Measuring your mobile marketing campaigns

Measuring a campaign is as important as executing one. It is the tool you use to know if the campaign was successful or not. Measuring your campaigns is the quickest way to grow your mobile database and understand the contribution provided to your bottom line. This blog will focus on a few key ways to assess the basic elements of your campaigns.

Identify campaign objectives

First and foremost, identify the goals and objectives of your business unit and specifically the campaign. Make a list of metrics that are important for your campaign, before it starts. That way, you can set up a measureable campaign that corresponds with your objectives. Defining your metrics ahead of time, keeps you focused on what you need and not get bogged down with the data.

The most common metrics to track are:

• Keywords - It is critical that keywords are clear, concise and visible.
• Delivery days, times – Narrow down the best day & time to send a message to your audience. For example, for an event on Friday evening, are your subscribers more likely to take action if the reminder message is delivered Thursday or Friday morning.
•  Incentivize your consumers – Which incentives are more likely to encourage opt-ins and keep subscribers engaged.
• Message – How best can you use 160 characters to provide value and inspire your consumers to act on the message.
• Drop-off Rate – When there is a series of actions a consumer is asked to take, recognize if there is an obvious drop in participation and make adjustments.
• Redemptions – Monitor how many subscribers took advantage of the value proposition. This may take some coordination with your partners, but it is critical in evaluating the campaign ROI.
•  Click-though – This indicator cannot typically be measured within the SMS message, but can be tracked through your web analytics tool. Make sure that the links sent via SMS are trackable –tools like bit.ly allow you to shorten and track your URLs.
• Cost of consumer acquisition - As you roll out your mobile marketing campaigns, it is vital that you understand the cost to acquire and keep those customers.

Opt-in and opt-out rate:

When the opt in and opt out rates are consistently monitored they help measure many aspects of a campaign. For example marketers can:

•         Gauge the frequency of and content in your messaging campaigns.
•         Understand the lifetime of your text club members.
•        Provide A/B testing on various offers to understand what’s working.
•        Understand the effectiveness of your calls-to-action and promotional efforts.
•       Determine the relevancy the value proposition to your subscribers.

Measuring performance using keywords:

SMS marketing is most effective when promoted across multiple channels. Measure the opt-ins from each channel by providing a unique keyword by publisher and placement. For example, on-air the keyword is JOIN, Facebook JOIN1, website JOIN2 & email JOIN3, twitter JOIN4, banner ads JOIN5, billboards JOIN6, etc.  

·       This is where making liberal use of the SMS marketing keyword is so helpful — the keyword can be customized for specific creative versions, media, or other marketing element, and changed (or new ones added) at any time with the Gravit8 platform.

Lastly, if possible track the first interaction through to the last engagement in the campaign cycle. For example, take the number of people that were sent a coupon during a period of time, redeemed it, and how much traffic and/or revenue those redemptions added to a business. From there, not only can you evaluate the success of the entire campaign but drill down to each step of the campaign, adjust pieces of it and try again.

Good luck with your campaigns. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@gravit8marketing.com or check out our website: http://www.gravit8marketing.com.

If you are interested in offers and updates from Gravit8, sign up here: http://bit.ly/1LFWllg.

Mobile Marketing is Gaining Steam

In the past few years, mobile marketing has been largely an afterthought for many brands.

But the hype is finally coming to fruition with the growing intersection of mobile and the retail

experience. This requires brands and retailers to take a very thoughtful approach with their mobile experience.

Strategic Focus

This increased focus has accelerated even since last fall. Brands are thinking about mobile strategically, rather that just tactically. Many are no longer questioning the value of mobile, but rather questioning how to get the most value from it.

Consumer Value

Many brands are looking to achieve that value by focusing on meaningful user engagement with brand identity and utility. They have matured from simple marketing (static banner ads, coupons and QR codes that merely offer to help a shopper “learn more”). 

For example, Mattel uses its brand identity to engage with consumers in highly relevant activity. When you think Mattel, you think toys and games. So, the company is gamifying its digital efforts, giving people something to do in their downtime that’s fun and interactive. There’s a significant correlation between entertaining engagement and shopper conversions.

App vs. mobile web

While there have been great strides in mobile marketing initiatives, there is still some confusion about the strategic delivery of the content. This primarily refers to the confluence of the terms “mobile app” and “mobile web.”

