This was a recent blog post I posted on CUnet’s blog discussing some of the reasons why educational institutions need to have a mobile marketing strategy as part of their digital marketing mix and long term success:

Seven Reasons Why Educational Institutions Need a Mobile Marketing Strategy

In today’s digital wireless world, the question is no longer if mobile marketing is needed for immediate and long-term success, but rather how we can utilize and harness the power of this medium.

Below are key insights to current trends that increasingly make mobile an attractive addition to a school’s marketing toolbox.

1. Mobile is Huge.

Nine out of ten U.S. residents are mobile subscribers, according to the Cellular Telecommunications Industry Association (CTIA). There are currently 285.6 million mobile subscribers in the U.S., with nearly two-thirds of them using text messaging actively, and about 70 million of them having the ability to access the Internet from their mobile phones.

2. Mobile Internet Usage Accounts for a Third of all Internet Consumption and is Rising Rapidly (Nielsen)

Mobile Internet usage is growing fast and projected to equal desktop Internet usage by 2013. In fact, if you track Internet subscribers over time for the iPhone and iPod Touch against, say, desktop Internet subscribers to AOL or Netscape, both subscription and growth rates are three times higher at nine quarters out than AOL and Netscape combined. Keep in mind, this statistic reflects only iPhone and iPod Touch Internet subscribers and not the millions of other mobile Internet users accessing content through their Androids, Blackberries, and other phones. (Morgan Stanley Research)

3. Prospective Students are Already Searching for your School on their Mobile Devices

The index chart below from Google shows trend over time for users searching for EDU-related queries from their phone for the past two years. There was a 10-fold increase in those two years, and EDU mobile search volume is expected to have another 10- to 20-fold increase this year alone.

4. Unique to SMS is the Ability to Transform Traditional Media to Interactive Real-Tme Media

Having a keyword / short-code combination [i.e.: text DEGREE to 28638] added to any traditional media campaign is a great way to measure ROI for offline media while creating a real-time interactive direct response channel. SMS has highest penetration of all mobile services and is no longer a communication medium for younger audiences. 72% of those between 25-49 use text messaging, and 53% of texters are 35-years-old and up. (Scarborough Research)

5. Mobile is a Highly Measurable Medium and ROI can be Calculated Accurately

Every aspect of a mobile campaign — online, or offline via SMS can be captured and reported upon using the right platform and tools. The metrics for mobile Internet advertising are the same as those used for online advertising: impressions, click, click through rate, cost per acquisition, etc. The metrics used to measure SMS campaigns are similar to those used in email marketing. These include the number of messages delivered, number of users replied, opt-in rate, churn, etc. CUnet has built and acquired the tools and platforms necessary for targeting, tracking, and measuring a variety of mobile campaigns enabling effective mobile management and performance optimization.

6. One out of Every Seven Minutes Spent on Media is Spent on Mobile (Nielsen)

Start communicating with your prospective and current students the way they communicate with each other and the world around them.

7. Mobile Display Ads are Highly Effective, Sometime Outperforming Other Online Ads.

Mobile ads are five times more effective than online ads according to market research firm InsightExpress and are significantly more effective than online ads across several branding metrics.

In a recent study, they show that mobile ads provided two-and-a-half times the lift of online ads for ad awareness, and a surprising six times the lift in purchase intent!

CUnet provides mobile marketing services for many of its higher education clients using a variety of mobile marketing campaigns and mobile technologies that result in distinct reach and enrollments for a new universe of prospective students.

Dear everyone on this planet,

How many times any of you get asked by a business contact to befriend him/her on facebook? Especially when you know you cannot really add them because you don’t want to mix business contacts with your personal ones?

They are asking because some fail to understand the realities of social media access levels since there is no one that define those except us. Maybe it’s time to establish a new virtual world order. A simple visual of such new media order would look like the circle of trust below.. the closer to the center the more access you have.  It’s easy to go from inside out, but very hard the other way around. This is more relevant than ever now as many of the social media apps will be running in the background on mobile phones and devices updating location and posting automatically on the go.

