via Warc.com NEW YORK: Companies making the most effective use of digital media typically adopt a distinct set of strategies in areas like mobile, social networking and data analytics, a study has argued.

PricewaterhouseCoopers, the advisory group, polled 489 US firms with annual sales of over $500m, and identified a selection of “top performers” boasting the strongest revenues, growth, margins and innovation credentials.

It revealed that 50% of these leading players planned to spend a minimum of $1m on building mobile tools for their customers to use in 2012. The same was true of just 29% of other enterprises.

Moreover, 66% of the premier digital businesses described their interaction with consumers on mobile devices as “quite or very significant”, measured against 45% of all the corporations assessed

A 30% share of “top performers” deployed social networks to reach shoppers, versus 37% of firms not attaining such a status. But while 41% of the former group yielded “significant benefits” from this tactic, a smaller 24% of “the rest” said the same.

“Interestingly, though, there seems to be little connection between use of social media for external communications and actual commercial success,” PwC study stated.

“We have found that the organisations that achieve solid results from their social media efforts are those that use it not only as an outreach platform but “also as a method to listen and engage.”

By contrast, the companies enjoying the most impressive returns are making greater usage of social media internally, and 36% should spend at least $1m on this channel in 2012, standing at 22% for “the rest”.

Similarly, although 56% of the entire panel intend to collect more consumer data in the next year, this rises to 66% for “top performers”. Exactly 50% of the best organisations will exploit such insights for R&D, falling to 28% elsewhere.

Some 89% of top performers also agreed their company had a strategy in place that was likely to succeed, and 86% said their CEO actively championed new technology to achieve success. This beat average scores of 68% and 60% in turn.

More specifically, 63% of the highest-ranking operators believed that their chief information officer and chief marketing officer had a “strong” or “very strong” relationship, a total that fell to 42% of all featured corporations.

“Leading firms … understand that being behind the curve on the strategic use of technology not only puts their firms at a competitive disadvantage, but weakens their ability to interact and strengthen relationships with customers,” PwC said.

Data sourced from PricewaterhouseCoopers; additional content by Warc staff, 3 February 2012

Via Mashable

Thanks to the Internet, marketing has evolved over the years. Consumers no longer rely on billboards and TV spots — a.k.a. outbound marketing — to learn about new products, because the web has empowered them. It’s given them alternative methods for finding, buying and researching brands and products. The new marketing communication — inbound marketing — has become a two-way dialogue, much of which is facilitated by social media.

Another reason why inbound marketing is winning is because it costs less than traditional marketing. Why try to buy your way in when consumers aren’t even paying attention? Here are some stats from the infographic below.

• 44% of direct mail is never opened. That’s a waste of time, postage and paper.
• 86% of people skip through television commercials.
• 84% of 25 to 34 year olds have clicked out of a website because of an “irrelevant or intrusive ad.”
• The cost per lead in outbound marketing is more than for inbound marketing.

Inbound marketing focuses on earning, not buying, a person’s attention, which is done through social media and engaging content, such as blogs, podcasts and white papers. This content is interesting, informative and adds value, creating a positive connection in the eyes of the consumer, thus making him more likely to engage your brand and buy the product. So it costs less and has better a ROI.

This infographic from Voltier Digital highlights the differences between the two kinds of marketing. Let us know your opinions in the comments below.

via WARC NEW YORK: Over 70m consumers in the US now access social networking sites through their mobile phones, a study from comScore, the research firm, has revealed. According to the company’s estimates, 72.2m people – a third of the entire mobile audience – logged on to these platforms via a handset in August 2011, a 37% increase on an annual basis.

More specifically, 39.9m individuals engaged in this pastime “almost every day”, a total which had expanded by 58% during the last 12 months.

Facebook led the field in terms of usage, reflecting its dominant position in the market as a whole. Some 57.3m of its members signed in from a wireless handset in August, a 50% lift year on year.

Twitter was in second place having attracted 13.4m mobile subscribers across August 2010, equating to 75% growth on August 2010. LinkedIn attracted 5.5m visitors in the same way, a 69% surge.

At present, the most popular activities undertaken by the mobile social networking audience are viewing comments from their friends on 80.3%, and posting status updates, on 69.5%.

Elsewhere, 53.2% of people had followed links to websites, and 52.9% read posts from brands and organisations.

