Integrating Mobile Marketing with Other Media

Mobile ad spending last year was $416 million. It is predicted that in 3 years it will be at $1.5 billion (Mobile Marketer May 5, 2010 newsletter “Five Trends Driving Mobile Marketing and Commerce this Year”). The consumer package goods, retail, entertainment, travel and restaurant categories are leading the way in mobile spending. How are these advertisers utilizing this medium to generate awareness and sales for their business?

I have been in the advertising business for 23 years and I have never seen the media landscape change as rapidly as it has in the last two years. Some say that the introduction of the iPhone in 2007 was the tipping point for mobile web and mobile advertising. The availability of unlimited data and text messaging plans also opened the door to mobile marketing’s explosive growth. Never has a medium been so personal and had such intimate proximity to the user. Your target audience has a mobile phone in her purse or clipped on to his belt (87% of U.S. households own a mobile phone according to Neustar 11/09). You can communicate with them any time you want. This new medium provides the opportunity for two-way communication, enabling you to directly engage with the user. You invite them to dialogue with your brand; become a fan; view your video; download your app; vote; provide customer feedback; respond to your call to action; and request store alerts, marketing messages, and coupons.

However, as cool as the mobile phone is, I believe that mobile marketing should not stand alone. With the introduction of mobile marketing, the media mix has now become more dynamic. Traditional advertising and mobile make wonderful partners helping deliver results like never before.

Common Short Code (CSC) is becoming an increasingly popular mobile marketing tool. People are invited to text a code to the carrier-approved number for that advertiser
(think ‘American Idol’). When they text, the dialogue begins, the user has now given you permission to communicate with them. However, a key element in this tactic is how to deliver the short code and number to an audience. This is where traditional media comes into play in the media plan. The traditional media delivers to the masses the code and number.

One of the benefits of short code is testing. You can use a different code in each of your media and measure which one pulls better. You can test the media used and test within a medium. For out-of-home you can test if certain OOH units pull better or if an outdoor location generates more response to your invitation to text. You can also test messaging and offers. With the help of mobile, advertisers now have real time results that can be analyzed and then campaigns can be adjusted to generate better responses. Case studies tend to report that short code text messages out perform emails and web based
call-to- action. Short code campaigns keep the offer top-of-mind and make it so easy to respond and the result is strong response rates.

Best practices with mobile and traditional marketing are an integrated advertising program. When you combine print, broadcast, web, and other traditional advertising with short codes you will increase response rates, consumer appeal, measurability, and overall return on your advertising campaign. Short code marketing can act as a unifying component within a broader advertising strategy (Neustar 11/09).

According to Mobile Marketer, we will be in the golden age of mobile advertising within two years. “Every single retailer will need a mobile site or application within three years or they will risk losing business to their competitors.” Other industries also need to learn quickly how to utilize mobile in their marketing plans or they will miss out on incredible opportunities to build relationships with their customer base and generate sales.

THE MOBILE DESIGN ENVIRONMENT

Before you start designing a wireless application, the first thing to understand is the mobile environment. Obviously, this environment is not the same as the desktop computer environment. But what design implications stem from this difference? We'll address the most important issues, starting with the user.

Users

Mobile users are mostly average consumers, typically in the early majority but not innovators. Unless you are creating an application for a selective audience, it is best to assume that users won't want to try things out and won't have patience for an unusable site simply because it is high-technology or because it provides a rare or unique service.

Writing for Multiple Devices

With the rapid increase of number and variety of devices, the old model of creating one operating system for each device (or family of devices) has broken down. It is not financially feasible to create new operating systems all the time, nor is it good for users or carriers.

Different devices have different user interfaces; the native User Interface should be respected when designing web sites and applications.

• Nokia-style UI ...

• The iPhone uses the principle of "the content is the interface." ...

• Touch interface ...

• Scroll-and-select interface ...

• Backstepping

• 2D navigation

Screen Design

Header -- the text at the top of the screen giving the user context for the screen. Because many people ignore areas of the screen devoted to titles (e.g., the title bar), and because many devices do not display the title element, this is specifically not the title. Title -- the title element within the platform language. Some devices have a fixed area on the screen that displays the title, whether you specify one or not. Some devices ignore the title completely, and some devices use the title as the default bookmark name. Hence, "header" is a design term, and "title" is a programming term.

