Mobile Marketing 411

The two-unit World’s Healthiest Pizza chain has introduced “text coupons” that customers can download to their mobile phones.

Pizza delivery company Papa John’s has launched a text-to-win competition offering consumers the chance to win a year’s supply of pizza.

The campaign, which invites consumers to ‘Txt the Papa,’ will give away a year’s supply of pizza every day for the length of its nine week run. Creative agency Crossing O’Sullivan is behind the promotion, which is being powered by mobile marketing solutions provider Sponge.

The ‘Txt the Papa’ competition will feature on take-away menus.

“Papa John’s has made it very easy to enter this competition - consumers can text the number on menus while waiting for their order,” said Douglas McDonald, Client Services Director at Sponge. “They’ll get a confirmation text thanking them for their entry and one winner will then be picked at the end of each day.”

Consumers need to text PAPA to shortcode 86100 to be in with a chance. Sponge’s verified random draw engine technology will pick each winner.

Simon Wallis, Director of Marketing at Papa John’s says; “Implementing the Txt the Papa campaign has given us the opportunity to interact with our customers in a simple and engaging way.  It also allows us to develop our database for ongoing mobile communication.”

Sponge has powered a number of text-to-win campaigns for brands such as Lucozade, Cadbury and Birds Eye.
 

The Internet can answer almost any question you can come up with, but wouldn’t it be great if you could call someone to search the Internet for you? A new free service called ChaCha lets you do just that.

1. Call 1-800-2 CHA-CHA from a cell phone that can receive text messages.

2. When prompted, speak your question. Ask about the weather, who won a sporting event or ask for a good Italian restaurant.

3. After you hang up, you’ll receive a text message restating your question and telling you that ChaCha is working on finding the answer. A ChaCha guide then looks for the answer online. In a few minutes, you’ll get a text message with the answer to your question.

The text message will also include a link to a Web site that has your question, the answer and a link to the Web site where the ChaCha guide found the answer.

ChaCha is free, but standard text messaging rates apply.

Want to keep up with the Florida State baseball team’s performance at the College World Series?

If so, sign up to receive inning-by-inning text message updates to your cell phone.

The service is free, though your cell-phone carrier might charge you a small fee for text messages received. Check with your carrier to find out if text messages are included in your plan.

To sign up for FSU inning-by-inning College World Series text-message updates, you can do any of the following:

Enter your cell-phone number into the box on the homepage of http://www.NoleSports.com or http://tallahassee.com.

Visit http://Tallahassee.com/text.

Use your cell phone to send the text message nolesbaseball to 44636.

Image via Wikipedia

NY Times tech columnist David Pogue recent complained online that he and his wife had begun receiving tons of text-message spam on their new cellphones. AT&T quickly replied with unexpectedly good news: there are a couple very easy ways to block text spam.

1. Users can block text messages from the Internet, which destroys spam while still letting friends text them from other phones.

2. Folks who need to get texts from the Internet (airline ticket info and such) can change their text address from a phone number to an alias of some sort.

Here’s how:

* AT&T: Log in at mymessages.wireless.att.com. Under Preferences, you’ll see the text-blocking and alias options. Here’s also where you can block messages from specific e-mail addresses or Web sites.

* Verizon Wireless: Log in at vtext.com. Under Text Messaging, click Preferences. Click Text Blocking. You’re offered choices to block text messages from e-mail or from the Web. Here again, you can block specific addresses or Web sites. (Here’s where you set up your aliases, too.)

Money Mailer, a quality leader in the $62 billion direct marketing industry since 1979, has formed a partnership with Cellfire Inc., the only nationwide mobile coupon and discount offer service, to deliver mobile coupons in conjunction with their traditional advertising program for local businesses. Businesses who advertise with Money Mailer can now broaden their reach by extending their traditional direct marketing promotions to the mobile phone. The program, called Money Mailer Mobile, is first launching in select markets in Austin, Baltimore and Suburban Maryland, Northern and Central New Jersey, Orange County, San Diego, and San Jose this summer.

