Interactive branding, marketing and advertising blog

Text is Read!

A survey done for Sprint by Opinion Research Corporation found that with the exception of people age 65 and over, adults respond more quickly to a text message than to a voice message. Those under the age of 30 are four times more likely to respond within minutes to a text message than to a voice mail. Adults 30 and older are twice as likely to respond within minutes to a text message than to a voice message, according to the survey.

Text message Marketing is as Easy as 1, 2, 3

1. It’s Engaging: Text messaging is the most personal way to engage customers and keep them coming back for more. People feel as though they are part of a special club or community. Because customers “opt-in” while they are at the restaurant, the restaurant owners know they are creating a database of customers who want their information.
2. It’s Now: Restaurant owners can create an immediate call to action using text messaging marketing. For example, if Wednesday afternoon from 3:00 to 5:00pm is a slow time, the restaurant can send a text message blast urging customers to come in today between 3:00 and 5:00pm and show the text message for a free sandwich with the purchase of a drink. With the extremely high read rates of text messages and the personal nature, the results can be very good.
3. It’s Happy Returns: Restaurants that are embracing this technology are seeing an incredible return on investment due to the low cost compared with traditional marketing methods.

It’s all about the engagement

Mobile advertising is like the beginning of a relationship. First you make an offer then they accept your offer. Then they ask for more offers and then you give it to them. Before you know it your offers are making you two exclusive. They are waiting for your offer before they make other plans. Your offers are so enticing they won’t make any other plans. Now that is loyalty!

Text Message Marketing is exploding

According to mobile research firm M:Metrics, 49% of American mobile phone users actively use text messaging, which explains marketers’ interest in text-based campaigns. Last year Ogilvy used text messaging in a test pilot with its then-client, mattress and bed manufacturer Select Comfort. Select Comfort bought ads in local newspapers, which instructed users to send the company an SMS message with their zip code. Select Comfort sent back the nearest store location along with a mobile coupon for $50 off. According to OgilvyOne’s Mandel, seven times more people texted in their responses than those who called in the company’s 1-800 number that was also in the advertisement.

Commissioned Social Graffiti – A Truly Interactive Brand

Interactivity is based in interaction. I think a lot of us forget what it means when we use it day to day to describe our services or our everyday life. Interactivity is meant to stimulate and engage. It’s meant to cause action. This action could be a purchase, showing up at an event, or it could be commissioning a graffitied message on the Palestinian wall. That is what SendAMessage.nl is doing.

Pay a little cash, type in a message, and a rebellious Palestinian will spray paint that message on the wall. That’s bringing interactivity to an all new level.

Some messages are trivial, a lot are socially charged. Checkout the site: http://sendamessage.nl/

Mobile Marketing for Restaurants & Local Businesses

A lot of new and emerging medias seem to perplex local businesses who’s reach doesn’t span more than a 50 mile radius. A lot of the time it seems like these types of media are out of reach and too expensive. Unlike other medias of old, like TV and Radio, newer medias were built on the local business, small geographical targetting mind frame and budget. Mobile marketing IS in your reach and it IS effective. Here are some tips for using it in your campaigns. Read the rest of this entry »

Branding Lesson #1: Don’t wake the sleeping tiger

One thing this world creates naturally is competition. It’s natural and healthy albeit scary and stressful. At first glance, who wants competition? You’d love to own it all, right? Well, that’s just not going to happen, and that is okay. One of the hardest habits to break is to try to take everything for yourself in business. Not only is it poor practice in life, it’s even poorer practice in business. Competition creates awareness and awareness creates patronage. Patrons can be broken into their own unique interest groups and therein lies the framework for branding. Read the rest of this entry »

Become Completely Mobile

Mobility means being able to work anywhere, anytime. Wireless has freed us from the confines of the office cubicle. However, we still don’t have the comforts of the office. Like a chair. Or a mouse pad…. Until now.

Introducing OpenAire, a product that has us in awe. It’s a laptop carrying case that tranforms into a worksurface and a chair on the spot.

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's super frickin' awesome!

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How Graphics Increase Conversions On Salespages

At Vigor, we subscribe to a number of newsletters and information worth sharing with the crowd. Once such newsletter is Psychotactics, an email newsletter focused on business ideas and advise. This morning’s edition was perfect for sharing as it adds another note about how people interact and react to advertising, internet and other marketing forms. Enjoy.

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World’s Most Inconvenient Bank

Commerce Bank, a regional bank that started over 10 years ago, has recently merged with another bank and changed its name accordingly. This is standard practice for banks especially in this economic climate. Merging and acquiring shouldn’t be that jarring but it does pose a lot of holes where important things can fall through. The opportunity is there to beef up customer service and quality assurance, brace for impact and WOW current customers. This is not something Commerce/Metro Bank is doing right now.

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