the 'smart' or learning capability yet, they are some useful tools to try. As curation becomes more important, new solutions are emerging all the time. It is worth exploring which suits your needs best. Often this will be determined by how each tool pulls through information and from what sources e.g. friends vs. blogs.

1. Scoop.It



Scoop.it offers users the opportunity to “be the curator of your favorite topic”  by collecting useful and insightful information among from social media streams. You can then publish it to people sharing the same interest. You can setup up topics as themes and then update them as new content is discovered. Content can be added via a bookmarklet or using a post button on the topic page. You can publish to Facebook and Twitter.

2. POSTPOST


PostPost resembles the mobile app Pulse and the iPad app Flipboard but the main difference is that , PostPost is a browser based application. PostPost imports links, videos and photos in real time from your Facebook friends and produces a newspaper display that can easily be adjusted as needed.

3. Paper.Li

Paper.li you can create up to 10 newspapers based on links shared by your Twitter and Facebook accounts. Each newspaper can be distributed via Facebook or Twitter. Paperli is easy to use and provides a nice recap of daily or weekly content. One great way to use Paper.li is to use it along with Listerous which enables you to find a list on almost any subject you can think of. You can take any one of those lists and create a newspaper out of it in Paper.li

4. Flipboard

You can browse photos from your Flickr streams, stories from Google Reader as well as content shared by your Facebook and Twitter friends, all in Flipboard‘s magazine-style format. You can also post Facebook status updates, tweets and photos from anywhere within the app and easily share favorite content across networks (e.g., share a favorite tweet to Facebook and vice versa).

Other sites worth looking at:

The Tweeted Times

The Tweeted Times (formerly known as The Twitter Times) is a real-time personalized newspaper generated from your Twitter account. The Tweeted Times aggregates news in your Twitter stream and ranks them by popularity among your friends.

Pinyadda (in beta testing)

Using Pinyadda you have a customizable way of developing a newsfeed. Users can follow a person, topic, or website, and comment on and share news stories with the Pinyadda community as well as their own social network.

Spotery

Unlike many others Spotery uses people to edit and filter its top news stories. Spotery is is good at integrating content curation with social news. Visitors to the site can follow the selected news stories, or the follow the live stream of submitted links.

Storify

Storify uses existing content from across the internet and gives you the ability to drag and drop elements into storylines. Tweets, photos and videos can be searched on multiple social networks. You can also order the elements and also add text to give context to readers.

How to use the information - your daily or weekly

When thinking about your market and customer it is vital to get to understand the issues and problems that they face with their business. By listening and focusing on topics that concern them you can start to set out solutions that can help them: save time, be more effective, market themselves better, do more for less, help them with market information...

A solution focused approach will separate you from your competitors. Focus on topics and subjects that you can easily research and provide some insight on to help your customers; conduct a survey of customers and produce your own market report. You may also find out topics within your market that are relevant, 'hot' and worthy of your effort. In producing a blog or free reports to attract customers.

Good curated content often saves people time and demonstrates your understanding and/or opinion on a subject. Don't foget to make it your own and add your thoughts and ideas.

If you don't have the time then look for an agency that can help you. Often it costs less than you imagine and you can really make a difference in your own time if you recognise that you don't have the time or resources to produce consistent levels of high quality content.

If you are focusing on your improving you Blog or looking for ways to add value to content, we have for you:

1. Build a story and invite others to contribute to your ideas. These may be new thoughts around a change in your market, technology or subject. By expressing some ideas, supporting them with some links and content and then asking for input you will develop conversations.


2. Add and use a mix of media to bring a subject to life. Mix rich media like video's illustrations, infographics...


3. By developing a case around an opinion, thought or subject you can add links, references, resources and then provide a framework to help people understand sometimes complex ideas and see the bigger picture.


4. Produce some daily news or weekly summary of things that you have found interesting, topical, illuminating or new and controversial. Mediocrity rarely achieves much so sometimes you need to take a stand or have an angle.


5. Ask for feedback and find out what people like.

Are you building your story or the story of your customers?