“As a leader in the space, it was mission-critical for Money Mailer to meet the changing demands of the direct marketing landscape,” said Steven Gray, chief operating officer of Money Mailer. “Cellfire enables us to leverage mobile coupons to help businesses generate a greater response from their direct marketing efforts, and provide consumers with a convenient complement to the direct mail savings we have been delivering by mail for the last 28 plus years.”

With the Money Mailer Mobile program, participating local merchant offers will be simultaneously available in the Money Mailer envelope and within the Cellfire mobile coupon and discount offer service.

Consumers can respond to Money Mailer coupons they receive through the mail by sending a text message with the associated keyword to the Money Mailer Mobile short code. Consumers will then instantly receive a text message with the coupon code for the offer in the direct mail piece. Consumers can redeem the coupon by showing the message to the local advertiser.

In addition, Money Mailer consumers will have the opportunity to sign up for the Cellfire mobile coupon and discount offer service to access additional coupons using their mobile phone. New and existing Cellfire users will be able to view and redeem Money Mailer merchant offers available in their local area, as well as other offers presented by Cellfire.

“Our partnership with Money Mailer is a huge win for consumers looking for convenient savings and the local businesses wishing to reach them,” said Brent Dusing, CEO of Cellfire. “Consumers can count on great savings from Money Mailer and Cellfire, and now local businesses can execute a marketing plan that spans print and mobile in one integrated program.”

Consumers access the Cellfire service through an easy to use mobile application that resides on their cell phone or through a mobile web browser. New offers are added frequently, and users can access the Cellfire service at their convenience to discover and use discounts specific to their geographic area. Coupons are displayed in an organized manner that allows consumers to navigate through coupons by category, save the offers they want to use later, or select the offer they want to use immediately. Cellfire users are provided with a unique redemption code that is shown at the time of a transaction. Users simply click on the coupon they want to use and show it to the sales clerk for redemption.

About Cellfire

Cellfire provides consumers with convenient discounts directly on their mobile phones. Cellfire is the first nationwide mobile coupon and discount offer service that allows consumers to easily access deals from brand-name merchants nationwide through their cell phone. Founded in January 2005, Cellfire is headquartered in San Jose, Calif. For more information or to download Cellfire, visit www.cellfire.com.

About Money Mailer Direct Marketing

Money Mailer Direct Marketing is a division of Monday Mailer—Entrepreneur Magazine’s #1 advertising services franchise for 2008 and ranked one of Inc. Magazine’s 5,000 Fastest Growing Private Companies. Money Mailer Direct Marketing is a leader in the $62 billion direct marketing industry by optimizing direct marketing results through integrated shared mail, one-to-one, and interactive solutions. Reaching more than 22 million households through shared mail alone, Money Mailer Direct Marketing is able to accurately target every household the U.S. with integrated solutions using a variety of methods ranging from direct mail to mobile phone advertising. To learn more call 800-Mailer-1 (624-5371) or visit www.moneymailerdirect.com.

Coupons, Inc., the world’s leading provider of printable coupon marketing and technology solutions, and Yahoo!, the company that defined the markets for display and search advertising in both PC and mobile, have expanded their current relationship to enable consumers to discover and redeem coupons from their phones while on the go. Coupons, Inc. dominates the online coupon space, with more than 800 brand relationships, thousands of coupon campaigns and the world’s leading online coupon distribution network. The company will make its mobile platform immediately available to all the brands in its network.

Mobile coupons are considered a promising source of revenue for mobile publishers; they are one of the marketing tactics consumers say they would welcome as part of their mobile experience. Early tests have lacked the scale that national brand marketers who spend the most on coupon promotions expect. Coupons, Inc. brought exactly that sort of scale to the printable coupon market by building a network of publishers that reaches hundreds of millions of consumers each month, and intends to do the same for its clients’ mobile coupons with partners like Yahoo!.

