MarketingOC Mobile. Social. Video. Inbound. Marketing Communications and Lead Generation

Mobile Web Sites May Not Be Sexy But They Sure Are Useful

Posted on 14. Jul, 2010 by Brian Fluhr in Blog, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Websites

Web designers and marketing team are used to creating a traditional web site experience that is that is full of brand elements, stunning design and tons of bells and whistles to engage your site visitors and to lead them along a carefully constructed path to achieve a “conversion.” Perhaps that conversion is a white paper download, or information request, or sales call request or the holy grail: a product purchase. And while it seems that there is a focused sales funnel leading to that conversion – there are often many possible distractions along the way – a banner ad here, a video there, a blog post there – yes all these elements may help you to engage with your site visitors on their widescreen desktop monitors, but what happens when a prospect visits your web site from their mobile phone?

Let’s take a look at American Airlines well traveled web site: AA.com.

Here is how AA.com looks in a desktop web browser:

Here is how AA.com looks on an Iphone when viewed in Full HTML mode:

You can see there are a lot of options that are work perfectly fine for desktop viewing but not so great on a mobile phone.  You can accomplish most of the same tasks you can with the desktop version, except, for a user to navigate the site on their mobile phone, they will have to pinch, stretch and scroll around a lot. Not a real friendly experience. This is an example of  how your web site may appear in a mobile browser if it has not been optimized for mobile.

Here is the mobile web site for AA.com

A couple of things to point out here.

1. Typing aa.com into the Safari mobile browser takes you right into the mobile web site rather than the full web site. Mobile device detection is used – immediately recognizing that I was asking to view on AA.com on my Iphone, as a result, the mobile web site was presented (all without me having to request a specific URL on my own)

2. This mobile web site is not sexy. It is not beautiful. It is not stunning. It is however very useful. Very useful for accessing the exact information customers need while they are on the go.

The key take away is not that mobile web sites should be ugly or that they shouldn’t  contain brand elements because they can indeed represent your company and brand in a positive way – but the end goal is to ensure that your prospects and customers can interact with your web site while on the go – quickly and efficiently. In doing so, you will be providing a positive experience for your customers, that will ultimately benefit your company.

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Social Media, Mobile, and Local Marketing Tips to build a Thriving Massage Therapy Business.

Posted on 09. Jul, 2010 by Patrick Curl in Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing, Social Media

Photo credit: Emily Chang

I’m a graduate from Massage Therapy back in the day (2003). I graduated from the Utah College of Massage Therapy aka UCMT. Those were fun days, I loved going to massage school, due to health concerns I eventually was not able to follow up on Massage therapy, so instead I became a social media consultant (which I also love).

I still miss practicing massage on people, and doing energy work like Cranial Sacral, Shiatsu, Acupressure, etc…

As a marketer I often think up ways that “If I was a __fill in the blank____” I’d do this to get more customers or clients.. It’s something that’s fun for me, if a little geeky.

So for this blog post “If I was a ‘practicing’ massage therapist” I would do the following to market my business:

1. Social Shopping Services. Social Shopping services are literally popping up all over the place. By “Social Shopping” I mean sites like LivingSocial and Groupon. The premise is this – a bunch of people each agree to buy the same deal from a company. Because a whole bunch of people are buying the company gets some nice exposure from possible people who might not have been customers otherwise.

Example: Groupon or Living Social runs a campaign for your business. Your customers get a 50% off a massage. Say you charge $60 normally for massages, that means that your customers get a $30 dollar massage. Groupon or LivingSocial would then get a percent of that I believe it runs from 30%-50%.

The benefit is that they have a large user base and can get tons of new customers to try out your services. You’ll generally get a fraction of what you normally do – but to get new people trying out your services its often worth it.

2. Local Directories. There are tons of great local directories out there. I would make sure to list all your services and modalities in each and every single local directory that you can find. Some good ones are: Google Places, Localeze, CitySearch, Yelp, MerchantCircle, ShopCity, Local.com, Yellow Pages, Yahoo local,

Be sure to use lots of graphics, some sites will let you add coupons. Make sure that every little space and form field is filled out with very detailed information about your business.

Also be sure to ask your customers how they found you, and ask them to go back to that site and leave you a review if they have a chance.

