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Brady Murphy

Brady Murphy is a founder and managing partner of Vortex Mobile. Since 2004, Brady has been leading Vortex's sales and marketing efforts and has acted as the company's chief evangelist for all things mobile marketing. His expertise lies in leveraging mobile applications to create compelling brand experiences that encourage dialogue between companies and consumers.

Prior to founding Vortex, Brady worked in promotions where he gained valuable insight into media, sponsorship, word of mouth & viral marketing, CRM, and direct marketing. Ever an advocate for permission based marketing, Brady has helped Vortex clients such as Levis, Bacardi, Procter & Gamble, Nestle and Energizer cut through the media clutter and forge stronger relationships with their customers.

Brady is a prominent member of the IAB's Mobile Committee and has regularly contributed his expertise through both published materials and speaking engagements.

Brady Murphy - CMA Blog Contributor
 

The Intersection Between Mobile and Social Just Became Much Blurrier

Facebook announced “Places”, a tool that allows Facebook subscribers to essentially “check in” to locations and serendipitously discover friends who happen to be nearby. Momentum continues to build in location-based services, Geo-fencing, mobile social media etc.

Why this will work.
Facebook is the all-powerful Borg (for those non Trekkies out there – they assimilate, adapt and propagate). With 500 million subscribers (and reports that 150 million of these are mobile), sheer size makes Facebook the clear favourite. In my opinion, Foursquare, Gowalla, My Town, etc. are officially the underdogs (if they weren’t before). Naturally, Facebook is faced with the issue of privacy, and provided they allow users to self-provision and dictate terms, then chances of success are high. Reaching eyeballs via Facebook Places substantially increases the efficiency of ad dollars and brings us another step closer to the perfect delivery of WHEN and WHERE.

What does this mean from a marketer’s point of view?
The ecosystem has added a slew of new terms that strategists, planners, brand managers, and CMOs,must be aware of for water cooler chats. This announcement could mark the dawn of Facebook mobile monetization where ad products and services will emerge. I suspect Places may be the final straw that pushes those brands that don’t have a mobile friendly destination to get one, as those brands can leverage the open graph API to ensure their brand communities can enjoy a seamless mobile experience. Who knows? Facebook could be the first organization to really marry mobile commerce and social platforms – they have a great Trojan horse model to explore with other products and services. In the near-term, Vortex is anxious to socialize mobile properties and mobilize brand communities. New DIY tools and APIs will strengthen the value proposition for our partners, some simple use cases include:
• Consider a beer or spirit company that uses experiential marketing. Imagine a promotion where X number of people that check in win, or 1 in X who check in to a restaurant/bar are entered to win a trip. Participants earn bonus ballots for socializing their whereabouts via Places and ta-da, we have next generation swarming. Amplify this experience by posting user generated content (such as pictures and video) and let your Twitter followers and Facebook friends see your world on demand.. When boiled down, many marketing fundamentals still apply: LOCATION, EMOTIONS, LTO(limited time offers)/SENSE of URGENCY, SHARED CONNECTIONS and WORD OF MOUTH.

Carriers (and OEMs) could be X-factors in mobile/social media
There is no doubt that carriers and handset manufacturers want in on the action. Geo-fences and location-based alerts are on their radar, as they battle the perception that their place within the mobile ecosystem is simply as dump pipes and dummy terminals. Arguably carriers and manufacturers have some tricks up their sleeve. A Canadian trial called OneAPI could allow carriers to get in the game by providing client-side information all accessed through a web API. OneAPI has the potential to be a total game changer as it offers SMS+ MMS aggregation, billing services, and targeting, and with the right partnerships, could offer a location-based experience that is as seamless and accessible, if not more so, then one offered by Facebook. (Click HERE for more details about ONE API.) http://www.gsmworld.com/oneapi/

Brady Murphy

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Aug. 20 2010 12:07 PM | Comments 2 posted | Categories Mobile - Social Media -

Mobile Commerce & Retailers

A previous post of mine talked about the rise in retailers focusing on mobile marketing strategy to increase their awareness, drive traffic to stores and keep customers engaged via their mobile device. The mobile ecosystem is evolving extremely quickly and I’d like to continue the theme of retailers but will take this opportunity to focus in greater detail on mobile commerce.

Mobile commerce means different things to different people, depending on who you’re talking to. I’ve come across the following definitions of Mobile Commerce:

• PSMS (Premium SMS) where a user’s mobile bill is invoiced due to a user sending a premium rated SMS to a short code (MO) or by the user accepting a subscription type billing for alerts.
• NFC (Near Field Communication) where an OEM (Original Equipment Manufacturer) equips handsets with Hardware/Software that facilitates a wave and pay type of solution. (May also use RFID – Radio Frequency Identification, Bluetooth, enhanced SIM cards)
• Other often used terms are Mobile wallets, where users can use third party providers like PayPal to facilitate transactions.
• Mobile banking is another popular term that gets thrown into the mix, however M-Banking has very little coverage in this post.