“We see mobile coupons as a natural extension of our leading digital marketing platform and a way to turn coupons into a strategic marketing vehicle that delivers value,” said Steve Boom, Senior Vice President, Mobile, Yahoo!. “Our global reach, leading position in mobile advertising and the ability to deliver the right offer to people, coupled with Coupons, Inc.’s leadership in coupons, creates a unique opportunity to define and catalyze the market for mobile coupon promotions. When consumers get a coupon they want it’s not seen as an ad ‒ but a gift.”

Leading brands like Papa John’s Pizza are lining up to take advantage of the new platform and planning mobile coupon campaigns:

“Papa John’s is excited about mobile coupons and is looking forward to working with Yahoo! and Coupons, Inc. on this innovative mobile marketing opportunity,” said Jim Ensign, Vice President of Marketing Communications at Papa John’s. “We see mobile coupons as a viable way of reaching our customers wherever they might be and another component of our integrated marketing campaigns.”

“Coupons, Inc. has been innovating coupon technology for a decade. Mobile coupons are a logical next step in the industry’s evolution, and we continue our commitment to drive interactive coupons with our new mobile initiative,” said Steven Boal, CEO of Coupons, Inc. “By partnering with Yahoo!, we will extend our customers’ reach to a new generation of consumers ‒ especially teens and young adults ‒ in a medium that best fits their lifestyles.”

Analysts agree. “Mobile coupons are a winning combination for consumers and marketers,” said Tim Bajarin, President of Creative Strategies. “Anything mobile that is easy to use and helps consumers save money will be warmly accepted. This partnership has the potential to finally push past some of the issues that have prevented mobile marketing from really taking off.”

Who’s sending that text message to your cellphone? It could be your neighborhood auto dealer.

Dealers are joining other auto advertisers in marketing on mobile phones. Consumers now can gain access to many dealerships’ listings of new and used vehicles — complete with photos, prices, condition reports, contact information and directions to the showroom — on their phones.

Consumers rather than dealers activate the text messages.

Dealers, meanwhile, are using traditional print and broadcast ads to alert cellphone users to the new venue.

“If you are walking out of the house in the morning, what do you take with you?” said Mikhail Melomed, Internet director at Honda Mall of Georgia in the Atlanta suburb of Buford. “The cellphone. It is the most direct way to market. It is just like a Web site. It creates walk-in traffic and inquiries.”

Customers can get information about Melomed’s dealership by entering a keyword and a five-digit code on their cellphones, just as if they were voting on American Idol.

Ads contain codes

The dealership uses numerical codes in its outdoor, print and online advertising. Newspaper ads provide code numbers for specific vehicles.

“Every sticker on the used cars has that code attached,” Melomed said. “If someone sees a vehicle on the lot after hours, they can dial that specific car. Or if a customer calls, a salesperson texts the vehicle to the cellphone with all the information.”

The dealership has used mobile marketing since January, Melomed said. The service appeals especially to consumers between the ages of 18 and 40, he said. Some customers want information about a vehicle without talking to a salesperson, he added.

Mobile marketing helps dealers track results of traditional advertising and interest in particular vehicles, Melomed said. “I know who is looking at a specific car today,” he said.

This month, the dealership is offering a special incentive: a $100 gasoline card for buyers of new vehicles who conduct their searches on their cellphones.

‘Great and surprising results’

Sage Automotive Group has seen “great and surprising results” from mobile marketing at its Nissan dealership, partner Michael Sage said. The group operates seven dealerships in the Los Angeles area.

“We are able to connect to the young generation of car buyers in the way they want to be communicated to,” Sage told Automotive News. “We are happy with that.”

Universal City Nissan has boosted sales by using mobile codes in newspaper and radio ads over the past four months, Sage said. “We get as many as 20 to 30 text inquiries when we run the radio spot,” he said.