Mobile Circle of Trust

Pick your choice or make one:

1. The island sends him back to Iraq to punish him even more because he is Iraqi and it’s not his fault

2. He realizes he’s the only Shiite on the island and declares himself supreme ayatollah

3. He defects to the others

4. He realizes his weapons are not adequate and decides to blow himself up to inflict maximum casualties after being radicalized by Lock

5. He finds one Sunni on the island & start fighting with him

6. The US invades the island and starts a democratic process but only after destroying everything after a 10 year economic sanctions embargo

7. He buys a house in the island on a balloon loan and loses all his money 2 years after

8. He makes it to New York and creates an online Kebab delivery website – goes public after 2 years, start living in Malibu beach after

9. Nothing happens. Nadia dies in the real world, he dies on the island, everyone on the island is dead

With all the hype about the new full browser touch-screen phones out there like the iPhone, Droid, Blackberry, Blueberry, Pre, G1, G2,  and G^infinity, today’s smart phones mobile market share in the US is only 20% or less. Some estimates have it at 15% others at 25%. And with all new phones being shipped today, still only 20% of those orders are are smart phones, which should keep the ratio as is for a little longer than we like.

My take is if you are really serious about mobile marketing and if your target demographics are main stream middle America and if you are looking to generate volume, then an SMS and a Feature Phone WAP site strategy makes sense. There is no question that users who have a touch screen device tend to interact much differently and are much more engaged leading to higher CTRs and more purchases, but SMS still has the highest penetration among all other mobile services [see chart below.] Also having a mobile website that will render nicely on all phones [not just smart ones] becomes an essential part of the user experience that can build audience not drive them away from the brand. That’s why MocoSpace is the largest mobile site in the US in terms of users and traffic.

]]> http://blog.akeelhaider.com/?feed=rss2&p=649 2 http://blog.akeelhaider.com/?p=644 http://blog.akeelhaider.com/?p=644#comments Tue, 02 Mar 2010 01:49:07 +0000 Akeel http://blog.akeelhaider.com/?p=644

List of books on my Kindle / iPad / iPhone – do recommend

1. The 22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

2. Christians and a Land Called Holy: How We Can Foster Justice, Peace, and Hope

3. The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy

4. Getting Real

5. Secrets of Power Negotiating

The new iron man trailer just came out and it looks fantastic.. here are 3 things I really like about it:

1. Mickey Rourke is back

2. Scarlett Johansson is in it

3. Great Special Effects

I can think of more than 100 reasons why any business needs a mobile strategy. Not to make a 100 page long blog post, here are 10 quick reasons to consider the mobile channel as a solid medium for sales, lead generation, customer acquisition, and retention:

1. Mobile is a highly measurable medium and ROI can be calculated accurately
Every aspect of a mobile campaign, online, or offline [sms], can be captured and reported using the right platform and tools

2. Mobile display ads enjoy a 5-6 times higher CTR than online
Fact. Probably because mobile banner ads show one per page due to screen size, giving them a more focused and premium position

3. Mobile phone penetration is upwards 4 out of 5 people in the U.S.
Another fact. According to Nielsen data from Q2, 2009, there are 221million mobile subscribers in the US, 60% (132m) of which do sms text messaging, and 55million can access the internet through their mobile phones. These numbers are higher now in Q1 of 2010

4. Unique to SMS via Short Code is the ability to transform traditional media to interactive measurable real-time media
I’m amazed at the amount of money being spend on TV, Print, and Radio ads without any way to measure their effectiveness. I understand some of those are branding ads, but adding a Keyword / Shortcode combination to a traditional media campaign is a great way to measure ROI while adding a direct response channel. This maybe a bit tricky, and is best done when considering Direct Response best practices like a clear call-to-action and value added incentives

5. Although Mobile Marketing has been saturated with entertainment offerings, it is still uncharted territory for many other verticals
Not testing the mobile channel may cause problems for brands and businesses left behind the curve at the end of this year and next. While some will have the ability to optimize and expand their mobile campaigns, others would be just starting, giving the advantage to those who are early adapters in their vertical