The M-Commerce I’m talking about is payment of products or services via credit card (debit card) using an encrypted mobile internet protocol to facilitate purchases. You’ll also hear the term PCI DSS compliant in this mix (for those not familiar with this acronym, it means Payment Card Industry Compliance Data Security Standard). It’s designed to mask/encrypt the credit/debit card information.

Our discussions with retailers have yielded some thought provoking information, most significantly that consumers are making purchases from their mobile devices on NON mobile friendly e-commerce sites. Not surprisingly the benchmarks for time on site is lower, bounce rates are higher, basket size is lower and drop-off is higher when comparing the experience to established e-commerce portals. Nonetheless the major point here is that PEOPLE ARE BUYING!

This begs the question of the ROI (the Hard ROI not media ROI) of developing a commerce portal that is mobile friendly where benchmarks narrow. To me, this seems like one of the easier business cases to build especially considering the enormous momentum of web friendly handsets, affordable data fees, and increased propensity by consumers to use their Credit Cards on mobile devices.

Mobile marketing will reach new heights because transactions will close communication and campaign loops to purchases. Now we have scenarios where end of the season clearance sales will live inside mobile portals. It’s also worthy to recognize other channels of mobile marketing that will benefit from commerce like SMS. Reward your loyal SMS subscribers with first to know and exclusive offers and alerts of discounted items. Use mobile display banner ads and yield exceptionally high click through rates of featured items and convert to checkout. Develop mobile friendly versions of emails for those consumers who read e-newsletters on handsets. Explore affiliate mobile networks (and cross retailer downloadable applications) and pay the content owners or application owners upon conversion to sale. I’d like nothing better than to see SMS joke of the day ads replaced by “Be the first to own an iPad! Click here”.

Some thought starters…

Go to your webmaster and ask him/her to pull the web reports on types of browsers accessing your site. Parse the data and look at bounce rates of mobile browsers vs. traditional browsers. Take a quick audit of your page views accessed through mobile browsers, what information is being viewed? Some of my guesses are Store Locator/Maps, Store Hours, Specials and Price Comparison tools.

Pull the report from your email CRM activities, see how many page views are coming from Mobile browsers – and then look at your newsletter on your handheld.

Start asking for mobile numbers and opt-ins from your sign up section of your website – you’ll be shocked at how many consumers are willing to give up their mobile number.

Look at using web to mobile tools like “send to my mobile” for online flyer/catalog searches that will send wish lists, product information, mobile coupons, store address etc. direct to you via a shortcode (or by updating your native application through the PUSH API).

Tag offline media like flyers, FSIs, POS, print, newspaper, OOH with mobile messaging calls to action and start changing impressions to interactions and now transactions.

If your site has e-commerce does your commerce provider have the ability to use webservices? You’ll need to decide on a transcoded (operation of changing data from one format to another, such as an XML to HTML, so the output will be displayed in an appropriate manner for the device) mobile site OR to build from scratch (potentially using a mobile internet middleware solution) optimizing navigation and content for groupings of mobile handsets based on form, feature and function. Do NOT compromise on user experience.

The advent of mobile transactions will better equip marketers to assess the dollar value of a mobile number, which in my mind is critical for next generation mobile strategy. Our industry must move beyond last of the budget and end of the year throw in experiments. Above all focus on utility, don’t think of mobile as native application, OR messaging, OR mobile web, OR mobile advertising – these are all ANDs.

Finally don’t build your mobile strategy on an island – it must integrate and fit within your overall communication plan.

Brady Murphy

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Jun. 07 2010 09:00 AM | Comments 0 posted | Categories Mobile -

Mobile Marketing Draws Foot Traffic During Back to School

Chances are that you don’t know what your 14 year-old is saying most of the time. Neither do we. But what we do know is that a whopping 85 per cent of teens own mobile phones before they reach the age of 16 (Teens & Mobile Phones). Of these, 57 per cent believe that their mobile phone significantly improves their quality of life (Why Back to School Marketing Should Include Mobile). They send an average of 2,899 text messages per month (Breaking Teen Myths)—which represents about one-and-a-half 500-word essays per day—just to their friends. Ignoring the most important communication and consumption medium amongst teens will be a sure-fire way to fall behind the pack.

The marketing world is changing, and connecting this demographic with your brand is the next evolutionary step to reach your customers. Adopting a properly designed mobile strategy has been proven to increase foot traffic to stores and generate sales. Other than the holiday season, the Back to School shopping cycle ranks as the largest revenue producing period for the retail sector. Over $1.5 billion was spent on children’s clothing, accessories and stationary in Canada while more than $7.6 billion was spent stateside in the third quarter of 2008 (Back to School, by the Numbers). Although parents are paying for the goods, the purchasing decisions are strongly influenced by the kids. The demand is there and the medium is established; the onus is now on the retailers.

