With President Obama’s commencement speech this weekend, the major mobile carriers are boosting coverage in the area.  Mobile is certainly entrenched in our lives – it’s the way we live now. 

From Textually Org: 

An insightful piece from Ann Arbor, on how all the networks are gearing up to boost their cellular coverage on Saturday, as President Barack Obama will be giving the commencement address at University of Michigan.

I’ve also seen companies boost coverage at huge trade shows like CES in Las Vegas to handle capacity, so I’m sure they’ll handle it just fine.

This story illustrates why mobile marketing should be a part of your overall marketing strategy for any business or organization. It’s too pervasive to ignore.

Thanks to AdPulp for catching this funny clip.  This is for all of you tech and mobile geeks out there. LOL. Too funny!

Get your website users engaged in your mobile marketing efforts with our easy-to-use widget. The widget can be added to any webpage and can be configured to your liking so that you can increase your mobile subscriber lists easily.  You can use the widget to create a VIP club, send mobile coupons,  and send text alerts to your subscribers.

To create a widget, first from the dashboard, click on the keyword of your choice in the Keywords Table at the bottom of the screen:

You will be taken to the Keyword Detail Page for that keyword.  On the right-hand side of the screen you’ll see the Keyword Actions drop down menu. Click on the arrow to view the options and scroll down to Create a Website Widget and click to select.

The Widget Builder screen allows you to configure the widget to your specifications. It’s easy to use and easy to do. On the left side of the screen, you’ll find the options for configuration, just enter the text and coloration for the widget. 

   Once you’ve configured the widget, the Sample Widget will refresh to reflect the changes.  Once you’re happy how the widget looks on the Widget Builder Page, just copy and paste the code below the widget to your webpage.

Important:  Please Note that the URL in the code needs to be changed to: ‘http://widget.smswebservices.net/WebForm/form20.js’, rather than ‘http://widget.smsservices.net/WebForm/form20.js’ found on the page.

If you have any questions about how to configure the widget, or add the code to your webpage contact us at support@mobivity.com. Good Luck!

This is a great article with really interesting ways to use mobile marketing. The Cavaliers  don’t need to use mobile blasts last minute ticket sales –  they sell out. Instead, their marketing team cleverly uses mobile marketing to engage fans and support their sponsors during the game:

The program centers on Quicken Loans Arena’s digital scoreboards. During timeouts and other breaks in game action, the scoreboards invite the 20,000-odd fans in attendance to answer a trivia question, vote in a poll, enter a contest, etc. Each of the activities comes with a brand sponsor and requires the crowd members to use their cell phone to participate.

For instance, DiGiorno has run a "get free pizza for a year" trivia-based campaign during numerous games. The scoreboards have encouraged fans to text in their trivia answers. If fans answered correctly, they were entered into the free-pizza sweepstakes.

Check out the full article at Clickz, get some great food for thought for your mobile marketing efforts and view the response rates for their activities. I love interactive marketing!

This may be common knowledge to experienced mobile marketers but as a relative newbie, I just found out that choosing a vendor in the mobile marketing industry can be a little tricky.  Technically, it’s possible to send SMS through SMTP rather than using the text messaging systems and short codes set up by the carriers. And, vendors who use this methodology will typically advertise that they offer free or cheap message costs.

Why is this an issue? Successful mobile marketers need to have a trusted relationship with their subscribers. If your vendor is using SMTP, you may be risking your reputation. While doing research on this topic, I came across this this article from 2008 from Mobile Marketing Profits  No Such Thing as Free SMS Text Messaging. The post gives you  three very good reasons why you don’t want to use a company utilizing SMTP for your SMS message delivery:

1. Your messages sent via SMTP are likely not getting delivered to your customers.
2. If your messages do get delivered you are opening yourself up to legal action.
3. You risk your company’s reputation and customer good will by doing text messaging wrong.

Bottom Line:
Do not use SMTP text messaging for your business mobile marketing efforts or you will ultimately regret it.

The article is incredibly helpful if you are looking to evaluate vendors and need to educate yourself the technology necessary to use SMS text messaging to communicate with your opt-in subscriber base. It contains all of the information you need to know to make sure you protect your reputation and maintain successful relationships with your subscribers.

Beware of any vendor that asks you to do things that don’t sound right (like requesting that you purchase a SMTP server as part of your SMS setup) or one that has a deal that seems to good to be true – It probably is, and it could mean trouble for you and your company’s reputation.

Mobivity now offers 42 carriers for our SMS mobile marketing services. We’ve listed all of them below so that you can be assured of our national coverage when considering your mobile marketing needs.

I found this interesting post on Mobile Marketing Watch about SMS versus Mobile apps. With all of the hoopla around smartphone apps, it’s interesting to note that a new study by Juniper Research postulates that apps are now saturated, with only 23% of the (worldwide) mobile phone market being smartphones, and that number is not likely to increase drastically any time soon. On the other hand, every mobile phone sold has text messaging and those numbers just can’t compete with the smartphone population for reach and usage. For marketers considering where to spend their budget, I found this information insightful.

Highlights about the study include:

An article posted on AdWeek today makes a strong case against mobile apps, citing several reasons why the excitement surrounding the concept may be a little premature and why SMS remains the clear leader in terms of mobile marketing spend.  ”Don’t get me wrong.  Mobile apps can be a great way to engage in the right context, but the reason that text continues to be the dominant force in mobile marketing is simply reach and usage,” the author explains.

Read the Mobile Marketing Watch post here.