Mobile Marketing Archives

Get Started with Mobile Marketing Part 5 – Mobile Ads for Small Business
So far, we’ve looked at What is Mobile Marketing in Part 1, What is Location Based Marketing in Part 2, and the best ways to implement QR Codes in Part 3. In part 4, we reviewed SMS Marketing. Have you looked at mobile ads for your small or local business yet?

Mobile ads can be implemented into apps by a variety of providers. To determine which ad service provider you would benefit to work with best, consider what mobile platforms visitors to your website are using (Google Analytics reveals this) and what apps are local to your business.

Look at your local news, radio, tv, and weather stations as starting points. Can you determine what advertisement provider they are using on their apps? Can you contact them to ask for information on how to be a part of the ads on their websites? Some local apps may run their on ad overlays internally.

Mobile Ad Platforms:
- iAds by Apple
- Admob by Google – primarily for advertising mobile apps
- RevMob – cross-platform with strong advanced targeting
- AppFlood – cross-platform
- AppLovin
- Vungle – video focused
- AdColony – video focused
- Chartboost – video focused
Types of Mobile Ads:
- Banner – a small strip at the top or bottom of the screen
- Interstitial (full screen) – similar to a pop-up, and often in the form of a video
Have you used mobile ads to promote your local or small business? I’d love to hear what experience you had. Leave a comment below.
March 31, 2014

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

local business, local marketing, mobile ads, mobile marketing, Small business
How to Make Your Phone-number on Your Website Click to Call

Have you ever visited a website from your mobile phone to find the number of a business you wanted to call and tried to copy that link? Wouldn’t it be easier if their phone number were click-to-call? Or if they offered you a button to click while on your phone?

Much like clicking on an email address often opens your email system with a subject already created, many other communication systems can be click to call.

At times, just making text a link is enough. However, consider also giving your visitors a button to click. Here’s how to format the html for each type, a dummy link, and the same link applied to an image.

Click-To-Call Link HTML Formatting

<a href=”tel:[PHONE-NUMBER]”>[PHONE-NUMBER]</a>

Test Call

Click-To-SMS Link HTML Formatting

<a href=”sms:[PHONE-NUMBER]?body=[MESSAGE]”>[PHONE-NUMBER]</a>

Click to Join my SMS Updates

Click-To-Facetime Link HTML Formatting

<a href=”facetime://5555555555″>Call us free using Facetime!</a>

Call 1-888-FACETIME (NOTE: this is a discontinued service from Apple, the link won’t actually reach the destination)

Click-To-Skype Link HTML Formatting

<a href=”skype:skype_user?call”>Call us using Skype!</a>

Call the Skype Test Call Lady

Click-To-Email Link HTML Formatting

<a href=”mailto:someone@example.com?Subject=Hello%20again” target=”_top”>Send Mail</a>

Send Mail

Click-To-Navigate Link HTML Formatting

Rather than determining every possible link to launch a navigation system on different devices, I prefer to make the address to a location be a link to Google Maps. If the user doesn’t have Google Maps enabled on their device, it will launch in any internet browser and work.

<a href=”http://goo.gl/maps/XXX” title=”Your Address here” target=”_blank”>Your Address Here</a>
1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington, DC

Look at your website from a mobile device and plan what would most help your visitors quickly contact you.

March 24, 2014

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

Click-to-call, mobile, navigation
Get started with Mobile Marketing – Part 4, SMS Text Message
Can SMS Text Message Marketing help your business? It depends upon the type of business you have and the customers you serve.

So far, we’ve looked at What is Mobile Marketing in Part 1, What is Location Based Marketing in Part 2, and the best ways to implement QR Codes in Part 3.

SMS/MMS/Text Message Marketing

Much like email marketing, sms or text message marketing is a great way to reach your customers. Mobile messages have an astonishing 99% open rate. The primary difference between sms vs mms is that sms is text only, while mms can include images, audio, and video as well.