If you visit your local mall or school, you would be hard pressed to find a student without a mobile phone. Teens and tweens carry their mobile phone with them everywhere they go, as a necessity for communication and an expression of their social status. For a brand to reach this critical demographic, it must include mobile communication in its marketing mix. There are a variety of benefits a mobile Back to School campaign has, including:

1. The ability to draw foot traffic to stores and retailers, therefore increasing sales. Retailers can use SMS alert with mobile coupons to drive traffic (some retailers have traffic counters to measure lift post alerts), other transaction enabled mobile sites use display mobile ads to increase traffic and convert clicks to sales.

2. Personal connection with teens via their most prized possession which is always on them. Mobile opens up a static channel where the user can always be reached in a medium where they are open to hearing marketing messages and are consistently using. Brands benefit from the connection with increased awareness and recall, not to mention the associative innovation benefits.

3. Remarketing ability (Holiday Shopping and more). When one campaign door closes, another campaign window opens. One of the primary benefits of utilizing SMS in a marketing campaign is capturing mobile phone numbers in the form of an opt-in list that can be used for subsequent marketing campaigns. It is imperative that dialogues continue and proper value exchanges are served to those loyal mobile users. We must strive as an industry to quantify the value of a mobile number. Without assessing a value, mobile will be reduced to one-off tactical tests which only industry laggards can afford to invest in.

Now more than ever, brands need to reach back-to-school shoppers in new, innovative, and most importantly, relevant ways. A long-term strategy is the key to raising brand awareness which will translate to increased sales.

Brady Murphy

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May. 25 2010 09:00 AM | Comments 1 posted | Categories Mobile -

What is Success for my Mobile Messaging Campaign?

In many ways, mobile can be evaluated similarly to any other marketing initiative. Generally, every marketing campaign is evaluated in terms of efficiency (getting value for invested money) and effectiveness (achieving the objective set for the campaign). In this sense, mobile is no different. We must determine how well the program did when factoring in cost and measuring against objectives – the two evaluated inclusively and exclusively.

However, the evaluation of a mobile campaign is no easy task. It must involve a variety of quantitative and qualitative measurements that assess the program’s efficiency and effectiveness. Mobile is moving away from the early adopter stage to the innovation stage and this shift brings added pressure to demonstrate tangible ROI. These measurements include, but are not limited to:

Quantitative Analysis

• Cost per – Any of the below measures, but forth most, cost per a unique user, per an interaction or in terms of harder ROI cost per acquisition.
• Delivery Measures – Number of messages sent, number delivered, number failed delivery, attrition rates.
• User Messages – Number of unique users, number of interactions, number of repeat users, frequency of interaction, time of users’ interaction, from where users interact, number of replies, number of stop messages, number of inquiries.
• Click Through Rates – When URL links are included.
• Purchase Tracking – Number of people to redeem a coupon or make a purchase.

The metrics used should be determined by the campaign objective and its primary mechanics. For example, if it were a text to win campaign, the number of unique users and total entrants would be the primary value. For a program where it asks users to answer a series of questions through SMS, the same metrics would apply, but equally important would be how much interaction each user had with the brand – i.e. the average user answered three questions.

One of the key benefits of mobile marketing is the ability to track the campaign results immediately and across a wide range of available data. These numbers are a science. They are exact and can be easily reported.

Qualitative

Conversely, a qualitative review is not a science. It is based on an evaluation of the following:

• User Interaction – The amount of time the user interacts.
• User Engagement – The depth of user interaction – how engaged is the user?
• Brand Connection – Link between the brand, campaign execution, and end goal.
• Marketing Mix Integration – How effectively is mobile integrated into the mix?
• Surveys and Awareness tracking – Test and control groups are used to test brand saliency as a result of incorporating mobile.

Factors Influencing Success

After the above analysis, it’s important to review the below factors. These factors will greatly influence the result of the program, not necessarily for better or worse, but expectations must be set based on them. For example, in terms of value proposition, you’re more likely to get more entrants if there’s a car prize versus a t-shirt prize, or if the brand is Bud Light Lime or Steelback.

• Value proposition – win a car or a t-shirt, receive great alerts, entertainment value, etc.
• The brand – premium brands vs. value brands.
• What is required of the user – text a keyword versus answering multiple questions.
• Where is the media with the call-to-action – in an area of downtime or in an active, hustling environment.
• Quality of the execution – street teams, messaging, creative, etc.
• Emphasis of the Mobile call-to-action.