In the spirit of looking for feedback we would like your thoughts on where you think the world of curation, news and content is heading - join in and let us know your thoughts.

Creativity and Technical skills - Social Networking Futures

Social data overload and visualization


Social networks help us to explore the world but they are becoming congested. As networks continue to expand and new content is added we will increasingly seek filters, aggregation and ways of making sense of all the information. We will strive to personalise it and make it relevant to our own interests. The average and offensive will go leaving hopefully the useful. The popularity and creativity of blending data and design has led to incubation and later proliferation of infographics. As people have investigated the behaviours and patterns within networks we have again turned to visualization to simplify and help us see the patterns.

Mapping the Blogosphere is a collection of maps of the blogosphere

Micro Fashion Network: Color visualizations show the continuous change of styles in fashion

Twingly Screensaver visualizes the blogosphere worldwide in real time

Making the complex look simple

Whitney Hess on Linkedin's InMap

The Guardian on Tweets during the World Cup 2010

Notabilia - Visualizing Wikipedia deletion discussions

Innovation across America

GraphNews is a news visualization browser from the Libero WebNews service

Last.Forward is a downloadable tool to visualize any Last.fm user's social network

Stack is an innovative visualization offerings from Digg.

Websites as Graphs shows the structure of different websites based on tags

An Industrial Renaissance - but the industry is knowledge and innovation


We are seeing a merger of creative and technical influences. It is reminds us of DaVinci, a multi-talented scientist, artist, engineer and designer who lived during the renaissance. Why?

There is a resurgence in the recognition of creativity as part of how we interact with objects, information and each other in the very spaces we work and the tools we use. Creativity has the ability to humanise the science, of being an essential ingredient in how we move from idea to design; and it is the tangible way we connect with people at an emotional level, for it inspires and that in itself is a incredibly powerful motivator. In this sense it resonates with Clay Shirkeys famous quote

' a revolution doesn’t happen when a society adopts new tools. It happens when society adopts new behaviors.'

So are we all creative? Elizabeth Gilbert argues the case that we are all creative. Clay Shirkey also illustrates this in his book Cognitive Surplus; here is an interesting article by the Guardian.



Convergence of creative and technical

Explore here a great collection of Ted Talks about creativity

Convergence is often discussed in terms of technology, but now there is another form of convergence that is as much of a catalyst of change as technology itself. Often when creativity is mentioned people make the immediate mental leap and association with designers and artists; however technical people (those that have often been referred to as Geeks), are demonstrating how diverse creativity can be. Many young minds are being fuelled by access to information and more importantly like-minded people. Many are producing technical solutions that push the boundaries of innovation and disrupt traditional business models.

As investors seize upon these bright ideas, the money flows and the news spreads daily of new start-ups. What is interesting is the fusion of creative and technical skills both within people and between people. Now that people are able to explore the world through the web. As they take and follow their many avenues of interest and curiousity, they occasionally may come across others within this network that become the inspiration which ignites their creativity.

Unlocking Networks

Networks are a pervasive part of nature of being human and being part of this world. From the network of neurons in our brain, to the network behaviour we exhibit to the complex networks of ecosystems. As Ross Dawson points out the network structures themselves influence the behaviours. But how does affect our futures and how does this affect businesses. If we use Ted Nelson’s metaphor, “Our bodies are hardware, our behavior software,” then how do our bodies work with our cities, mediated by software?

Why is this important?

Understanding how networks work, how they can be influenced has significant impacts on business. Networks affect the very fabric of commerce from share prices, business transformation, brand awareness to sales. But it is in how these networks can be influenced that many are avidly following this research area. If you could shave off months in terms of a business transformation process or magnify the amount of new customers and sales; then you have a compelling reason to research your networks.

What of Geeks and Creatives

Now is the time to explore enjoy and take part in the changes. We each have a role to play. For some this may be helping others to seize the technologies and tools to help them personally realise their inner creativity. It doesn't matter what the label is Geeks are cool as are Creatives; it is the energy and inspiration of creativity that counts. For others it may be recognising that it is valuable to explore all sorts of creativity with other people often outside your own discipline; together you might come up with some great ideas or simply have fun.