Each screen must be understandable and unambiguous in the absence of the title element. Some users do not look at the title. More importantly, some devices do not display the title. Do not rely on the title to convey critical meaning. Avoid non-standard abbreviations. Users probably won't understand them. The header of a screen should tell users what they need to do on the screen. This is true unless the goal of the screen is obvious or if there is no action required of the user. There is no need to tell the user to pick an item in a menu or list, nor to type in an entry screen. Hence titles can skip verbs. Example titles include "Pick State" ("State" if space constrained), "Select Pizza Toppings" ("Pizza Toppings" if space constrained), and "Enter Home Address" ("Home Address" if space constrained).

• Use mixed-case format for titles and headers. Mixed-case format (or title-case format) is easier to read than all upper-case, and the device can use other methods to distinguish different parts of the page.

• Use caution when switching between full screen (unstructured) mode and structured mode without user intervention. If the title and ticker disappear and reappear without visible cause, the user will be distracted and possibly confused.

• Provide an option for the user to switch to unstructured mode.

Screen Layout

Make sure content is visible upon entering page. Bold text If the content is an image, make sure something is visible upon entering the page, even before image loads (this may be relevant if you define dimensions for your image). Note that the alt text will appear upon entering the page. Your screen layout should work with and without graphics.

Tables

In the desktop web environment, site designers have used tables to enable precise control over how a page is arranged. In the mobile environment, device capabilities and display size make this practice inadvisable. Most platforms do not allow nested tables.

Contents of Screen

The contents of a screen are what is most visible to the user, and they communicate the point of the screen to the user. They include everything excluding the screen title and commands.

• Use hyperlink styling only for actions that access web content. The hyperlink styling has major connotations of web access.

• Provide confirmation screens for any action that will cost the user money.

Fonts

Font use is more restricted on mobile devices than it is on desktop devices. While you can count on a desktop browser having access to several fonts, usually over 100, you can only count on a mobile phone having two. Thus any font differentiation based on style and size may not appear on the user's device.

Keep color contrast high for fonts. Since some devices will not display background colors or images, this means keeping font colors dark (e.g., black, blue, purple, brown, dark red, etc.).

If you specify fonts, always specify a generic font-family (serif or sans serif) as the last in your list. Devices may have a limited number of fonts; many devices will only have one font. The generic font-family will be a fallback if the device doesn't support other fonts you specified.

Content Authoring: Less is More

J2ME MIDP devices are small, and have small screens. They cannot display a lot of text without the user having to scroll. Further, more text means either a larger application using more memory, or more for the user to download and thus pay for. To make the most of the small screen available, don't use the same content as you have in your equivalent desktop application.

Content authoring tips:

Adopt a concise writing style. Professional publications, whether written or electronic, usually employ a particular writing style: friendly, chatty, formal, humorous, et cetera. But there is only one writing style that works well in the mobile phone environment - concise. Consider relaxing your organization's writing style requirements to cope with this new medium. Make sentences direct and focused. Use active verbs instead of the passive tense. Logically break content into small chunks.

• Avoid unnecessary punctuation.

• Do not break long character strings with dashes, commas, or other traditional separators.

• Put the most important content first.

• Avoid removing underlining from links. Users may not be able to tell your link is a link, even with link coloring.

Links

 • Use links sparingly.

• Link only one or two words per link.

• Linked text should fit on one line.

Multimedia and Graphics

In general, graphics on mobile devices should be smaller, simpler, and fewer than on desktop applications. Some devices don't support graphics at all, some support graphics but have pixels that aren't square, many devices do not have color, most devices have small screens, and all devices have limited bandwidth or processor capability.

Perhaps the most important thing to remember about graphics, is that devices may have 65,000, 4,096, 256, 64, 16, 4, or 2 colors for graphics -- and some devices don't have graphics at all. On some devices that support graphics, users may not choose to download them.

Color

keep the same small family of colors (color palette) on images throughout the site.

Line weight

keep the same small set of line weights on graphics throughout the site. Of course, the images on mobile sites should be very small, so you do not have a lot of opportunity to create variations here.

Contrast

on mobile devices, keep contrast high.

Size

keep images consistently sized; for mobile devices, the size is small. Placement &

Proximity

this is controlled mostly by the rendering engine, with little control by the developer. Do not control placement using spacer graphics. If you need text aligned precisely with an image, include the text in the graphic. Don't do this more than once per page.

Style

keep the general style (e.g., cartoonish) consistent from image to image.

• Keep images high-contrast.

• Avoid images with text in them.

• Do not anti-alias text in images.

Whew! That’s a lot to take in. Drop us a line if you want to discuss a Mobile campaign for your company or organization! 1-800-952-9165 or Croberts@dmcadvertising.com.