Deciphering the Results

Despite having access to a vast array of accurate and immediate metrics, the application of those metrics are inexact and it’s difficult to benchmark against other campaigns. In traditional media we can easily track results – GRPs, impressions, recall, brand awareness, etc. - however, mobile marketing is not at this point, nor will it be in the future, as the salient value is user interaction and what it can accomplish, something that can not be easily tracked. If anything, mobile marketing is a tool to track the effectiveness of traditional marketing techniques as mobile marketing often complements a campaign, not is the campaign.

Here’s what I mean: Take for example a billboard in downtown Toronto. I am a marketer for a car company and I want to advertise on this billboard for two weeks. My objective is to sell more cars. The billboard goes up, I’m told the weight is 90 GRPs with 15k of daily traffic. Without complex and costly statistical analysis, the billboard’s impact is unquantifiable, and even then nearly impossible to extrapolate.

Take the same situation, but add in a mobile component. As a marketer, we know to sell cars we must push consumers to a dealership, and ultimately try the car. Therefore, messaging will push users to text testdrive to 12345 to schedule a test drive. On average, 10 people text in a day, two of which schedule a test drive. Therefore, we know the conversion from billboard to dealership (not including any residual benefit of long-term marketing initiatives on branding). At first glance, by just comparing the numbers, this would seem like a poor performance, however in reality this is quite successful; however, this can only be determined by evaluating qualitatively as well. Beyond metrics, some of these qualitative are:

• Immediate interaction - Consumers do not need to call a number to engage the brand, they can do it right there on their phone.
• Qualified users – Only those consumers that are interested in the brand will text in. It’s like a two-stage program: Nearly all passer-bys will see the billboard, but to take it a step further, those interested that actually respond to the billboard can engage the brand.
• Not a benefit, but it is very important to keep in mind this is a high value, expensive brand, advertised in a location with no downtime, to an untargeted audience.
• Opportunity for continued dialogue – garnering an opt-in from a consumer in any form is a big win, doing so via mobile is a HUGE win. Assuming your brand has a communication plan in place you know have a direct feed with your consumers anytime and anywhere. Start thinking about EXCLUSIVITY, RELEVANCE and TIMELINESS to your messaging strategy.

The general idea is that in mobile marketing, the qualitative analysis must be evaluated in tandem with the quantitative results, while considering the factors; only together can they provide a complete picture of the program’s success.

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Sep. 04 2009 09:00 AM | Comments 0 posted | Categories Mobile -

QR Codes Revisited

Recently I attended a digital conference and one of the speakers (a digital agency business development person) talked at length about the future of mobile being QR codes. I was very Canadian like and didn’t challenge his vision, but he is very wrong about QR codes, and this blog post addresses his lack of information. What he failed to realize is that in order for QR code readers (the native application that is stored locally on your mobile) to reach critical mass is that these readers must be pre-loaded by the handset OEM or the carrier. We’ve learned from shortcodes that applications must be cross carrier. It’s a major feat to convince a single carrier, it’s an even bigger hurdle to convince other carriers and device manufacturers to support this application. QR codes, as many people know them (take a picture, send as an MMS or via the app, receive a URL/Offer/Contest Entry) will NEVER REACH MASS unless there’s a movement by the carriers and OEMs to pre-load the apps. Another challenge to the QR code world is that many QR codes can only be read by certain QR code readers. If you’ve installed a reader on your mobile, don’t expect it to work with all codes.

And what about the utility of these readers?

To me the other shocking bit of this unnamed speaker was his example of the best use of QR code readers, which was opening up a URL to a mobile internet site. Really? That’s it! If we can overcome the barrier of installation, surely there must be something better than visiting a mobile internet site. From a consumer perspective there should be more to the app than this. I would agree that a QR code reader that is part of a larger application has a much better chance of having staying power. For example, an application where an office manager can scan a UPS package that informs him/her of the delivery history, a curious shopper that scans in-store POS to have a sample mailed to their home while downloading a recipe, or better yet, have the app detect their location and deliver pricing information from other retailers (though I’m not sure the retailer would like this feature).

What are some alternatives?

Not all solutions require QR codes, many applications can use image recognition technology where the user can simply take a picture of the product. Even better, some technology solutions do not require an application download. I still find it baffling that many brands that have never run an SMS campaign are deciding to use QR code campaigns like Vespa Canada, CBC’s promotion of the show “The Border” and most recently a Microsoft campaign with Canadian Business Magazine. Granted SMS does have limitations, however in this world of precise measurement and accountability, I’d much rather choose a medium with wider adoption than limited QR code reach type campaigns.

For those QR code lovers who will undoubtedly fire back I offer this regarding QR codes:

• If we can get a carrier or large OEM to pre-install readers and build-in more utility than shortcuts to URLs I will get close to jumping on the bandwagon

• QR codes do offer a worthy alternative to expensive shortcodes

• Mobile terminated QR codes are much better use of the technology for mobile tickets and coupons

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Aug. 07 2009 09:00 AM | Comments 4 posted | Categories Mobile -



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