Tag: mobile platform

Vmob teams up with New Zealand’s largest loyalty program.

The partnership formed between mobile marketing company Vmob and loyalty program Fly Buys, will result in a mobile platform that will be geared toward targeting the personal preferences of smartphone users who will be sent promotions, offers and sales opportunities based on what most appeals to them.

New mobile platform will aim to give customers more of what they want.

“One of the criticisms I often get from customers is, ‘You know a lot about me, why do you keep sending me things that aren’t relevant?” said Fly Buys owner and chief of Loyalty New Zealand, Stephen England-Hall. He said that the new platform will give Fly Buys the ability to better target the needs and desires of customers instead of offering them products that are intended for a wider and general group of consumers.

In a few months, the mobile marketing platform will be ready to go. The information it uses will be based on the customers past shopping habits and their location, which will allow it to send them promotions and offers that are relevant.

England-Hall stated that with the partnership and mobile combined, the company will finally be able to eliminate what is irrelevant and can be more specific with targeting. He also mentioned that even though the new platform will use the personal data of consumers in terms of their previous shopping trends and location, this will only make Fly Buys work with greater diligence to ensure private customer information is protected.

Many consumers worry that mobile marketing is becoming too intrusive.

According to England-Hall, people have concerns regarding mobile marketing and its invasiveness. Due to this reason, if they feel that a company is becoming too intrusive they will “delete you”. Therefore it is very important for marketing to be done with greater care and respect than it has been in the past.

Vmob, a cloud-based company from New Zealand, has achieved international success via partnerships with big name clients including Telkom Indonesia, and McDonald’s Netherlands. However, despite this success, the chief executive and founder of Vmob, Scott Bradley, says that it is wonderful to have formed a strong partnership with New Zealand’s largest loyalty program. 1.4 million active households are part of the Fly Buys loyalty program, which is approximately 74% of all the households in the country.

Mobile marketing is key to a successful shopping experience for both the seller and buyer. Bradley said, “We need to turn shopping back to a service-oriented culture rather than a transactional one, and service comes from knowing your customer.”

Mobile commerce companies will have an opportunity to prove themselves this year

This year is expected to determine whether mobile payments will become a widely accepted phenomenon or little more than a passing fancy. In 2013, several of the brands investing in mobile commerce solutions will have their platforms exit the testing phase, becoming widely available to consumers around the world. Those that can entice the interests of consumers are expected to thrive, whereas those that are not well received are likely to fail.

Consumers are becoming more mobile

Part of what makes this year so important for the mobile payments sector is the fact that smartphone and tablet saturation is reaching an all time high. More consumers have access to smartphones and tablets now than they ever have in the past. This makes them more susceptible to the allure of mobile commerce. Moreover, media consumption is beginning to favor the mobile space, meaning that more consumers are relying on their mobile devices for their daily content rather than other platforms. For mobile commerce companies, these trends are of vital importance.

Comprehensive mobile commerce services likely to find success

As more consumers begin to embrace the mobile world, large brands are beginning to invest more heavily into mobile commerce. Mobile startups are beginning to be put to the test and those that offer comprehensive and easy to use mobile payments services are expected to beat out their competitors. There is no shortage of competition, of course, as there are literally thousands of mobile applications that offer some form of mobile commerce service to consumers. The trick, however, is finding a business model that is able to capture the support of consumers.

Freemium model shows most promise

So far, the freemium model is among the most successful in the mobile commerce realm. Freemium refers to the practice of offering a free service with the absolute lowest level of features being offered to consumers. Consumers have the option to pay a fee to unlock new features or sign up for a subscription to access all the features that the platform has to offer.