Another great Local Marketing tactic is using new Local / Social services to market your business. Make sure your business is listed at Foursquare and Gowalla and suggest to your clients that if they check-in on foursquare they can receive some nice benefits. You could give $5 off for all foursquare users who checkin, and $15 off for the Mayor of your business.

3. Adwords and PPC ads. Pay-Per-Click is a great boon for business. For those non-techy, pay-per-click ads are the ads on google on the side that say ‘sponsored’. Users can bid on keywords and their ad will get shown in the order of their bid. So say you bid $1.00 per click for a keyword and someone else bid $1.10 per click. That means for each click to your website you will pay $1.00. It also means that the $1.10 advertiser will be above you on the page.

Don’t worry about it getting costly because you can set your price, you can pay as little as $.01 per click on some keywords. You can also set a daily budget of $5-10 or more to make sure that you’re not spending hundreds of dollars a month with monetary benefits coming back to your business.

Running adwords campaigns can be costly if competing for high profile keywords. The key to being successful with local adwords campaigns is to target smaller less-searched after keyword phrases. For example instead of ‘Massage Therapy’, I might try Orange County Massage Therapist, or Massage Therapist Chicago, IL; or New York Massage, or New York Shiatsu, ..insert the rest of your modalities. You can do hundreds of keywords and see which ones work the best for you.

The key to PPC is trial and error. Keep trying new keywords and new ad copy to see what works best for you. One additional trick is that you can also choose to only show up on results from people in your area, and you can set the hours of day that you want your ads to run. So you might just want them to run during your normal business hours, to get the maximum benefit and so people can call you right away to setup and appointment.

You can also use other services that may be cheaper and more cost effective that are essentially adword like campaigns but for mobile applications and websites. These are great because the person is already out travelling the neighborhood and new technologies are making it easier and easier to reach people who are with-in a couple city blocks of your business. A couple of good services to look into for this space is Admob, and iAD.

4. Social Media Marketing. Having a good social media marketing strategy is crucial to online success. Your strategy should feature a highly professional Facebook page, an active twitter account with a custom background for your profile, an Active blog that features blog posts about local health related topics.

When blogging its a good idea to mix general health related articles that feature keywords related to massage therapy with articles and blog posts about local businesses, local news, etc. Why? Because you’re a local business which means you need people to see your blog when they google local events and news topics. It’s a small trick that could help you get noticed more. Also make sure to cross-post all your blog posts to your social networks, and vice versa if possible. There are many great plugins available for wordpress that can help you accomplish this.

5.  Reach out to Local Influencers. Join and find all the local business networking groups and run a special where each group can run a contest to give away a free massage. You could also do this for local bloggers. You could also give local bloggers a free massage in exchange for a good review of your service – they’re getting something free and would be more than willing to write about your Massage Therapy practice in exchange.

6. Mobile Marketing. SMS text marketing is a great way to connect with your customers, though it could be pricey, if you’re the owner of a massage clinic though it might work great. Basically this is where your customers opt-in to receive promotional messages via their cellphone’s text message capabilities. You could offer a chance to win a free massage every month to get them to stay members of your list.

Mobile coupons are another great mobile marketing tactic to reaching customers on mobile phones.

It’s also important that your website or blog has a mobile version for people who are on mobile phones. This is becoming more and more important as more and more people are using smartphones to navigate the web.

One final word of advice is to setup a google alert for your name, or business name. This way you’ll get emails sent when people review your business, or share it on facebook or twitter, or talk about you in a positive or negative way. This way you can respond to them in kind and thank them, or address their concern and see if you can do something to keep them as a customer.

It used to be that to get noticed you simply paid over $500 per year to get your business listed in the Yellow Pages, and hope people would choose your business over the other guy. Now, a listing in the Yellow Pages doesn’t mean diddly, being tops on google on the other hand will get you tons of foot traffic. To be a leader in your field for your local area you absolutely have to embrace all these new technologies and work hard to get your name out there more often, and on more sites than your competitors. That’s all it really boils down to.

The more content you put out there the more people will visit your blog, and subsequently your brick and mortar business.

How Mobile Marketing Can Help Small Businesses

Posted on 06. Jul, 2010 by Brian Fluhr in Blog, Mobile Marketing

It’s always exciting when we take the time to discover new case studies and means to present the value of mobile marketing to our clients – especially clients who consider themselves small businesses. Jakob Nielsen is a pioneer in web usability, and hearing him discuss the value of mobile marketing is inspiring to me and I believe beneficial to you. Have a listen to the first five minutes. The last few minutes are largely a commentary on the Ipad.