This was ahead of the 44.8% that looked at material from celebrities and other public figures. Another 34.8% of netizens posted links to websites.

Turning to more commercial matters, 33.3% of consumers had received coupons and offers on these web properties, and 27.7% clicked on ads.

When considering the means via which mobile subscribers access social networks, comScore reported 42.3m did so through a browser, up 24% year on year, and 38.5m utilised an app, a 126% annual improvement.

Some 60% of smartphone owners logged on to social networks on these gadgets, nearly double the overall average, Mark Donovan, comScore’s senior vice president for mobile, said.

“Knowing that fans and followers engage with branded content on mobile devices opens the door to a world of opportunity for location-based services,” he added.

Data sourced from comScore; additional content by Warc staff, 24 October 2011

Independent research from IDC and IDATE   below show mobile web use surpassing wired by 2015. With the massive growth of smart phones, mobile devices, and tablets combined with declining PC sales most analysts see this happening sooner rather than later.  While many companies have put social media plans in place, most are unprepared for the wave of small screen mobile devices that will be accessing traditional websites. Contact ApolloBravo for a free mobile readiness evaluation.

via WARC.  The number of consumers accessing the mobile web around the world will surpass the fixed-line internet audience in the next two years, IDATE, the research firm, has predicted.
According to the company’s estimates, the amount of fixed-line web users worldwide should increase from almost 1.5bn at the end of 2010 to 2.3bn in 2015.

During the same period, the number of people going online via mobile devices is expected to rise from just over 1bn to 2.6bn.
The exact crossover between these two channels is due to occur in 2013, when the mobile internet beats the 2bn user threshold, and moves fractionally ahead of the traditional alternative.

Such a trend will be driven, in particular, by markets like China and India, where wireless handsets are likely to become the primary means of online access for many consumers, rather than more expensive laptops and PCs.

A key benefit following on from the rapid expansion of the internet population should be a “steady” increase in the revenues accruing to digital channels including search, social networks, video and online retail.

IDATE’s analysis further suggested the web could take 20.2% of global advertising spend by 2015, or €88bn.
This will result in the internet nearly doubling its share of advertising expenditure in 2008, when the net took 10.4% of the total outlay recorded by brand owners.

Elsewhere, IDATE predicted that ecommerce revenues would top €1.1tr by 2015.
Data sourced from IDATE; additional content by Warc staff, 20 September 2011

From Warc

MOUNTAIN VIEW: Smartphone use is increasingly influencing US consumers’ media use and shopping habits, a study has indicated.

Digital giant Google and research firm Ipsos OTX MediaCT questioned 5,013 adultswho accessed the web via these devices, and found that 93% of the sample used the gadgets at home.

Moreover, 87% did so “on the go”, a figure attaining 77% in stores, 73% in restaurants and 72% at work.

A majority (59%) logged on to the mobile web while waiting in line, 48% did so as they ate, 44% during shopping trips and 43% while travelling.

The week before the survey was taken, 81% of contributors said they had browsed the mobile internet, 77% used search engines, 68% used apps and 48% played back video.

More broadly, 72% of respondents had engaged in simultaneous media use involving smartphones and other mainstream channels at some point.

This included 33% watching television at the same time as using the wireless web, 29% who went online through a PC, 27% for gaming and 22% for reading print media.

“Mobile search is often prompted by cross media exposure,” said Selina Rennie of Google’s Agency Team.

“Over two-thirds of smartphone owners have carried out a search on their smartphone as a result of traditional media.”

When discussing specific activities, 82% of smartphone subscribers employed email services on their phone and 63% visited social networks.

Similarly, 82% researched and read news, 75% exploited navigation tools, 65% enjoyed entertainment content, and 45% managed their finances, social life or travel arrangements.

An extra 46% of participants used ecommerce sites, 43% viewed video-sharing portals, 38% visited general consumer websites and 26% official brand platforms.

Turning to shopping, 79% of the smartphone audience used their handsets for commercial purposes. Some 78% had located retailers, compared prices or searched store inventories, and 69% sought out product information, such as by scanning a barcode, watching online video or reading reviews.

Another 52% contacted a retailer, 40% had sourced coupons, and 28% redeemed virtual discount vouchers.

Within the 74% of individuals claiming to have previously made purchases because of using a smartphone, 76% bought goods at a bricks and mortar outlet and 59% did so from a PC.