6. SMS is not spam. It is a very strictly regulated business in the U.S. by the carriers
I sometimes hear that SMS is spam. This is not true. Let me ask you a quesiton, have you ever received a spam text message on your phone? Meaning a message from a porgram or party that you have not opted-into or requested? Today’s sms world is virtually spam free thanks to the very strict self imposed US carriers regulations on all players and content providers. A look at the MMA Best Practices document and Carrier Playbooks gives a quick insight into those regulations

7. One in every minute spent on media, is spent on mobile (Nielsen)
Start communicating with your costumers the way they communicate with each other and the world around them

8. Mobile Internet audience is 1/3 of online today and growing fast
Almost 200% growth since January 2008! U.S. Mobile Internet is growing very fast. It’s reach grew 1.75% to 64.1M users in Q3 09 (Nielsen)

9. New mobile ad networks are showing up everyday that are targeted towards certain publishers or technologies
From mobile video ad networks such as Transpera to Google’s self serving network AdMob or Quattro managed network which was recently acquired by Apple. It is now easier than ever to create an on-budget mobile ad campaigns and test it with professional help.

10. Text Messaging exceeds voice calling.
2008 was the first year that sms text messaging exceeded voice calling. This is significant. We are becoming a text nation. OMG.

I had to treat myself for Christmas and I got myself the Amazon Kindle. A wireless eBook reader made perfect sense to me since I was about to buy 3-5 new books. Amazon Kindle was the device of choice after couple of days of research. Here is why:

• The first question was: Kindle or Nook?

The answer became clear after reviewing the Nook at the BN store in the city. The first software version of the Nook is very buggy: scrolling issues, freezing, taking too long, and other problems. That is according the person who was selling it at the store. All this was suppose to be fixed by the new firmware upgrade coming February 1st 2010. Well, too bad. I cannot wait that long. I like all the new Nook features such as 14 days book sharing, easy upgradable SD card, and more, but I need something robust that will make me ready the books asap! So getting on Christmas Eve’s day via next-day shipping from Amazon was perfect.

• Second Question is, why get the Kindle at all?

1. I usually buy around 10 to 20 books per year each averaging around $20 per. That is $400 worth of physical or audio books per year. Since most book titles on the Kindle are $9.99, it’s a no brainier. I will recover/save the $260  price of the kindle in 1.3 year.  So on the long run it makes sense.

2. I mostly download and listen to the books via my iPhone after buying them on Audible.com. The Amazon Kindle experimental text to speech feature takes care of this for me now. Although  experimental and not near the quality of the audio books, I’m pretty impressed by it. It’s very good for people who like to listen and read at the same time as it flips the pages automatically.. see video below

You can select male or female voice and choose between slow, regular, or fast speeds. It works well for my long drives.

Those were the 2 main reasons why it got it among others.

Finally, few notes after playing with it for couple of days so far:

• Subscribing to Blogs & Magazines at a monthly rate of $2/blog & $10/newspaper does not make sense! Maybe nice for the blog owners and traditional media to create a new revenue stream which they are badly looking for, but I can already read those bolgs & newspapers [TechCrunch/NY Times/etc] on my iPhone for free & in full color and with faster scrolling. Also the experimental Kindle browser lets you view those blogs and newspapers anyways although very limited. The fee is really for optimization then.
• The font and screen E-Ink technology works well – legible and easy on the eyes.
• Definitely buy the official leather protection cover, it fits great, and provides good protection.
• Not all books come with the text-to-speech feature as it is the right of the author to make that available or not, which is a bummer because the book I really wanted [4 hour work week expanded version] had that feature disabled – Mr. Tim Ferriss knows that he will be selling the audio version, and didn’t want to compromise the audio sales it seems. So moral of the story is to check the features available with the book before you buy if you must have that.

WPtouch is an excellent solution to automatically display an optimized version of your WordPress blog site on touch devices including iPhone, Android, Palm Pre, and others with social bookmarking, adsense, and analytics.

Interesting breakdown of the Kindle2 manufacturing cost by component thanks to DailyWireless.com via iSuppli.com