Cellphone ads typically appeal most to consumers who seek prices or information about a specific vehicle, said Richard Abronson, co-founder of Gumiyo. The suburban Los Angeles company provides mobile marketing services to hundreds of dealers, he said.

Mobile marketing “creates entirely new opportunities for consumers to respond to advertising at the moment they see it,” Abronson said. It especially benefits customers near the end of the purchase cycle, he said.

Consumers don’t mind getting text messages from dealerships even though they have to pay to receive the ads, Abronson said.

Said Abronson: “The consumers who are going to do this already know what their text messaging and data plan is.”

The push to make magazine pages more interactive is building mass and, dare we say it, even real momentum as major publishers and advertisers adopt a pair of technologies centered on the cellphone.

Hearst Magazines, the most recent example, is building on a nearly two-year experiment incorporating a text-messaging system called ShopText into the pages of CosmoGirl. It has adopted the technology across its portfolio, which includes brands from Esquire to Good Housekeeping. Its readers will soon see many opportunities, in editorial promotions and in ads, to make purchases, request samples or enter sweepstakes just by sending brief text messages. If magazine publishers like the results, they should remember to thank New York ad agency Anomaly, which started developing ShopText back in 2005. (It was spun off in November 2006.)

Magazines including Rodale’s Men’s Health and Wenner Media’s Rolling Stone are pushing ahead with a potential rival system called SnapTell, which allows readers to take cameraphone photos of ads, send in the shots and receive whatever message a marketer has arranged.

If readers continue to respond well, digital technology may be poised to support traditional ad sales more directly than ever. That’s good news for magazine publishers, who have watched advertisers concerned about the economy and enamored with the Internet’s efficiency reduce their ad-page purchases 5.5% in the first half of this year.

"Hearst magazines have been great drivers of people taking action," said Chuck Cordray, VP and general manager for Hearst Magazines Digital Media. "The ShopText approach just makes it a little more immediate than other methods, because most people have cellphones immediately at hand."

Immediate response

Hearst’s tests at CosmoGirl have included sweepstakes signups and offers for teen-targeted product samples such as skin cleansers. "This gives them an immediate way to say, ‘Yes, I would like to try that product,’" Cordray said.

Burger King has introduced ShopText-enabled ads in magazines including Time Inc.’s People, Bauer’s In Touch and Wenner’s Us Weekly, according to Steve Roberts, CEO of ShopText. "Get $5 free when you text to buy a $20 BK Crown Card," the ad reads. "It’s what we call ‘Kingflation.’"

Rolling Stone, meanwhile, has completed one go-round with SnapTell and plans another for the fall, said Publisher Ray Chelstowski. Readers responded strongly to the ads, he said, citing one from the Discovery Channel promoting the season premiere of "Man Vs. Wild."

"You got a video back of the host of that show drinking animal blood," Chelstowski said. "That one really resonated."

"If this does take hold," he added, "what it really does is narrow that transactional gap for advertisers that takes you from not only print media to mobile but to actual transactions."

John Hadl, general manager at Brand in Hand, said he’s used both technologies — and thinks they’re here to stay. "The value of digital is that it’s a productive medium," Hadl said. "Mobile starts to bring that to other channels that have been one-dimensional, like print."

SMS marketing is the new hotness, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal.

A slew of companies are tapping into the cellphone text message market — Coors just added a text component to its traditional sponsorship of the NFL Draft, the Journal reports.

So why the heightened interest? Unlike most ads, users actually request the text message the ad’s embedded in – so in theory at least, it’s not a nuisance. And marketers love them because they’re easier to measure than regular mobile Web ads. (click through rates are high on average — anywhere from 1% to 10%.)

Today, text-message ad company 4INFO, will announce a trial partnership with Yahoo, the Journal reports. 4INFO will provide the technology for Yahoo to send content users request with small ads.

Text-message advertising is projected to reach $1.5 billion this year, up 82% from last year, eMarketer reports – and spending on the ads accounts for 88% of the $1.7 billion spent on mobile ads overall.