Tag Archive for 'iPod'

What Mobile Marketers Can Learn from The Newton

Published
by
3Cinteractive
on January 2, 2009
in Trends & Research
. 0 Comments

In 1989, Apple Computer started developing the Newton platform.  Complete with state-of-the-art handwriting recognition software, the platform was brilliant.  As amazing as the platform was, the world wasn’t ready for the Newton.  Steve Jobs and others have looked back on the Newton and speculated its inability to capture a large audience.  The booming success of the iPhone—inspired by the Newton and iPod—has only made people look harder.

Jobs thought the Newton was too focused on input when it should have been focused on consumption. The technology was sound, but consumers shied away from another input device. Jobs had the same feeling about Palms, and other PDA’s: they wouldn’t become mainstream because of their design.

The iPhone’s design made it easier for users to adapt. The device allowed the user to spend more time consuming information and not inputting information.

The same is true for traditional cell phones. No one likes creating a new address book contact. You’re lucky if a person types a first and last name, let alone a full address. Consumers want to spend a few seconds entering a phone number, or pushing a few buttons, and the rest talking or reading.

SMS is the same way. A lot of companies want to use mobile to capture e-mail addresses, or full responses from end-users. My response is always the same, “Yes it will work, but there are much more effective ways to use mobile.”

The biggest, relative hump in a mobile marketing program is the initial opt-in. This is usually the largest input from the end-user (i.e. keyword & short code), and it must be initiated by the user. After the initial opt-in, the best mobile programs minimize input, at most, asking for number, letter, or keyword replies.

I’m a junkie for companies that have mobile alerts or services. Right now my favorites are Mint, Twitter, and Jott. Mint and Jott are used more frequently than Twitter. Why? Jott and Mint send me alerts that I consume to stay on track. Even on an iPhone, I rarely use Twitter to Tweet; instead I use mobile alerts to know when I receive a direct message.

For the most effective mobile program, capture your consumers and PUSH them alerts or actions.

Mobile Marketing and Ideal Product Placement

Published
by
3Cinteractive
on June 5, 2008
in Advertising
. 0 Comments

In every retail store… in every marketing medium… marketers pay a premium to hold the ideal spot.

On the retail shelves at your local Apple store, third-party companies pay top dollar to be at eye-level. On the big-demo iPods plastered across the Apple store walls, artists paid even more to have their album listed on the static iPod screen. And on the box of that lovely music device that will fill the stockings of the rampant content generation… yep… someone paid to be there too.

The plethora of on-pack marketing agreements don’t sit with just the big companies with retail space or pretty boxes designed in California. In fact, the heart of Business 2.0 revolves around target marketing. Catch the eyes and ears of your market and provide them with offers your database knows they want.

It’s no different than the billboards on the highway, or the sponsored Google Ads. Behind all these product placement strategies are studies that show: being in the line of sight of your target market will increase your sales. Of course, these studies were merely supporting the gut-instinct of an innovator years before.

Companies have scrambled to bid on the box of one of the 110 million iPods sold since its release - a box that barely makes it through the first 24 hours of unwrapping. This is all because that lovely album art complete with the artist’s name and current hit single will be in the direct line of sight when that box first enters the recipient’s hands.

Product placement… despite being about the right place at the right time… for a few seconds at best… is a proven science. Imagine having the control to dictate the right place and the right time.

No more analysis for the right street corner… in the right city… at the right time… with the right distributer.  Enter… right here… right now… on a device that no one can ignore: their cell phone.

Could there be a better place than in your consumers pocket… and a better time than right when you want it?

So while some companies are still pushing the same research dollars into the same variable-filled marketing channels, the new-age companies are experiencing viral growth like never before, because there is no better place than everywhere 250 million subscribers are, right when you need them.

The next medium of product placement has arrived… in your future consumers’ pockets.

- Ainsworth