What I learned about Social media, Local, and Mobile Marketing from my Pizzeria.

Posted on 05. Jul, 2010 by Patrick Curl in Mobile Coupons, Mobile Marketing, Social Media

Before joining Brian at MarketingOC, believe it or not I co-owned a Pizzeria.

We owned a franchise of Fox’s Pizza Den, it was only short-lived because of the financial crisis we were basically left to fend for ourselves with no way to get more loans. Nobody was lending, it was a nightmare, and we had to close the doors.  We had actually purchased the business on a lease to own basis, and had to give it back to the original owner.

Through this experience, I had the opportunity to apply my social media know-how to a real-world business. Sure we didn’t necessarily succeed as a business, but that wasn’t for lack of trying, and it sure wasn’t because of our marketing, or lack thereof.

We started the business earning around $2,000 per week and by the end, we were making $3,200 a week. To stay afloat or break even we had to have made $3,600 per week. But all of that’s just gravy now. I’ve moved on – nothing keeps me down, and I’m extremely privileged to have found Brian, and joined MarketingOC.

Here’s what I learned about marketing online for Pizza shop owners:

1. A Web site is crucial. Having a website as a starting point was crucial, though in retrospect I do regret not having used wordpress. I was going for a simple online menu, and I think a blog may have worked out better, or at least had I had a blog attached to the domain in one way or another.

2. Twitter and Facebook are the backbone. Twitter was an amazing asset for finding new pizza customers. I had a bit of a secret trick to my twitter usage. We were a local company so the only people we were interested in following is those who could travel to pick up a pizza, or were with-in the delivery area.

I spent many hours following targeted people. I followed people who mentioned pizza, hoagies, subs, salads, and stromboli, who were located in the same area that our store was. An example search would be: pizza near:dayton,oh within:20mi … This search brings up every tweet that mentions pizza from twitterers in the Dayton area. I would then click on their name and follow them.

Next, I followed all the news agencies in town, hoping maybe someone with a good base of connections would retweet something I said, or even do an interview or write a blog post about us.

Finally, each night that we were slow I would run twitter contests. People would simply retweet a message, and follow us to get a chance to win a free pizza. I also did twitter specials where people who mentioned they found us on twitter received a medium 1 topping pizza for $4.99.

I would monitor twitter throughout the night, responding to people mentioning us.

Facebook is a wonderful place to gather leads. Having a custom facebook page with coupons, menu, and more gives customers an easy way to order without needing to go to another website. For facebook we designed a custom facebook page. On it we listed our current specials, and links to our menu, twitter page, and more.

Facebook was a bit harder to get fans, but I made sure to let everyone on twitter know, post it on every flyer and box topper, and put a sign at the front counter when people walked in.

3. Local Marketing Methods(Google, Foursquare, Gowalla, etc..).

Before we closed, foursquare was coming onto the scene. I didn’t use it very much, but I did have a few people come in and start checking in. I registered myself as a business, and even added a promotional item for mayors. It did definitely bring in about 5-10 new customers per week. I’m certain as it gained momentum that number would only grow in leaps and bounds. I never used Gowalla for the business but I imagine the results would’ve been similar to our results with Foursquare.

Google Places brought in a large amount of new traffic. Especially after I claimed my listing, added our website, added some coupons which you can do in the google business center, and listed more detailed information about our business. We got quite a few of the google coupons redeemed which only proved the success of the small amount of time I put into getting listed in Google.

I also made sure to list us on citysearch, yelp, and all the other local directories I could find. The more the merrier. They were free to submit to and only cost my time, which turned out to be a good investment.

4. Mobile Marketing. I started using mobile coupons as well for a way to get a good deal. It was great because it saved paper, was cheap, and people were genuinely excited about finding our coupons on their mobile phone.

There are a number of apps for different phones that offer coupon directories. I’d recommend you search out the one that will be best for your company, and maybe even going with a few different ones to diversify.

I would’ve loved to had the funds to market via sms text messages, and mobile search but I didn’t have that chance. Since joining forces with MarketingOC I’ve come across some amazing case stories of mobile marketing in action, and only wish I’d have known more about it at that time.

