The French Public Sector Drive Forward Confidence In Mobile Marketing

The French and the English are like chalk and cheese. Being half French but British raised I see the differences but feel comfortable enough to enjoy them for what they are and very rarely feel stuck in the middle.

I’ve also just come back from three weeks Honeymoon in France, which was fantastic, just fantastic.

As well as the romance, food, wine, champagne and lazy days wondering around historic sites I had my eyes opened to how prolifically our neighbours were using mobile marketing and QR Campaigns.

In 2010 the City of Bordeaux started putting QR Codes everywhere to support its many historic sites. The initiative was public sector led.

There’s a load on the web about this initiative and if you want to know more read this http://goo.gl/EdDWO. This initiative didn’t seem like a one off either, the level of adoption is far more ubiquitous.

Everywhere I went in the country the French public sector were using QR campaigns to enhance their services and make it easier for tourists to access information they need to make their holiday run smoothly. As a result of this refreshingly progressive public sector approach, local businesses were also confident enough to use QR codes to help promote themselves and engage with visitors in their native language.

Now, sure as eggs are eggs, QR codes will be superseded by something else because technology never stops changing and well, QR codes have been around for a long time now.

In the future the image you interact with won’t be an ugly black and white matrix. Soon the clever stuff, which makes instant linking to the mobile web possible, will be embedded in images that are more desirable and appealing to the human eye.

One idea is Mobile Visual Search. Here’s a video about it so you get the gist of what the next big thing could be.

My honeymoon has ended and I’m home again now in Plymouth, Devon.

Here public sector institutions don’t seem quite as keen on the idea as their French counterparts but that doesn’t matter too much because there is a bigger picture for businesses in Devon and Cornwall that serve the tourist market.

The message is clear, tourist market is more used to using QR Codes than you think.

In fact, they are very used the concept and how it enables tourists of all nationalities to make the most of the tourist experience.  So as the saying goes; ‘Give them what they want!’

7. Checklists and Cheat Sheets

Quite often it makes sense for you to help your clients or prospective clients prepare for doing business with you. Mobile Landing Pages can help with that no matter what type of preparation suits you and your clients best.

Some services are nuanced like being a mobile website developer.

In this case it is win-win for you to have a mobile landing page with a downloadable mind-map and editable .pdf on it ready for people to download. The mind-map and check list help people understand the development process and what they need to contribute to the process. The upshot is that you are supporting your clients and making it easier for you to business with them and vica-versa.

This approach works well for trades too. In fact it is hard to think of a service that couldn’t make this mobile marketing approach work for them.

8. Social Quid-Pro-Quo

Come on, sometimes you’re just out to make friends and have people know you a bit better.

We’ve been talking a lot about videos, quizzes, location marketing and loads of other stuff but I don’t want to ignore the basics.

Get a mobile landing page with a button for your favourite one or two social media services, the ones that work best for you. And an authentic reason for people to follow or like you (think incentive if required) and perhaps pipe in an RSS feed so they can see some of your tweets and posts right there on the landing page.

Job done if you’re aiming for social engagement.

9. Mobile Landing Pages to make Joint Ventures happen.

Ok so I’ve saved the best til last!

Running a marketing agency I can tell you that good marketing isn’t all about you. Sometimes it is about you working with another business to reposition yourself, open markets and cross pollinate client bases.

Lots of fuss about how to make this work but really all you need are dedicated landing pages. One for the customers of each business. The landing page allows them to register interest for what the other business is answering.

Because you can integrate mobile landing pages with either automated SMS marketing or email marketing services like MailChimp you can easily set up automated messages.

Useful in this case because once a client from one business has registered an interest in the offer of the other business, the ‘other business’ needs to put the means to redeem the offer in the person’s hands.

All this stuff needs to be auditable so the performance of the joint marketing venture can be tracked against expectations. Doing it with mobile landing pages means that each step in the process can be tracked.

In Parts one and two of this series of four posts I suggested some ways that you could use mobile landing pages to:

• Build brand awareness and incentivise a direct response
• Position you as an accessible and knowledgeable expert
• Sell things via m-commerce and,
• Support customer service

Two more great Mobile Landing Page ideas for you are coming up this instalment: One to increase social engagement and one to let people know where you are.

5. Social Testimonials – Mix Business With Pleasure

Your typical advert, sales letter or mail shot is limited by size.

