Category: Mobile Marketing

Geolocation based marketing program successful at Best Western

| August 1, 2013

The hotel chain has found that advertising with this technique has provided them with results.

The Best Western chain of hotels has decided to move toward geolocation based mobile marketing in order to help to boost the interest of travelers and encourage them to book a stay at one of their locations as they drive past competing accommodations or pass through airports.

The initial wave of the campaign is beginning in Washington state but is expected to expand.

The Best Western geolocation campaign is being run through the assistance of the PayPal Media Network. It is designed to encourage consumers to use their mobile devices in order to book their hotel stays.

This use of geolocation technology could help to boost the relevancy of the marketing.

Best Western - Geolocation Mobile MarketingThe PayPal Media Network director of marketing and sales technology, Sarah Hodkinson, said that “According to Best Western, the booking window for reservations is no longer weeks in advance.” Instead, she explained, they are waiting until they are moments away from a location to make their reservation. She went on to say that by leveraging geolocation technology based mobile marketing, “hoteliers can capture these last-minute bookings by engaging travelers in proximity to their locations.”

In order to accomplish this, geolocation technology was applied by Best Western to geo-fence their ads around airports and hotels throughout Washington state. Furthermore, the chain is also running the location based advertisements within the geo-fences that have been set up near the locations of rival hotels in order to try to convince them to choose one of their own hotels, instead.

The brand believes that the geolocation based ads help to provide consumers with information regarding the number of miles that they would have to travel to the nearest Best Western location. Moreover, the ads also include a “book now” button that redirects them to a smartphone optimized Best Western room booking page where they can learn more about the accommodations or actually book the room in which they would like to stay. This could help to make sure that the ads are always being presented to travelers at the moment that they are seeking the hotel in which they will be spending their trip.

Mobile marketing study shows that many consumers have mixed feelings

| July 31, 2013

A recent survey by Campaigner has shown that many people aren’t sure how they feel about this channel.

Campaigner has just revealed the results of a national survey that it commissioned, in which it was discovered that more than 37 percent of consumers are undecided about the way that they feel about the impact that mobile marketing emails are having on them.

Only a small number of them had actually bought anything in their smartphone or tablet because of an email.

The survey revealed that only approximately 6 percent of the respondents had actually purchased a product or service over their smartphone or tablet as a result of having received a mobile marketing email. For this reason, many aren’t exactly sure whether the channel is having any real impact on the purchasing decisions that they are making.

This discovery may help to shape the way that mobile marketing is used over the upcoming holiday season.

mobile marketing - consumers confusionMany consumers wait until the end of November in order to begin their holiday season shopping. However, retailers have been hoping to be as prepared as they possibly can to be able to reach consumers as they are making fast decisions, and it is likely that mobile marketing will play an important role in that effort, this year.

At the same time, the survey indicated that only 14.3 percent of the respondents actually used the mobile marketing emails that they received in order to take advantage of deals, offers, savings, and the chance to find unique gifts. At the same time, 37 percent weren’t sure if the emails they received had any impact on the decisions that they were making for purchases, in any way, especially when compared to the impact that regular emails have.

What the Campaigner survey did find was that poor design of mobile marketing emails, badly optimized smartphone websites and sending too many emails to consumers rapidly killed potential opportunities by having consumers simply delete the emails before they even opened them. According to the Campaigner general manager, E.J. McGowan, “While mobile commerce has taken off like a rocket, retailers still have a lot of work to do when it comes to developing their mobile channels.”