5. Google Adwords. Adwords isn’t always the easiest thing to manage, yet I found an interesting method that worked great for me. I set my budget to be $10 per day. I then dug up tons of pizza related keywords, italian food related, etc.. I also used some brand names like Dominos, Cassanos, Papa Johns, Donatos..etc…

Then I created a listing that would ONLY show during our business hours. That way our budget would get spent up and used during the times of day that were most beneficial to us. I also put our phone number in the Adwords campaign so that some people could simply call us up and order, instead of costing us money by clicking on the ad.

I experimented with a bunch of different ad copies but actually managed to get about 1-2 new customers for every $10-20 spent on adwords.

Everything I did online – I shared offline. I let everyone know we were on twitter, facebook, and foursquare. I made sure everyone who ordered food at our store received an updated flyer or menu with our website address, twitter, and facebook links.

Creating engagement with the customers is something that I really loved, and one of the things I miss most about owning my own Pizzeria. There’s a certain amount of fulfillment that comes with delivering a product that people love, and engaging social media users who share my love of Pizza.

Drive-in Theater Marketing Case Study. How to make Drive-ins more profitable.

Posted on 02. Jul, 2010 by Patrick Curl in Inbound Marketing, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Websites, Social Media, Video Marketing

Image by Denise Mattox

How to bring Drive-ins back from the cusp of Extinction.

I absolutely love going to Drive-in theaters. First off I love movies, secondly I love the nastalgic feeling a Drive-in theater brings, thirdly I love the price – you can’t beat two movies for the price of one. It’s really a great deal.

As excited as I am about Drive-in theaters, not everybody is. In the heyday of Drive-ins there were over 4,000 screens across the country, now there’s only 10% of that – only 400 drive-ins. It’s a sad thought but someday the Drive-in movie may be as extinct as the do-do bird. I’m  going to share some of my insights on why this is happening, and how to fight it.

Most drive-ins are family owned, which is great – I’m all about small businesses but sometimes there is older folks running the theater, people who aren’t necessarily upto speed with modern technologies. I’ve yet to see a drive-in theater who’s website is powered by WordPress, and that blogs frequently about the latest upcoming movies.

I’m just waiting to see a Drive-in theater that has a stellar social media marketing campaign. So far, their web sites are as nostalgic as their movie going experience. Each Drive-in theater web site I’ve looked at reminds me of a cheap GeoCities site back in the early days of the world wide web.

I’m going to explain what I would do as a Drive-in Theater owner to make my business rock solid, and more profitable. I’m going to break this post into 3 parts: Social, Mobile, and Local Marketing, Concessions Profits Maximization, Additional revenue streams.

1. Social, Mobile, and Local Marketing. Getting customers to your Drive-in should always be your first priority, unless you’re constantly sold out, then you can skip this step. When it comes to social media you need to be proactive and find out what people are saying about you online, address their concerns, and give a good customer experience all around.

Example: The drive-in around here I did a search on, I’m on not going to name the Drive-in I don’t want to alienate or embarrass the owners – but  on Yahoo reviews a long time ago there was a very derogatory remark left about the drive-in. Some other reviewers stood up for the Drive-in but for the most part no official spokesperson for the Drive-in stepped forward and tried to remedy the situation. I’m sure instead they lost one customer for life, and maybe others who saw that remark.

A few weeks ago I went to this same Drive-in and due to technical difficulties we ended up missing about 30 minutes of the main movie we had come to see. They didn’t say apologize or anything. I didn’t ask for my money back, but ever since that day I’ve noticed less and less people at the Drive-in.  A lot of the people I see there are regulars, and now they’re not coming back.

One remedy would’ve been to give everyone a free $5 concession stand item. Sure they might’ve lost a little bit of money, but it would’ve gone a long ways towards saving face, and saving future customers.

Social Media Marketing: Ten years ago it was important for every business to have a web site, now it’s the web profile(s) on social networks. It’s very important to create a a social presence for your Drive-in theater. People can then tweet that they are going to your Drive-in and you can tweet back at them, or you can send messages and specials to your facebook ‘likers’. The bottom line is leads – in this case people who might be enticed to visit your drive-in.  The beauty of social media is also that you can get people to help you spread the word and sharing your profiles to their friends.

People really want to connect with you, and your brand. They want to know who owns the Drive-in, the history behind it, it adds to the ‘nostalgic’ feeling. Give them what they want.