No matter how compelling the offer, how captivating the graphic or how clear the message it is easy to feel that it could do with something extra to make it work better on your behalf.

Quite often the ‘something extra’ of choice is a collection of additional testimonials to the one on your advert, sales letter or mail shot to help build credibility and increase the perceived value of your service and the specific offer.

There are different ways to do this so lets look a couple quickly:

• A static mobile landing page with a list of written, audio or video testimonials
• A mobile landing page with a couple of really good written, audio or video testimonials and then below, a RSS stream of your Twitter and/or Facebook Posts with an invitation to Follow or Like you to see more testimonials (regularly Tweeting and Posting testimonials is a good idea so don’t be afraid to do it – Yes! Your can regularly repeat testimonials within reason)

Notice how each mobile landing page does slightly different things.

Both support offline promotion and help you to develop credibility but the second idea also asks people to take a next step and engage you on social media.

Lets lots of space to be creative with testimonials (as long as you don’t make them up!). If you’re looking for a mobile website developer in Plymouth to build you a bespoke mobile site then talk to use and we can explore which ideas are best for you.

6. Location, Location, Location – Landing Pages to Let People Know How To Find You!

If you run a business like a café, shop or hotel you need people to come to you. Perhaps you have more than one business location in which case it makes sense for people to be able to see clearly where they are and which is closest.

Take advantage of modern map technology by making sure that you have a mobile landing page that features a Bing or Google Map with your business location (or locations) clearly marked on it.

People with GPS enabled smart phones will be able to see their location relative to yours and use the map to find the quickest route to your door.

As always top off your landing page by adding a click-to-call button so that people can ring you right away!

You’ve heard of ‘E-commerce’ well now there is ‘M-commerce’.

Think of all the benefits and convenience of shopping online. People love it and it sees nothing but growth.

Now think of the ridiculous growth in smart phone use.

Think how easy it is to integrate a QR Code into a bit of direct mail.

Think about that QR Code linking to a beautiful bespoke mobile e-commerce sorry, an m-commerce store. Picture the customer still in their dressing gown, toast in one hand mobile in the other pressing ‘Add To Cart’ and then ‘Check Out’ at which point they pay by Google’s secure payment system.

If you are or will be selling things online get into m-commerce and make your mobile landing page well, your shop!

4. Customer Satisfaction Questionnaire

Online, Mobile and Local Marketing can and should be applied to support the entire buying-cycle from making people aware of your business for the first time, through to them researching your service and buying your products. But why stop there?

Mobile landing pages can be highly functional and they can of course be used to collect fresh customer feedback.

People are most likely to give feedback when it is quick and easy to do, doesn’t have any strings attached and the experience is fresh in their mind.

Why not do it then?

Expand your customer feedback processes to use (more and more over time I’d imagine) mobile landing pages to capture fresh feedback.

Creative use of Mobile Landing Pages will help your mobile marketing

If you’re short on ideas of where on the mobile web to take people that click through from you marketing material, poster or brochure, then here are three mobile landing page ideas to open up your creative thinking.

Just remember that your mobile landing page absolutely must deliver the experience, offer or valuable information you promise the prospect to get them to engage with your mobile marketing campaign.

There is nothing worse than not getting what you think you’ll be getting!

1. Use an Offer, Video, Quiz, Prize and Click-to-Call all together to pack a punch!

By combining a video, a quiz, and offer and a click-to-call button on the same mobile landing page you can help take your mobile landing page visitor and prospective client on a journey that will engage and tempt them to do business with you.

An added bonus is that by quizzing the prospect on small but key facts about your business you can plant a thought and a few key facts about your business

The first thing the prospect sees is an instruction and an offer all rolled into one. Something like:

‘Watch our 30 second video and play a our quiz to win your business a prize!’

They watch the video about your business and its services knowing that they will be quizzed on what they see and hear. They’ll also know that if they get all the questions right they will win a prize. All of this encourages them to watch the video carefully and commit what they can to memory.

The point of this landing page is to engage the prospect and do what you can to ensure that your business sticks in their head.

The point is not to play mastermind. Keeping this in mind, I would recommend making the follow-up quiz easy, fun and light-hearted.

All things going well the prospect should have remembered enough about your business to get a perfect score in the quiz

If they don’t and you are feeling generous then you can always enable the ‘Restart Quiz’ button to give them a second go.

Hopefully the prospect wins the quiz.