Where SMS Marketing Shines:
1. Event promotions
2. Promoting physical locations (discounts, specials, or new products and services)
3. Integrating in to traditional media campaigns (radio, print, tv)
4. Lots more
How to Opt In to SMS Marketing:
1. Text a short code to a specific number from your phone
2. Visit a specific page within a website to fill in via a computer
3. Scan a QR code
SMS Providers:
1. EZ Texting – a free way to get started building your list and pay when you are ready to send messages. Integrates with email systems. You can join mine at:
  
  Get special offers from Courtney Engle Robertson & Simple Local Business
  
  Phone Number
  
  Msg&data rates may apply. To unsubscribe, text STOP to 313131 (393939 in Canada). For help text HELP anytime.
  Available in USA & Canada. Your privacy is always protected and your information will not be shared. Powered by EZ Texting
2. Trumpia – one stop shop for all multimedia marketing, including email services.
I’d love to hear if you implement SMS marketing into your strategy this year. Leave a comment below.
January 13, 2014

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

mobile marketing, QR Code, Short Message Service, SMS, Text messaging
Get Started with Mobile Marketing – Part 3 QR Codes
In parts 1 and 2, we looked at other things to do before jumping in to QR codes. If you haven’t yet read those posts, go do them now.

To scan a QR code, I like the Google app on iOS, using the Google Goggles feature. I aspire to consolidate the number of apps I have on my iPhone, and a stand-alone QR code reader isn’t necessary. Just click in the search box, and select the camera icon to scan the qr code.

QR Codes: A Fancy Barcode

When explaining what a qr code is to people, I liken it to a fancy bar code that can do a lot of things. Most bar codes are designed for cash register scanners to input the price and monitor inventory. With a smartphone that has a camera built in, QR codes are capable of much more:
1. Direct people to a website (make sure it is completely mobile-ready) which ultimately can be used to do a wide variety of things
2. Bookmark a website
3. Make a phone call
4. Send an SMS
5. Send an E-mail
6. Create a vCard (saves a contact to your address book)
7. Create a meCard (similar to a vCard)
8. Create a vCalendar Event (save an event to your calendar app)
9. Launch Google Maps
10. Launch Bing Maps
11. Geographical coordinates (for other mapping)
12. Android Market Search
13. Youtube
14. Encode latest Tweet
15. Tweet on Twitter
16. Twitter Profile Image Overlay
17. Blackberry Messenger PIN
18. Wifi Network for Android (connect to your friend’s wifi at their house by scanning a QR code without entering a password)
19. Free formatted text (display a plain text document on the phone)
I use an app on my Mac to create high quality QR codes.

QR Codes Are Misused

QR codes have been widely adopted by Japanese smartphone users, but haven’t gotten the same fanfare in North America. Primarily because marketers rushed to implement them without considering what happens from the users perspective. Common problems include:
1. The QR code is a low-quality graphic (these need to be high-resolution files the further away the user is scanning)
2. QR codes redirecting people to a non-mobile website (why would they want to see that on their phones?)
3. No prompts for what the user will find when they scan the code or incentive to do so
4. Placing the QR codes where people will likely have no mobile phone reception or is otherwise unsafe (billboards on the highway, the back of the company truck, subways, and airplanes)
5. Assuming using QR codes covers all your mobile marketing needs
6. Not tracking how many people scan the QR code and what action they take (how will you know if it works?)
7. Putting QR codes on websites – if I’m already on the site from the computer, I don’t really want to open it on mobile (and if I ever have a reason, I can do so without your help)
For a quick read and a good laugh at the marketing blunders companies have made, see Scott Stratten‘s book: QR Codes Kill Kittens.

QR Codes Can Be Awesome

I got an early Christmas present from my parents – a new Samsung Smart TV! I started to unbox it and was slightly stumped at the stand. I needed to assemble this correctly and thought that I had, but I don’t want my new big screen tv to wobble and unexpectedly face-plant onto the living room floor. It mattered to me that every screw was exactly in place as it should. So – I scanned the helpful QR code in the packaging that auto-played a demonstration video.

I’ve also needed a quick way to move a website that I’m looking at on my computer to my iPhone (like testing my clients websites). For that, I have a Chrome extension that I right-click on the site to display a QR code that I scan from my phone.
December 16, 2013

Courtney Engle Robertson

Mobile Marketing

BlackBerry Messenger, Google, Google Goggles, iOS, iphone, QR Code, Scott Stratten, Uniform Resource Locator