Another tip to reaching out to via social media is to contact local influencers, bloggers, and social media marketers – give them free tickets to give away on their blog, in exchange for blogging about your Drive-in. You could do the same with radio DJs too.

Mobile Marketing: SMS shortcode marketing is a great way to interact with your customers. Run a contest each night at a specific time that the first three people to send a text message to your special # will receive a free concession. To know when to text they gotta be a subscriber of your sms newsletter. — This way you can send weekly updates telling them what new movies are coming out, maybe even give them special coupons.

I would also recommend having a mobile version of your website. It’s a fact that 40% of all web site traffic now comes from mobile devices, and if you’re site isn’t optimized people looking for your Drive-in may not be able to see the web page.

Local Marketing: I could see Foursquare becoming very popular for a Drive-in, and Gowalla too. Why not offer the Mayor of the drive-in a free Large Popcorn? The mayor is someone who visits the Drive-in more than anyone else. They are your loyalest customers, and they certainly deserve to be rewarded. The special thing about Foursquare and Gowalla is that whenever someone checks-in – it tells all their friends where they’re at. Sometimes those friends will then go and meet up with that person where they are, this means more potential customers. It also could mean their friend saw they went to the drive-in last night, and they decided to plan on going the next day by themselves.

It’s also a good idea to have an optimized profile in all the local directories like Citysearch, Yelp, Merchantcircle, ShopCity, etc.

2. Concessions Maximization. Concessions is where Drive-ins make the bulk of their money. Yet, many people often smuggle food into the drive-in taking a big bite out of their proceeds. To combat this a lot of Drive-ins have begun charging $5 per car for a ‘food’ ticket. This allows outside food into the Drive-in. This is one way of going about things, but from a consumer it seems a little hard-pressured.

I think there’s a better way. First off you should make sure that your food is the best it can be, because I remember going to Drive-ins as a child and the food was about as good as school cafeteria fare, and that wasn’t that great. Now that you have better food, you should find a way to get more people into the concession house. To do this you should have a free giveaway every night. Nothing big, something small. I’d recommend switching it up nightly. For instance you could do 1/4th of a pretzel one night, half a slice of pizza another night.

These small ‘trial’ sized freebies will get people hungry, and will be a great way to introduce people to your products. If they’ve never tried your food before they are less likely to want to. I know sometimes I’d rather much buy pizza before I come just because I konw what I’m getting at a pizzeria. I don’t know the quality of food at the concessions. Of course a good social media / local directory campaign can help by encouraging people to write reviews about your concessions.

Another way I’d maximize concession purchases is to have a customer loyalty program. Initially a punch card that every 12 spends of $5 gets you a free Concession item of your choice upto $8 value. So they end up spending $60 and getting $8 back. These cards could also have another line for movie rewards. Say for every 12 trips to the drive-in  they get one free movie entry – one stamp per vehicle per entry. So in other words one stamp per car trip, not per person on the movie tickets.

Lastly, I would create some better video. The nostalgic 50′s cartoons are great – but they’re lacking in taste appeal. For some reason food looks better today than it did back then or something, but when I watch a Papa John’s pizza commercial I’m hungry immediately afterwards, when I watch a concession stand commercial at the drive-in sometimes I’m actually LESS hungry.

It might cost some money but get some user opinions of the food on tape, testimonials sell. An amateur video showing new people eating the concessions and taking taste tests would sell the food much better.As a bonus you can upload the video to youtube and share it on facebook, twitter, and your blog.

Also be sure to pass out full-color menus with coupons to EVERY car that comes through the gate. Pictures sell, and coupons sell.

3. Additional streams of revenue: There’s a lot more you could do with the Drive-in space.I’m just going to run off some ideas here:

• You could host a battle of the bands every weekend before the movies. This would give people more time to work up an appetite. People could vote on their favorite bands via twitter, sms, or online. At the end of the summer you could have a ‘finals’ competition and give away some prize to the winner. The last competition could be an all day thing that you could sell tickets to, and open the concession stand all day.
• Add a mini-golf course along the sidelines. Charge a low cost to play. Again open a bit early so people coming to watch the movies can also play some mini-golf.
• Add a cornhole game and charge a fee to play, again also open early so people can play.
• Have On-Screen advertising. You could make an extra $500-1000 a night just off advertising.
• Post billboards along the sides high enough to block out extra ambient light that might dim the screen, and also selling advertising on the billboards.
• Sell drive-in movie memorabilia, t-shirts, souvenires, etc in the concession stand and online.
• Many drive-ins already host flea markets, but if yours doesn’t that’s a great idea as well.
• Have special theme nights. Like an all night Nightmare movie festival – featuring all horror movies – 5 of them back to back. The older movies are cheaper to get usually, and you could charge more for the tickets since its a special occassion.
• Sell dvd’s on your website, or have adsense, or other affiliate ad monetization.
• If you have a large size land and extra space you could setup a Paintball area. Paintball is very popular and can bring in some decent amount of money.

