MarketingBeyond

Xora Mobile Resource Market: Multi-Channel Marketing Example

Xora, a Silicon Valley Mobile Resource Market (MRM), company, provides location-specific reporting and alerts to companies with a mobile workforce. Many industries, including transportation, government, health care, construction and field services, need real-time data obtained from mobile handsets with or without GPS on employee & vehicle locations, project management status and other location-specific information. This increases operational efficiency for companies who have many mobile-intensive employees. The technology is also used to solve criminal cases, lawsuits and other personal matters more quickly and accurately with the aid of GPS/Satellite or cell phone triangulation capabilities.

Xora's use of multi-channel marketing, however, is the more interesting aspect of their approach. When you first see their website home page, which is very clean and uncluttered, you can select industry descriptions of Xora's applications ("industry smart") or choose multi-media ("Hear from Customers") or recent news ("Company Spotlight'). 

The "Hear from Customers" link leads to a web page offering case studies, podcasts or videos.
Visitors then have the choice of viewing text, audio or multi-media case studies and testimonials, arranged by vertical market and applications. This multi-channel approach accommodates prospects who prefer specific communication channels and reinforces Zora's marketing message across channels.

Visit Xora's website for further information.

Leveraging Marketing Assets: Multi-Channel Marketing Boosts Response

What if you could double or triple your lead conversions in marketing campaigns? What if you could hold a prospect's attention 30 seconds longer than you do now? How would that affect direct response advertising?  What about building higher quality lists producing twice your usual results?

Marketers who implement strategies combining traditional communication channels, such as telephone and email, with innovative uses of new channels--podcasting, in particular--are generating superior results in their marketing campaigns.

Why, you ask? Because podcasting is becoming very popular in both B2B and B2C campaigns, and companies today are leveraging marketing assets that improve conversion rates. Try Googling "leveraging."  I just did. The result?: 9.8 MILLION hits clearly demonstrating the synergy marketers achieve by channeling their messages through multiple communication channels.

Googling podcasting resulted in 16.9 MILLION hits. Clearly, the Internet buzz means greater interest in listening to audio content at one's leisure, similar to webcasting, combining video and audio to explain more complex subjects. But audio-only podcasting may have greater exposure and impact due to its availability and ease-of-use. (You don't see many people working out in a gym with a video Ipod.)

E-mail...3 BILLION Google hits. And the lowly telephone? Only 302 MILLION.

If there's that much interest in emailing and phoning each other, why bother with the newer technologies? We're back to leveraging. However, this time, it's about leveraging one's time. The telephone is intrusive requiring immediate action. You either answer the phone or let the call go into voice mail. Email is a bit of both, depending on the sender. If you receive an important email--perhaps one you've been expecting--you open it, then leave the rest for later. Many times, emails and phone calls together enhance marketing effectiveness, accounting for their common use in marketing campaigns.

Aratron in a post on the Invision Power Board, writes about the concept of complementarity:

"Throughout my discussion I will be sustained by the concept of complmentarity. For if I ask a question from one point of view I will have one answer. But if I ask the same question from another and quite different point of view I may very well have a second answer. The second may be inconsistent with the first, but it can be viewed as complementary. And the two answers taken together will provide a richer, truer picture than either separately." Aratron could easily have been writing about multi-channel marketing.

Whether you prefer the word "synergy" or "complementarity" or "greater impact," the result is the same. A killer advertising or marketing message, delivered across multiple channels in non-linear time far exceeds the results of "forced compliance" channels such as broadcast advertising.

To demonstrate the power of 1+1=3, I've written a PBFA (pain, benefit, feature, advantage) strategy sheet, an outbound call guide, and a email landing page, explaining the call guide for a fictitious company called Routing.Com.  Notice the consistent message content and consider implementing similar multi-channel campaigns for your company.

Lennart Svanberg Mobile Marketing Podcast: Internet and Mobile Together

Lennart Svanberg, the Producer of the Internet Marketing Conference in New York on June 4th, 2008, speaks with Brian Prows in this podcast about growing interest among Internet marketers in mobile applications.

Lennart also discusses the state of global mobile technology, contrasting Swedish networks delivering up to 7.2Mbps data speeds to slower U.S. wireless networks. He also talks about innovative mobile marketing alliances, mobile book publishing in Japan, China's 500 million mobile users and Ericsson's agreement with China Telecom to build faster cellular networks. One publisher in Sweden even supplies its customers who purchase mobile websites with mobile phones.

Svanberg has insightful thoughts on the status of mobile technology around the globe.

Mobile Growing Rapidly in India: A Model for the World?

India, according to BusinessWeek and other sources, is now the second largest mobile market on Earth. Between 250 to 300 million Indians now own mobile phones in a country with only 30 million personal computers. That's 25% of India's 1.1B citizens. Over 8 million Indians sign up for cellular service each month.

Average monthly carrier revenues (USD) in mobile-intensive countries is staggering: $10 in India, $12 in China and $30 in the U.S., although other research shows an average of $55 per subscriber in the United States. Voice minutes cost 1.3 cents in India, 8.4 cents in Pakistan and 3.5 cents in China. To my knowledge, carriers in these countries have yet to offer "talk all you want" plans recently introduced by U.S. carriers Verizon, AT&T and Sprint. (See my post on Sprint regarding its marketing challenges.)

Although India's mobile users are purchasing over $250 million a year in additional wireless services--text messaging, music, wallpaper, games and Web surfing, with expected growth to $1.7B by 2010--currently 80% of data purchases represent text messaging and ring tones. In fact, Indians send over 25 BILLION text messages a year. Additional data purchases are stymied by low-end handsets, price and lack of mobile services.

As expected, India's younger, tech savvy subscribers are the most likely purchasers of mobile services--from online banking to entertainment. Dozens of players, including Google, Yahoo, Microsoft, as well as telecom providers--Bharti Airtel, Vodafone, Reliance Communications and Tata Teleservices--are developing content: movie schedules, stock quotes and other news services.

Indian mobile carriers, in particular, want to ncrease their current 10% share of information revenues (representing 13% of profits) to 20% of revenues--the "on-deck" information revenues controlled by the carriers and their partners. However, mobile users' desire for content continues its surge, and "off-deck" services, not controlled by the carriers, will proliferate.

Mobile websites, growing rapidly in the global mobisphere, should greatly interest Indian businesses, who seek innovative ways to sell to mobile users, especially considering low PC penetration in the country.

Discovering which mobile services interest India's growing mobile community is the key. In an earlier post on mobile banking, for example, I cited research indicating that younger U.S. cellular users are more interested in ATM and bank location expansion than accessing accounts on their handsets:

An eye-opening study by Javelin Strategy and Research concludes that even Gen-Y consumers (18-29) are not as hot on mobile and online usage as one might assume. "Regardless of Gen Y’s proclivity to initiate online transactions and use mobile phones and technology in general, Javelin data shows that Gen Y is not ready to abandon the brick-and mortar, or other channels, to go completely online or to the handset for all their banking needs. For example, when selecting a new financial services provider, Gen Y consumers ranked access to ATMs and access to branches as more important than online service capabilities, in comparison to those of other age groups."

Marketers seeking to penetrate the mobile space are carefully watching India.