The accessibility of smartphones, made widespread with the grueling battle between Verizon and AT&T, is at an all-time high with their increasing popularity and affordability. Along with the wireless industry’s explosive growth in 3G coverage and technology comes the necessity for marketers to get involved in a big way. A recent 2009 Retail Holiday Season Shopper Study, conducted by Motorola, confirmed this by stating, “More than half of consumers utilized mobile phones for in-store holiday shopping activities,” including “multi-channel comparison shopping, peer feedback, product info and couponing.” That means marketers who used mobile marketing as an additional brand touch point this past holiday season were more successful in reaching over half of all holiday shoppers than those that didn’t. In this economy, can you afford not to reach for that piece of the pie? Read the rest →
Posts Tagged ‘integrated marketing strategy’
Mobile Marketing: Get Into Your Target’s Mind by Getting Into Their Back Pocket
Book Review… Free: The Future of a Radical Price
I’ve been recommending Chris Anderson’s book Free: The Future of a Radical Price, to friends and colleagues since I read it. Whether or not you agree or disagree with his conclusions, the book is filled with interesting historical and anecdotal accounts of online business model evolutions and the economic, technical and sociological changes that have precipitated an unarguable shift in how we conduct business. Anderson, the editor of Wired Magazine, an active blogger, and the author of the highly regarded The Long Tail, is an entertaining and engaging writer.
My desire to promote Anderson’s book to those interested in understanding more fully the sea change that we’ve been living through the past 10 years came over coffee this morning. Garmin and Tomkin, companies who develop and sell GPS navigational products watched their stock prices plunge by 16.4% and 20.8% in one day – erasing billions of dollars of market capitalization. Yesterday, Google announced a free voice navigation application.
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Convergence. At a mile a minute.
It’s an interesting thing to be in the world of marketing, PR and interactive services today. The world seems to be changing before our eyes and at a pace that is shockingly fast. I remember the days when I was a client in the real estate industry. We would hire an ad agency for our creative and advertising needs. A PR agency for our media relations. And who knows for a website—maybe a freelancer, maybe another agency.
Today, I run a business that offers a solid blend of brand strategy, public relations, interactive/web, multicultural and creative/design services. But these areas of focus are blending, mixing, converging together at the speed of light. As clients’ needs become blended from traditional marketing to online visibility, so must we, as a service provider, be able to meet those needs. A PR advisor who knows how to pitch a story must also know how to develop a creative piece to support the story. The web developer must understand how a site will work to support the client’s online reputation. Social media is all the rage and is typically PR-driven, but the marketing strategists need to know when it makes sense to employ, as well. Print designers have to add online and interactive design to their repertoires.
The Business Case for Twitter
It seems like everywhere we turn, people are talking about Twitter. The recent increase in use by celebrities has created even more of a buzz. All the hype may be causing you to wonder – should my company join the ranks of Nordstrom (@nordstrom), Whole Foods (@WholeFoods), The Red Cross (@RedCross) and even Oprah (@Oprah) and build a presence on what appears to be the latest communications phenomenon?
The answer? Maybe…and likely, yes.
With 9.3 million visitors in the U.S. and 19 million worldwide, actively participating on Twitter enables you to spread your messages far and wide.