Really you just need to be creative. Think of ways that you could make even a little bit more money. Maybe add a small uptick on all your products. Most people won’t notice an extra $0.25 but add it to every item and you could make a decent amount more money than you’re already making. Just be sure to let your customers know its going to happen before you up it. They will understand, they’d rather you up the price, than go out of business. I would pay more to go to the local Drive-in if it meant keeping the Drive-in. I’m not ready to see them become extinct.

Of course if you need help implementing any of these strategies, MarketingOC would love to help you get the ball rolling. Just give us a call!

Got any other Drive-in Marketing Ideas that you’d like to share? Do you own a Drive-in and have some secret tips you’d like to share with other Drive-in owners? Leave them in the comments please, and thank you!

Online Retailers Plan Mobile Advertising Push But What About Your Local Business

Posted on 30. Jun, 2010 by Brian Fluhr in Blog, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Marketing

If you are a local retailer the constant drum beat of online retailers can be maddening. Often times the online retailers are cutting into your business by offering lower prices (warehouse space is cheaper then retail space), no sales tax on purchases, bigger selection (again the warehouse thing) and well, sometimes convenience (the whole shopping in your underwear deal) – but thankful your retail business has many benefits that an online retailer can’t ever match. The very basic fact being is that you are local.

Online retailers are preparing to launch another salvo in the battle for consumer dollars according to a new report published by Forrester and cited on Mobile Marketing Watch. According to this report,

Nearly three-quarters (74%) of online retailers either already have or are developing a mobile strategy, and one in five boasts having a fully-implemented mobile strategy in place already.  Interestingly, the report forecasts $170,000 per online retailer is expected to be spent on mobile sites this year with larger retailers spending much more.  ”Mobile investment is modest now, but we see that it will pick up in the future, especially among the biggest brands that have already invested significant amounts in their mobile operations,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, Vice President, Principal Analyst, Forrester Research, and lead author of the report.

So, as online retailers make their push into capturing customers via their mobile phones, where does that leave local retailers? Not to worry – mobile is where the playing field is tilted in favor of the local retailer. That’s right, the opportunity to reach prospects and customers on their mobile phones while they are on the go, is an opportunity for local retailers to reach their audience, and drive traffic to your business.

And don’t let the $170,000 online retailer spend intimidate you – local mobile marketing is very cost effective and affordable for small, local businesses. The only thing you need to do, is take action now. Let’s face it, there’s only so much screen real estate on mobile phones – your business needs to be front and center when your prospects and customer perform a mobile search looking for your business, products or services that you offer.

Contact us to talk to one of our Go Mobile. Get Social. Reach Local. Marketing Specialists.

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HuluPlus – More proof that Traditional Media is Dieing.

Posted on 29. Jun, 2010 by Patrick Curl in Inbound Marketing, Mobile Marketing, Social Media

If you haven’t been indoctrinated into the Hulu world, Hulu is a service that allows you to watch your favorite episodes of TV right from your computer. It has shows from many networks, including Fox, NBC, and ABC. Currently it generally allows you to view the last 5 episodes.

HuluPlus – lets you view the entire season – at will. Basically it’s like owning the whole season of all your favorite tv shows for only one fee of $9.99 per month.

HuluPlus isn’t released yet but it is being rolled out soon.

One great benefit of HuluPlus is that now you can view Hulu on tons of different devices including: Iphones, Ipads, Ipod Touches, Internet enabled Tvs, PS3, Xbox 360, and of course you can always watch it on your laptop, netbook, or desktop computer.

This service could be a cable killer – but for advertisers / marketers what it REALLY means is that we’re one step closer to completely eradicating tv / cable networks as we now know them, and one step closer to having ALL content on the web. Newspapers are dieing, cable tv is dieing, even radio is struggling to compete with services like last.fm and pandora.

