Tag: mobile advertising

Mobile marketing at Best Buy for Black Friday to center on SMS

| November 22, 2013

The electronics giant is placing its focus on texting consumers in order to draw them into its stores.

Best Buy is making a number of strong mobile marketing efforts throughout this month in order to help to encourage consumers to head into its stores to take advantage of massive deals on Black Friday.

The electronics chain is hoping that keeping consumers aware of the discount opportunities is key.

Their primary purpose for this mobile marketing is to make sure that its customers remain informed as to the various discount opportunities that will be available in the stores so that they will make the trek to grab hold of these great prices. In this strategy, Best Buy is urging consumers to opt into its SMS database so that they will be able to receive the latest information regarding the opportunities that will be available to them on Black Friday and the entire holiday shopping season.

From that time, shoppers can choose whether or not to continue to receive mobile marketing texts.

Mobile Marketing - Best BuyOnce consumers are already signed up for receiving these holiday specific mobile marketing messages, they can also choose to receive future texts with similar messages. As of the time this article was written, Best Buy’s intention was to provide texts from now until the end of the year to those who have subscribed to the holiday shopping texts.

According to the Iris Mobile CEO and president, Cezar Kolodziej, “Mobile messaging programs like SMS are the preferred channel for reaching customers anytime and anywhere.” He added that “Redemption rates and open rates for mobile messaging are much higher than other channels.” He also explained that this makes mobile marketing through text a “no-brainer” for companies that are looking for a way to communicate directly with consumers at any time, but particularly throughout the holiday shopping season, when the highest number of people are looking to shop and are being deluged by ads and incentives from the competition.

At the moment, the mobile marketing efforts being made by Best Buy are being geared specifically toward shoppers looking for electronics during the holiday season.

Mobile marketing may be headed toward MMS

| October 31, 2013

Multimedia messaging services may be the next big channel for communicating with consumers.

Though mobile marketing is still relatively new, there is already an image that comes to mind when the term is spoken, and it usually involves text messages and banner ads that are worked into sites and apps.

Some marketers are beginning to think that the future of this channel, however, is in MMS.

These predictions are not without grounds. The mobile marketing campaigns from large brands such as Kellogg, IKEA, Starbucks, and Bloomingdales, as well as television networks such as ABC, CBS, and Fox, have all included their own elements that include both SMS (text) and multimedia messaging services (MMS). It is the latter that is being viewed by many as the opportunity with the greatest potential and likelihood for growth.

Mobile marketing ads in MMS include any number of different types of content format, including video.

Mobile Marketing and MMSThis mobile marketing prediction is causing many brands, companies, and marketers to begin to direct some of their investments and budgets toward businesses and techniques that involve the use of MMS. It is starting to open the eyes of advertisers to the realization that essentially every cell phone is assured to have at least two apps, which are texting and phone calling. This knowledge helps to provide the perspective needed to properly design campaigns in order to reach the largest number of people.

Regardless of the popularity of actual specific messaging apps, which are also being considered as potential avenues for advertising, MMS is growing faster for mobile marketing simply because it comes as a standard on all of these devices, regardless of model or operating system.

Data from the CTIA (the Wireless Association) has shown that there were 74 billion MMS messages sent by consumers last year. This figure increased at the same time that the number of text messages and talk minutes dropped. Even so, brands have not been exploiting MMS as quickly as was possible. This has left it primed for a sudden explosion in the near future, particularly after the outcomes of recent studies that are showing that this technique helps to effectively reach consumers.