When they do a message of congratulation pops up on the screen. This message also provides the winning player with a password so that they can redeem the prize by calling you. The last instruction on the landing page is for the prospect to claim their now by using the click-to-call button.

Let the prize be whatever you can afford to give away but make it something that increases the chance of you getting a new client and shows you in a good light.

2. The Refreshable Tips Mobile Landing Page

Demonstrate your expertise and show your personality by sharing free advice or information relating to your area of expertise.

• ‘15 Tips to Make Your Family Car Safe For The Winter’ might work if you run a garage.
• ‘6 Great Gluten Free Cake Recipes’ may well work for a baker trying to position themselves in the gluten free niche
• ‘50 Tips To Improve Customer Service’ could be appropriate for a customer services consultancy.

The point of the ‘refreshable landing page’ is that the prospect will not receive a list of information.

When they arrive on mobile landing page they see just one tip, neatly presented. When they refresh the page using the ‘Refresh For Your Next Tip’ button then the next tip appears on the screen.

Social media enablement means that they can like, recommend or re tweet any of your tips to show their love.

In fact it has to be said that while two aims for this mobile landing page are to develop rapport, and position your expertise third is to get social media love for what you know.

If this interests you then check out what we can do for you when it comes to QR Campaigns, SMS Marketing and bespoke mobile website development.

It was a massive fight for our money. Marketing in Plymouth was in over drive.

Massive discounts brutally advertised in shop windows. Seasonal bundle offers wrapped around branding that showed the happy family together. Stores with discrete discounts and nice little surprise gifts to reward you once you bought. Shops offering mince pies and coffee to help you stay in store and spend your money with them.

Different vendors had different approaches to attract shoppers’ attention.

As I shopped my way around town picking up Christmas bits for family and friends I couldn’t help but watch my own response to how retailers were marketing.

I popped in to some ‘massive discount’ typed shops to see if I could get a bargain. I didn’t care about the experience of shopping in these shops and I wasn’t in anyway connected to the experience that the gifts would deliver. I didn’t find anything that was presented in a way that helped me make up my mind that this was the it, the gift I’d been looking for.  I didn’t spend any money. The massive discount offer

I also ended staying away from the big bundle offers on x-box games and stuff.

To cut a long story short, every single gift I bought was a gift that I knew would deliver a great experience. A gift that I had confidence would bring pleasure and joy.

That was my criteria for gifts. They had to value, pleasure and joy.

So which shops sold to me in a way that helped me understand the experience that their products would bring?

Well, a bookshop did. A cosmetics shop did. A chocolate shop did and so did a restaurant.

The restaurant manager pulled me aside after I ate there about six weeks ago to let me know about their Christmas dining experience vouchers. These weren’t on open offer at the time. I am sure that they qualified me before offering me the Christmas dinner experience gift voucher. I think they offered it to me because we were very happy customers of theirs and more likely to see value in their offer. Whatever it was I popped back today and spent my money with them.

Two of the shops I bought from were part of a chain and two were local independent businesses.

All of them offered enough value through their pricing to make me interested.  Not as much as the ‘massive discount’ stores that pepper Plymouth City Centre but enough to get shoppers through the door.

What they all did really well was inject good customer experience, design the in store environment to make you feel warm, comfortable and at home. They all had in store and point of sale that pointed to the joyful experience that their products would deliver.

The last thing that these particular shops did as part of their seasonal marketing campaign, was to deliver unexpected additional value of the ‘above and beyond type’.

The complimentary chocolates in my shopping bag, the free colouring pens and model to go with the kids books; the undisclosed additional complimentary glass of wine to go with the Christmas dinner voucher.  All of these extras made me feel like Christmas was here. I liked the style and feel of the way these businesses marketed to me. I will continue to shop at these places in the New Year because as well as liking the service and the price point I also like the way they sell to me.

None of these stores saw Christmas red mist when it came to their customer service, marketing or price point.

All of these shops remained cool and confident in their price point.

None of them tried to give it all away in the mad fight for our cash.

Every single one understood that people need experience and joy from their purchases and not just things sold cheaply.

I would suspect also that these stores used the Christmas rush not only as time to scrape more cash into the till, but also as a chance to re affirm their relationships with existing customers. If they are really organised they will use this yearly boost in customer interest as a platform that leads nicely into their offers and campaigns for the months to come.

Click here for more information on what we can do to help you with your online, mobile and local marketing for 2012.

“A £640 bill! That’s someone’s Christmas bonus gone!”