What isn’t dieing? Online marketing especially social media (which is replacing the old traditional media), mobile phones which is the new cable network, and local which is becoming more and more important as we become more and more global.

Hulu knows that reaching out to customers across different devices means wider market penetration, it’s a game changer.

I can proudly say, that I’m one of the few who’ve given up my cable tv in exchange for hulu. It’s more affordable and I get to watch all my favorite shows for free, or $9.99 if I choose that option. It just makes fiscal sense. Just as learning, and investigating marketing for your business on ipads, iphones, social networks, and local directories makes sense.

The world is changing, we’re on the brink of a huge global shift – it’s like the start of the world wide web all over again. You can grasp it, get in for lower costs now, or wait till everyone is doing it and your competitors drive up the prices. A lot of web marketing is bid-based which means if you get in early you can bid low for advertising and marketing. Or you can wait 5 years and have to fight your way back to the top and pay twice what your competitors who got in early did.

The mobile web is coming, and it won’t just be about smartphones, and iPads. The web is about to be integrated into every aspect of our lives. Refrigerators, Stoves, Cars – every appliance we use, every where we go we will be connected to the internet.

Soon there will be apps on many devices, by 2020 – it could be every electronic device in your home. Each one of these devices is a new way to reach your customers, getting in early is the way to get noticed by the media, and potential customers.

Will you be an early adopter and destroy your competition? Or will you sit back and watch from the sidelines and watch all of your competitors steal your customers?

A Mobile Website Should Be Like A Visit To Costco

Posted on 28. Jun, 2010 by Brian Fluhr in Blog, Mobile Coupons, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Websites

Comparing the warehouse Costco shopping experience to a users experience on a mobile website mayseem ludicrous, but there are some simple lessons to be learned from Costco (or Sam’s Club if you prefer) when it comes to delivering a positive mobile website experience for your prospects and customers.

Lesson #1: Provide value to your mobile website visitors

Costco is a membership only experience – visitors are there by making an implicit choice to pay to shop there and receive value many times over in exchange for their membership fee.

Your mobile website, while it may not be a membership only experience, it is one where users are making an implicit choice to interact with your brand and company via their mobile phone instead of their desktop. You need to provide mobile visitors with the value of giving them exactly what they want, without overwhelming them without consuming too much of their time and overwhelming their small mobile phone screen with too many choices.

Lesson #2: Provide access to only the key information your prospects and customers need while on the go.

Costco stores are well merchandised but based on simplicity.  They don’t carry everything like a grocery store tries to do. They carry select items to appeal to the majority of their audience – giving most of their customers most of the items they need – but not everything.  Costco is not meant to be a total replacement for visiting a full grocery store for example.

Your mobile website is not about jamming every bit of content, ever link, every image, every video, every whitepaper, every salvo in your web marketing arsenal   -  basically everything a user experiences from their desktop is not what they want to experience on their mobile phones. A mobile web site is meant to be well merchandised in the sense that it provides direct access to the key information your audience is seeking while on the go. A users needs are different when on the go then when they are on the couch browsing your website at their leisure on their laptop.

Lesson #3: Ensure your mobile website is easy to navigate

Costco aisles are wide and easy to navigate to find what you are looking for and to add those products to your shopping cart. .

Your mobile website needs to easy to navigate and simple for your users to find exactly what they are seeking at the exact point of time they are seeking it.

Lesson #4: Your mobile website needs to only offer the most valuable content for users on the go

Costco buyers are very meticulous when evaluating what products to bring into their stores. They want to make sure that they products that stock their warehouse shelves are going to meet their customers needs and as a result: sell.

When you plan your mobile website, you need to ensure you are carefully evaluating each piece of content to ensure it deserves the precious space on your prospects and customers limited mobile phone screen real estate.

Lesson #5: Your mobile website and mobile marketing initiatives are an opportunity to engage your audience if they opt in to your communications

Costco sends an email newsletter and printed Costco Connection that I welcome receiving each month – however, I can opt out at anytime.

Your mobile marketing strategy that coincides with your mobile website has the opportunity to be proactive in interacting with your audience. Once you have made a connection with your prospects and customers – and they opt in – to receive communications such as promotional text messages and mobile coupons you have an opportunity to create an ongoing, respectful dialogue with your customers on their mobile device.

