December 19, 2011
PayPal said to visit its Shopping Showcase for a big-picture look at its mobile payment plans.
PayPal will begin to roll out a mobile deals service in the "next few weeks," said PayPal spokesman Anuj Nayar on Dec. 14. The eBay-owned company is partnering with approximately 200 U.S. merchants for the service, which be will opt-in only, he said.
October 16, 2011
The holiday shopping season is almost here and strategies incorporating mobile marketing can expand your database, reaffirm customer loyalty and usher in new multichannel techniques to make the most of this holiday season.
September 26, 2011
Virgin America launched a check-in deals campaign on Sept. 26 that rewards consumers with merchant, flight and hotel discounts. Virgin America developed the "VX Deals on the Fly" program in-house.
September 19, 2011
The Associated Press (AP) launched a pilot of its iCircular program on Sept. 19, enabling retailers to run digital versions of their weekly print circulars within newspapers' mobile apps or mobile-optimized sites.
Google has bought digital coupon and loyalty program provider Zave Networks. Zave's employees will join Google's Commerce team, said a Google spokesperson via email.
July 22, 2011
Today, with mobile devices at the height of their popularity, CPG marketers have the ideal opportunity to tap into the mindset and mindshare of consumers.
Email leads text messaging and Facebook as the top driver of mobile purchases among consumers, according to a report released by email marketing company ExactTarget on June 29. The "Mobile Dependence Day" report found that 55% of survey respondents who cited a marketing message as the impetus for a mobile purchase said that email had driven the purchase. Text messaging and Facebook followed at 41% and 35%, respectively.
May 26, 2011
Google will roll out a mobile payment system and national daily deals service this summer that will let consumers make purchases and redeem offers from their mobile phones at participating merchant locations, the company said at a May 26 event in New York.
Mobile payments start-up Square is getting a lot of press, surely in part because the company was started by Twitter cofounder Jack Dorsey. However, consensus from around the Web is that the platform won't catch on at the breathtaking rate that Twitter did.
Credit card company Visa has opened its global processing network for marketers to send consumers offers based on their purchasing history. The company tested the initiative last November in a pilot program with clothing retailer Gap and said April 21 that it is expanding the service to companies nationwide.
April 18, 2011
The next big change providing utility in mobile devices will be the adoption of the "mobile wallet" technology and solutions.
The Mobile Marketing Association released its "Guidelines and Best Practices in Mobile Price Promotions" report for North America today, encouraging guidelines that are pretty common sense. Here's the boiled-down version: Be transparent.
Direct mail couponing company Valpak has launched a location-based digital coupon service with mobile application developer Metaio GmbH. The service will deliver discounts through the developer's augmented reality application Junaio.
Farmland Dairies launched a consumer awareness campaign on March 1 using QR codes and instant coupons in health clubs throughout the Northeastern US. The company's AOR, Union, NJ-based Linett and Harrison, created the campaign.
Two-thirds of all purchases and half of transactions will occur on mobile devices by 2015, Google executives said February 4. Consumer coupons will also transition from their current rate of 80% push to 80% opt-in four years from now, said David Shapiro, Google's director of small business marketing.
January 24, 2011
After Food Lion redesigned its dozen of stores in the Greenville, NC, greater area, the grocer looked for ways to generate excitement about its brand among the younger, social media savvy population that congregates around the local college, East Carolina University (ECU).
In recent months, we've seen several technology firms acquire social media analytics companies to help end-users create, measure and improve social initiatives. Lithium acquired Scout Labs in May. In July, Marketwire acquired Sysomos. IBM spent a whopping $480 million on Coremetrics in August and less than one month later Alterian acquired Inteprid.
The Mobile Marketing Association has released its top 10 trends to watch in 2011. The biggest emerging trend next year: personalization and privacy will increase the effectiveness and credibility of mobile as a marketing channel, according to the MMA.
The mobile device is changing the world in many ways. In the US, 90% of the population over age 13 has a mobile device. Of that, 23% has a smartphone, a percentage that continues to increase.
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) published a set of guidelines and best practices for mobile promotions on December 21, urging marketers to use honesty and transparency in their mobile deals.
If Aaron Greenspan has his way, wallets will become a thing of the past. The founder of FaceCash, a mobile payment system that lets consumers pay by using a scanned barcode on their smartphones, has pounded the pavement in the Bay Area to get merchants to sign on to the service.
A number of operating systems are major players in the US mobile advertising space, which is not dominated by any one device or carrier, according to figures from ad network Millennial Media.
November 10, 2010
Toys "R" Us' holiday campaign is in full swing two weeks before Black Friday, the traditional start of the holiday shopping season. This week, the retailer introduced mobile coupons that shoppers can receive by text message or e-mail.
Provision Interactive Technologies, a manufacturer of interactive display software and hardware, has partnered with Ping Mobile to add a mobile marketing component to its out-of-home displays.
February 15, 2010
Verizon has teamed up with mobile couponing firm Cellfire to offer a free digital coupon service that its mobile and Fios TV customers can use in grocery stores. The program, called "Spend Smart," lets Verizon customers use mobile coupons in more than 20 grocery chains across the country. Participating stores include Safeway, ShopRite and Kroger.
Wendy's/Arby's Group International has selected Options Media Group for its mobile couponing efforts in the Northeast US. Under the terms of the partnership, announced December 21, Options Media will roll out a coupon campaign for restaurants in that part of the country.
What's in our mailbox this month: fitness postcards from Retro Fitness, American Woman Fitness Centers, Union's United Taekwondo Academy, and Bally Total Fitness. (We're totally pumped.)
Social data can improve a brand's bottom line and customer relationships. Just ask brands Infiniti and Diamond Nexus.
Here are three must-have data sets that every marketer should include in his or her email strategy.