While mobile apps and websites in theory serve the same purpose, in reality they are very different beasts to create and maintain, and consumers approach each differently.

One recent example was a mobile app for a single recipe ingredient. Really? How many people are going to take the time to seek out this app, download it and see enough utility to open and use it on a regular basis?

For many brands, a better way would be to create a responsive, mobile-optimized website. This way, the content is universally and easily available on all operating systems and device sizes. It can be accessed quickly by a shopper who responds to a mobile ad or texts in a keyword with no need to download and install an app. For marketers, mobile sites are considerably less expensive to build and maintain, and faster to update.

Mobile, as a marketing channel, can no longer be ignored and must be addressed in order to succeed. There are definitely others that will help advance a brands mobile strategy such as better targeting, more relevant engagement with consumers and shoppers at the various touch points on the path to conversion and stronger collaboration with brands and retailers. 

Good luck with your campaigns. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@gravit8marketing.com or check out our website: http://www.gravit8marketing.com.

If you are interested in offers and updates from Gravit8, sign up here: http://bit.ly/1LFWllg.

The Top 5 Tips to Get Started With Mobile Marketing

SMS is the foundation of mobile marketing and is the most powerful way to engage your customers. When you consider how users communicate with one another through mobile messaging it is clear  Take for instance 98% of text messages are read within 90 seconds. The click-through rate from a text message is 50%. If you want to deliver value to your consumers, there is no better way.

why brands consider it to be the most direct and purest communication channel they can have with their consumers, especially when you consider users have to opt-in to receive mobile messages from brands.

When done right, mobile marketing can deliver very meaningful results for brands. But because it is the most personal communication channel it has to be managed with extreme care and respect.  There are stringent compliance requirements defined by the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) that you should be aware of before you launch your mobile marketing initiative.

Below are a handful of guidelines that will help you get started with your mobile marketing initiative:

1. Build your marketing database. The first step in getting started with SMS marketing is to build a mobile database of SMS subscribers. Getting customers to opt-in and join your SMS database takes an aggressive “double down” plan, creativity and patience. Don’t get fooled in to thinking you can buy a 3^rd party list to jump-start your database – remember you are required to have an opt-in.
2. Define the value proposition. What value can you provide your consumers that will entice them to engage with you via SMS. Many brands will provide monetary value such as, discounts, and mobile coupons. Reminders, exclusive access is also an effective tool, value doesn’t have to be monetary. It is important to provide exclusive offers or alerts to create a sense of above-and-beyond value. Avoid sending offers & info users can find through other channels. Users are extremely connected to their phones, and text is reserved for their inner circle. If they let you in, make it worthwhile.
3. Consistent messaging is key.  Whether you have a daily or monthly offer, make sure the cadence of messages is consistent with what the consumer signed up for. This is critical in establishing a trusting relationship between the brand and end users, which will directly affect the longevity of subscribers.
4. Create multichannel marketing campaigns. Mobile marketing is most effective when it is layered on to existing marketing efforts. Promote! If people don’t know about your campaign, they can’t join so be sure to heavily promote your keyword and short code to your audiences by adding a call to action across your existing earned, owned and paid platforms, including:

• Add a call to action on the front page of your website & contact page.
• Share it with your existing email database.
• Include in all forms of advertising (print, on air, radio and more).
• Post across social media platforms – Tweet it or Post to at least weekly to remind people about the program.
• Upper corner of your Facebook cover photo.
• Add to product packaging.
•  Take advantage of the captive audience! Utilize POS (point of sale) opportunities on-site or in venue at events.
•  Train customer-facing teams to encourage registrations.
•  Don’t forget paper receipts, email signatures, marketing materials and more.

5. Collect data for campaign optimization. Collect as much relative metadata as you can from your users. An effective way to do this is to have a web form where you can ask users for information that will help you send them relevant messages. Segment your database can significantly contribute to a low opt-out rate.

With mobile marketing comes great responsibility to protect this highly personal channel. Fortunately for marketers, there are well-established guidelines for running successful and compliant SMS marketing programs.

Good luck with your campaigns. If you have any questions please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at info@gravit8marketing.com or check out our website: http://www.gravit8marketing.com.

If you are interested in offers and updates from Gravit8, sign up here: http://bit.ly/1LFWllg.