Situational Marketing

Wireless Amber Alerts

The Ad Council is sponsoring a series of commercials about Amber Alerts, the community response system in place for children who have gone missing.

The first three hours after a child abduction are the most important, and the Amber Alert system takes advantage of the eyeballs in the community to help law enforcement track down the abductors.

It's a great system, and one that works with citizens, rather than against them.

Which is why the latest technology upgrade to use SMS text messaging for Amber Alerts is such a great idea.  In addition to radio, television, and press releases, you can sign up for Amber Alerts on your phone, which means that driving around, you might be in the position to help save a child.

https://www.wirelessamberalerts.org is the site, and I urge you to join.  Just Text the word "Amber" followed by a space and your Zip code, and you'll be enrolled. You can stop at anytime, but it's a valuable service, and mobile bloggers can make a difference by writing about it and  linking to the website.

Opt-In Complaints In SMS Messaging

Clients often call or write in asking us for list management, or wanting to broadcast marketing messages to people's cell phones and e-mail addresses.  In the rush to drive value from their marketing campaigns, far too man companies forget to address both legal and common-sense requirements in messaging.

Spam is not just Viagra e-mails and online poker rooms.  It's actually very easy to be categorized as a spammer, and if you aren't conducting a valid compliance check on your e-mail and mobile lists, you can run afoul of the law with heavy penalties.  And that's if you're lucky.  Worse than the penalties is the danger of broadcasting a message that has a negative effect on your intended audience.

Spending money that makes prospective customers actively work against your company should be the number one concern of online marketers.  Like Doctors, the goal of your marketing firm should be first, do no harm.

Mobivity addresses this point in defining what opt-in means.  It doesn't mean spam your customers and tell them to opt-out.

SMS marketing has clearly suffered from the email SPAM epidemic, and we work really hard to keep it honest and respectable.

What really gets to me is receiving unsolicited emails from SMS vendors all over the world that are clearly not directed to me personally. If you want me to consider your services, at least find out my name and email, and send me a note. Don’t throw our INFO email address on your list and start the spam stream!

It's a simple thing to understand. Don't take actions that require your customers to perform your data cleansing for you.  Those customers have access to the web, and may not be happy with you.  Which means you'll hear about it from them.

Building A Mobile Marketing Database Through Widgets

The goal of marketing in a Web 2.0 (or Mobile 2.0) world is to identify clusters of users interested in your product and willing to help you promote it (because they benefit in some way themselves).  This dynamic has led to the creation and success of widgets - tiny applications that help web users accomplish some task, from looking at a calendar to playing a game to giving money to a cause or political candidates.

Old school readers remember when "widget" was the all-purpose word used in marketing and sales pitches. 

If Company ABC is making widgets that sell for $20, and Company XYZ comes in and begins selling widgets at $18, how much money should be spent on marketing to protect the $20 price?

Widgets are now much, much more, and it seems every company has one.  The hope is to embed your widget on the millions of blogs, MySpace and Facebook pages, and thus create cheap marketing while giving the users some value.

It's a great strategy, at least when the widget is cool and people adopt it.  A company called MoFuse has taken this strategy and added it to the mobile world.  Victor at Mobile Marketing Watch chats with David at MoFuse on their success in widgeting their mobile marketing.

David though, emailed me for a different reason, he wanted me to check out their new SMS Widget, I’ve got it loaded to the right of this post on my site. From a mobile marketing perspective this is brilliant! Wanna know why? MoFuse is doing something that mobileStorm talks about all the time. They’re building their mobile marketing database by giving out this widget and getting folks to sign up for mobile blog delivery. Too, they’re helping me promote my mobile web site. Pretty cool idea huh? Hey David, are we gonna get stats on how many folks actually sign up through the widget?

The next question is how your company adds value to its users, and if you see how this can be used to build an army of brand evangelists in promoting your product.  Can you integrate your website and mobile gadgets?  Is your marketing firm aware of how to?  (ed.  hey, would this be a good place to insert a plug for blast marketing services and products?)  It sure would.