“And that was after we talked them down from nearly £1000!” was the reply.

An already less than average Friday morning in her office just got worse.

Her company – a well-respected, professional and upstanding local business – had recently re developed its website.

The re brand, website redesign and subsequent improved local marketing was paying dividends but somewhere along the line an unlicensed photograph made it onto their site.

The licence holder had found out and now wanted compensation. Just under £1000 for an image with a ‘right to use’ price tag of £39!

She felt bad. Her boss felt bad.

They are an upstanding firm that do things the right way. They were shocked at the cost of the mistake they hadn’t known they had made. But there it was – a bill for a grand – two weeks before Christmas.

There was nowhere they could hide. The letter from the license holder included screen grabs pointing out the offensive image. There it was in black and white – a risk hidden in full view.

“WOW – you should check your other images with TinEye before you get any other unwanted bills!” I said.

I met her again a little later in the day for a catch-up.

“I used TinEye. And, I found that another image on our website that was unlicensed! Thank God we found out! You might have just saved us what’s left  Christmas bonus! Thanks!”

“I just saved you £1000! Where’s MY Christmas bonus!” I said. We laughed.

“No chance!” She laughed. “But I’ll treat you to lunch”.

What is TinEye and how will it help?

TinEye is a reverse image search engine. Upload your image or submit a URL (I recommend uploading images) and then press ‘search’.

It will use its image recognition technology to tell you where on the web your image is being used.  It will also tell you if the image is available at other resolutions.

Two Top Tips

Top Tip 1: If images you use come from a commercial or private image collection ensure you have permission to use them. If you haven’t paid for them then chances are you shouldn’t be using them. Remember, image licensors check where their images are being used on the web. That means they can find you at the click of a button.

Top Tip 2: Do you produce complete collections of copyright images for online use? If you do, protect them by submitting them the Tin Eye database. You’ll be able to monitor how and where they are being used. Great for peace of mind and copyright enforcement!

Don’t feel like you have to answer that with me. But do ask yourself that question. If you’re lacking confidence it probably doesn’t sound fun. If you’re caught in the headlights – frozen by uncertainty in a world full of negatives – then the idea of getting out the microscope out may make you feel numb. Fair enough. But remember: Only dead fish go with the flow. And, if you sit on your hands too long you might forget to feed yourself.

What I’m trying to say is don’t get swept downstream, don’t freeze and don’t sit on your hands all the time. Instead be canny, be gritty and be objective.

Online, Mobile and Local Marketing….

Be canny

Being ‘canny’ is by its nature a creative business. And I apologise for short changing you here. I’m just going to touch on the subject. I’ll revisit this subject from different angles in later posts. But for now I’ll just introduce a few ideas.

The first idea I want you grab hold of is this.

Things are changing at a cracking pace. Get involved or pay the price. Change is daunting if you’re watching from the sidelines. But if your in it, if you’re interested, if your a student of change and interested in how knowledge based innovation can be applied to your cause then changing technologies change from being a threat to an opportunity.

Be gritty

All you have to do to beat your competition is what they do. Just do more of it and do it better.

If you can’t do ‘more’, if your need to do less with more (who doesn’t) then you’ll need to temper grit and determination with smarts.

Re commit to your cause cut away the excess, streamline and become hungry again. Don’t go quietly into the night. If you cannot take flight, you must fight.

But remember things are different now and it’s the most adaptable that will survive – not the fittest or the biggest.

You have the world’s knowledge at your fingertips. New technologies are replacing old ones. New and better ways of doing things exist. Be gritty but be canny too.

Be objective

If you don’t know then you’re in the dark. You’re guessing, probably prone to increasing uncertainty and liable to becoming like a dead fish – going along with the doom and gloom.

Knowledge isn’t a magic bullet. But knowledge is powerful.

Compare the return from different marketing channels.

Compare yourself to your competitors – where are the spaces for you to innovate and improve?

Compare yourself to a few years ago. If your doing things exactly the same as then please understand – and don’t take this personally – that you are behind the curve. If your survival depends on your success then this is a problem.

Things are changing and you have already missed opportunities to streamline, improve and become more efficient.

Companies like Springboard Outsourcing that specialise in online, mobile and local marketing, website development or local marketing should be able to help you.

If that isn’t an option then be canny and be gritty. Learn how to do it. You have the world’s knowledge at your fingertips always remember that.

Let us know how you’re approaching business survival and success.