Additionally, 35% snapped up a product straight from their phone, 27% looked to mobile websites and 22% turned to apps for the same reason.

Where people bought goods through a smartphone, the average annual expenditure hit $300, with 48% of relevant consumers buying entertainment items, as electronics and apparel both secured 45%.

Conducting research on a smartphone and then buying in-store remains the most common path to purchase, with 67%, but 9% of respondents had taken the opposite route.

Elsewhere, 23% undertook investigations on a wireless device and then a bricks and mortar store before completing transactions on the web.

A further 16% researched and purchased on a phone, with a trip to a store sandwiched in the middle.

Having been asked to describe mobile advertising formats they could recall, 45% of those polled referenced banners and graphical ads, and 43% mentioned executions on a website they had viewed.

A 35% share remembered ads embedded in apps, standing at 34% for paid-search listings, 28% for SMS and 21% for video and location-based alternatives.

“In terms of advertising, smartphone users are not only noticing mobile ads, they are receptive to them: 82% notice ads on their smartphones, half of which take action,” said Rennie.

Data sourced from Google; additional content by Warc staff, 10 June 2011

Contact us for more information on how to reach consumers with smart phones in retail.

• Reach: Cell phone penetration is currently 89% of the US population. By way of comparison, this is better than penetration figures for cable TV, home internet access, and PC’s in the home.
• Acceptance: In the USA, over 102 billion text messages are sent each month, and over 1 trillion globally.
• Ubiquitous uptake: Mobile phones offer a reach never seen before by any other medium. Today there are more wireless mobile devices than televisions and computers combined.
• Globally There are 5.3 billion mobile subscribers (that’s 77 percent of the world population). What other medium offers that reach?
• Texting Nation: Of the 272 million US cell phones currently subscribed, over 96% of them are SMS capable. (CTIA 2010)
• Many mobile Web users are mobile-only, i.e. they do not, or very rarely use a desktop, laptop or tablet to access the Web. Mobile-only in India 59 percent, even in the US it’s over 25 percent of subscribers. Still think you don’t need a mobile site?
• High response rates: More than 5x as many people respond to mobile messages as compared to traditional, off-mobile call-to-action campaigns (94% of received text messages are read) 97% of consumers carry their phone at retail. (PMA 2010)
• Targeting: The mobile medium is an inherently intimate medium enabling highly targeted, one-to-one communication with audiences & lots of potential for personalization and up-selling.
• The Wireless Web: Over 3 billion targeted mobile ads are served every month.
• Widespread availability of unlimited data plansis critical to penetration of mobile media usage, it drove mobile media in Japan, now it’s driving the US with unlimited data plans starting at $25 per month
• Global: Europe is the most mature wireless market with (96%) penetration rates, followed by Japan (88%), the United States (89%) CTIA 2010
• Despite all the media hype, and vast sums pumped into developing and promoting native apps, more consumers use their browser than apps in developed nations. Only a minority will use Web or apps exclusively.
• Over 30% of visits to Facebook are Mobile, over 40% for twitter.
• In 2011 over 85 percent of new handsets will be able to access the mobile Web.
• Comscore (Febuary 2011) estimates that 80 percent of mobile subscribers in US and Western Europe have a phone that can access the mobile Web. 48 percent of US and 61 percent of W. Europeans have a handset with an HTML browser (this proportion is increasing fast), the rest have WAP browsers.

Learn more : Sources, ComScore.com , MobiThinking.com, CTIA.com, Gartner.com, Pewfoundation.com

Via Advertising Age 01.27.10 J. Spero

In 2009, the media buying community discovered mobile media works. Advertisers in a broad range of verticals shared results proving mobile is an effective medium for driving awareness, acquisition and purchase. “Is this the Year of Mobile?” can be retired. Media buyers are being asked — ‘What’s your mobile strategy for 2010?’

Many factors contributed to the development of the mobile ecosystem and the excitement we see. Dozens of companies, including the MMA and the IAB, worked to build the foundation of mobile media. It all came together in 2009 as mobile web usage exploded, with more than 61 million people in the US accessing it in December 2009, according to Nielsen. In 2010, agencies, advertisers and publishers will need a plan for mobile.