I am certain there are other lessons to be learned from a company as successful as Costco. Of course, the biggest lesson we look forward to sharing with you is when Costco goes live with their mobile website. Be sure to give us a call…whether you are Costco or another fine business looking to go mobile, get social and reach local!

Simple Mobile Marketing Ideas to Reach Local Customers

Posted on 07. Jun, 2010 by Brian Fluhr in Blog, Inbound Marketing, Mobile Marketing

There was a time not so long ago, that businesses were hesitant to set up a web site for their business. Today, billions of dollars of business results from the Internet and the fact that the majority of businesses have a web site. It may have taken a few years to get to and not every web site is achieving its full potential to serve as a lead generator or a sales generator, but yet, the majority of businesses have a web site. The next evolution of the web for businesses to reach their customers has already begun: mobile marketing – that is, reaching and engaging your prospects and customers via their mobile device.

Based on the current rate of change and adoption, the mobile web will be bigger than desktop internet use by 2015, according to Mary Meeker, the well-regarded analyst from Morgan Stanley. This means that in the very near future, a mobile device, whether it is an Android, an iPhone or an iPad, will be the primary way people interact with your business on the web.

With any new technology or marketing channel you always have two primary choices:

Take Action Now or Wait To See What Your Competitors Do.

Of course, we don’t suggest waiting – but we also understand that you may want to proceed with caution. Here are four simple mobile marketing ideas to help your business begin taking advantage of mobile marketing to increase your business.

1. Leverage SMS Marketing. Text messages allow you to immediately integrate mobile with your existing marketing efforts. Text messages serve as a highly personal messaging option that your prospects and customers opt in to receive thus providing a highly measurable form of communication and promotion.

2. Create A Mobile Web Site. Offering an engaging mobile web site experience is essential to reach your prospects and customers on the go. Tailoring your web site for mobile devices is essential – even though many phones offer a full web browser – chances are – your web site is not optimized for the small screen. In fact, ensuring a mobile website experience is often more cost effective for your business, and more accessible to your customers verses a custom application that must be downloaded in an App Store.

3. Mobilize Your Content. When you create content for your web site, think about how that content will be viewed and distributed to users who choose to consume your content on a mobile device. It is very different experience reading a white paper on a cell phone vs. a desktop – so consider offering a condensed version for mobile readers.

4. Start Benefiting From Mobile Advertising. If you have ever leveraged pay per click advertising or banner advertising or any form of web based advertising – it is time to take a serious look at mobile advertising. Highly targeted mobile advertising is still in its infancy – but yet, proving to be a smart, effective channel to reach your prospects. In fact, Google’s purchase of Admob, the pace and results that mobile advertising offers to businesses are set to take off.

Thanks to: http://adage.com/smallagency/post?article_id=144059 for inspiring this post.

MarketingOC Throws OSMOBI Users A Mobile Marketing Lifeline

Posted on 02. Jun, 2010 by Brian Fluhr in Blog, Mobile Marketing

Imagine scrolling through your email in the morning only to find that the service you have entrusted to mobilize your web site has suddenly ceased operation. Well, if you are a OSOMBI user, you know doubt understand this very real situation. If you missed the email, or are not familiar with the service, here is the message registered OSOMBI users received this morning:

Dear OSMOBI user,

The OSMOBI service has been set up based on a funding arrangement for the development of a mobilization software for Drupal, Joomla and other Open Source CMS systems. However, the funding for the project has ceased and we are sorry that the service cannot be continued.

OSMOBI will stay up and running until June 15, 2010, 12.00 Brussels time. At that moment, the OSMOBI team will have to close down the service. We also have to mention that from now onwards, June 02, 2010, no support can be guaranteed anymore.

If any party is interested in continuing the OSMOBI service, please contact Prof F. Gielen, University of Ghent, Belgium using contact@osmobi.com.

Kind regards,

The OSMOBI Team

On top of this message, their web site is down and the contact email goes to someone who is no longer with the organization.

If you received this message, no doubt you were concerned. Don’t worry. MarketingOC, a mobile marketing services provider that has been in business for almost 7 years is here to help your business get through this situation.

MarketingOC is offering a free 1 hour mobile marketing consultation to all existing OSMOBI users. During this mobile marketing consultation – we will discuss a road map for ensuring a stable, long term mobile solution for your web site, as well as identifying opportunities to better market your mobile web site to reach your prospects and engage your customers.

To receive your 1 hour of free mobile marketing consultation – contact us right now.