Mobile Marketing

Category: Mobile Marketing

Location based marketing alerts appeal to some consumers

Julie Campbell | December 23, 2013

A new report has suggested that shoppers are ready to start to receive notifications based on where they are.

According to a report that has been issued by an in store provider of a mobile marketing platform, Swirl Networks, consumers are becoming increasingly willing to receive location based marketing alerts that are triggered by beacon signals when they enter a shop or other similar places.

This is a trend that has been interesting many tech and advertising giants and was discussed by the MMW earlier this month.

Major technology companies, such as Apple, are now turning their sights toward location based marketing alerts and everything that surrounds them. For example, that company recently launched its iBeacon tech, which gives merchants to provide shoppers with in store messages that draw attention to sales, deals, promotions, and other information that the consumer may find relevant.

One concern some companies have had is whether consumers are ready for location based marketing alerts.

location based marketing alerts According to the research outlined in the Swirl Networks report, consumers are ready and willing to start to obtain messages through their smartphones from a store when they have entered its doors. In fact, the study revealed that a considerable 77 percent of shoppers would be willing to share their data regarding the location of their smartphone (which is the central technology for campaigns triggered by beacons) as long as the value that they receive in return is deemed adequate.

The Swirl Networks study also showed that shoppers also have a greater likelihood of sharing their location data with their favorite retailers (as was the case among 65 percent of the research participants) than they would to Google, Facebook, or shopping or daily deal apps.

According to the report, “As retailers ramp up their use of beacons for in-store mobile marketing, they must overcome the two largest complaints from consumers about today’s mobile shopping alerts: lack of relevance (41 percent) and lack of value (37 percent).” This is important insight for retailers that hope to be able to encourage broad use of their location based mobile marketing alerts without turning off smartphone using customers.

Facebook social media marketing ad format launch underscores mobile shortfalls

Rebecca | December 23, 2013

This recent addition by the giant network is shining a light on the failures marketers have made in connecting with smartphone users.

A recent addition to the Facebook social media marketing offerings is a new ad format that provides brands with the opportunity to engage with smartphone users once again when they have already previously installed their apps onto their mobile devices.

This also points out a number of flawed ideas that have developed regarding with mobile communications by marketers.

This new step has drawn attention to some of the flaws that have come up in the ways that Facebook social media marketing has been adopted by marketers in order to communicate with their audiences over mobile channels. The new format was designed to help to compensate for the failings in the way that the social network has been used in the past by advertisers.

There remain considerable weaknesses in the use of Facebook social media marketing, particularly over mobile.

The new ad format is designed to help to overcome that problem by giving brands a way to develop a call to action for customers that have already downloaded the brand’s app from within the social network’s own application, but have then stopped using the brand’s app. As there will be a number of different formats available, it will be possible for marketers to direct mobile users on the social network to check out specific features and content from within their own apps.

The point of these new formats is to give brands the chance to obtain a new “second chance” in which they can engage with smartphone users once again after having encouraged them to download their app, but then having failed to keep them interested. This could provide advertisers with a considerable opportunity to communicate with users, or it may simply offer yet another way in which they will miss the point and generate only temporary interest in a brand.

The entire premise behind the Facebook social media marketing attempt is that if it is there, people will come to get it. Though this has many quite excited, there has been considerable skepticism expressed, as well. Only time will tell.