The top five things you need to know about buying mobile media in 2010:

1) Ask for data. Ask for help.
Mobile advertising is 3-4 years old and evolving rapidly. There’s valuable data for media buyers and mobile sellers can educate and assist you in gathering it no matter what your target audience. Ask sellers for case studies on mobile campaigns in your category and with your goals. There are a number of free reports with valuable market data to help with planning. These include Nielson Mobile, comScore, Flurry Pulse and AdMob Mobile Metrics.

2) Learn about (don’t worry about) different platforms.
The mobile Web is accessible from most phones, and you can run your campaigns across all platforms to target mobile Web users or on a specific platform. You can take advantage of rich-media formats designed specifically for smartphones and create a more robust version of your landing page for users on devices supporting a richer Web experience. You can also reach users as they engage with apps on a specific platform or promote your own app if you have one.

3) Talk to publishers and ad networks.
Prior to 2009, ad networks drove much of the innovation in the space with their focus on mobile. However in 2010, many publishers will have ad serving capabilities and mobile rate cards due to investments in 2009. Marketers now have more mobile media options than ever before.

4) Set your expectations for what mobile can and can’t do.
Focus on your needs and let your mobile seller explain the options available. Mobile promises powerful granularity based on location, need states, device capabilities and more for precise targeting — albeit on a limited scale in 2010. Sellers can provide data to target effectively and to ensure you don’t overcut your audience.

Rich media will grow significantly in 2010, but the solutions are limited compared to online. Web-based Flash is still not available on most phones. There are different rich media solutions for different platforms; some work on webkit browsers (Android, Research In Motion, Windows, Palm Pre) and some are vendor-specific solutions for iPhone apps.

You can use tools for tracking in mobile, but third party ad serving and campaign management functionality is limited. Site-tracking offerings will improve dramatically in 2010.

5) Drive traffic, track user interactions, repeat.
Jump in. Ask sellers what brands in your vertical are active in mobile and read case studies. Start with a basic call-to-action and drive users to a simple landing page with a few relevant means of engagement. Track what happens. Mobile user behavior may surprise you — you won’t believe their insatiable appetite for video content, for example — and use the learnings from one campaign to inform future mobile campaign strategies.

Review our free mobile marketing report http://blog.apollobravo.com/mobilemarketing/

Media Buyers: Roll Your Own Mobile Strategy – Advertising Age – DigitalNext.

Google CEO Eric Schmidt put mobile at the heart of the Internet giant’s future in a special keynote at Congress late this afternoon.

Schmidt outlined how Google’s top programmers were now concentrating on mobile as their primary focus; he also pointed to recent acquisitions in the mobile space, notably AdMob.

Unveiling a new Google mantra – ‘Mobile First’ – Schmidt proclaimed that three unique areas had now converged on the mobile device: computing power, interconnectivity and the cloud: “The phone is where these three all interconnect  and you need to get these three waves right if you want to win.” He highlighted Internet phenomenons such as Spotify, Facebook – and Google itself – as leading the cloud concept across both fixed and mobile. “If you don’t use the power of the cloud you will fail,” he said.

He added that in places such as Indonesia and South Africa Google was now seeing more searches on mobile than via the desktop.

Google programmers joining Schmidt on stage demonstrated the firm’s latest developments, including efforts to merge its speech and image recognition technology; the firm impressed with a preview of an optical character recognition (OCR) tool that was able to recognise and translate a picture of a German menu into English. Google announced that German has now been added to its speech system as its fourth language.

Schmidt also provided an update on Google’s Android platform, which he said was now running across 26 different devices. He said that Android handset vendors were selling  more than 60,000 per day, a figure that has doubled over the last quarter. During an Android demonstration, Google’s Eric Tseng announced that the platform now supports Flash – the full Flash version (10.1) rather than Flash Lite – allowing gaming and movies over handsets. The announcement will give Android devices an advantage over Apple’s iPhone, which does not support the technology.

http://www.mobilebusinessbriefing.com/article/google-embraces-mobile

Learn more about the smart phone revolution and how marketers can reach today’s mobile and social consumer. Visit www.apollobravo.com

Some 19% of Americans will use their mobile devices for shopping this holiday season, according to a Deloitte survey. The number is twice as high for young consumers: 39% of those 18 to 29 say they’ll use their phones to find store locations, obtain coupons and sales information and research products and prices. One-quarter of all who plan to use their phones to shop say they will make purchases on the devices. Read More.

More shoppers use smartphones to study, find, buy – USATODAY.com.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sIFYPQjYhv8&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0]