Optism™

This week marks our final Permission marketing in the news roundup for 2011. What a great year it has been! To send us all off to year-end celebrations in the right mood, we have reports on Mobile Marketer’s “Marketer of the Year” as well as some inspiring video of mobile campaigns from Mobile Marketing magazine. Also, we hope you will indulge us with our first two pieces, which feature our own recent publications.

Hot off the press, we’d like to draw your attention to a new article by Optism’s Lisa Ciangiulli, published on MobileGroove. In “Why Starbucks’ Mobile Strategy Sets The Bar(rista)” Lisa commends Starbucks for demonstrating their “respect for us (the customer) and a deep understanding of what we need on the move.” Lisa believes the most “effective advertising delivers us value.” And for Lisa, an on-the-go multi-tasking mom and marketing expert, Starbucks delivers the perfect mix of “utility and familiarity.”

Recently named the “Best iPhone Lifestyle App in the U.S.”, the Starbucks app enables people to use their smartphones to make mobile payments, track their Starbucks rewards and send e-gifts to loved ones. In her article, Lisa explores how Starbucks has succeeded by “paying meticulous attention to…the Three Rs of mobile marketing: respect, reinforcement and repeating.”

This week also marked the conclusion of our review of Seth Godin’s Permission Marketing. The series was conceived as a fitting way to celebrate Optism’s one year anniversary. Over the past several months, we’ve featured a chapter-by-chapter review of Seth’s seminal book and analyzed how changes in the mobile and advertising marketplace have impacted the recommendations in his book. We hope you have enjoyed this series. For us, it’s been an opportunity both to be impressed with how innovative Seth’s original work was and to see how far we’ve come as an industry. At Optism, we are firmly committed to permission-based mobile marketing.

Mobile Marketer has given Macy’s the “highest accolade in mobile advertising, marketing and media” naming it “2011 Mobile Marketer of the Year.” According to Mickey Alam Khan, editor in chief of Mobile Marketer and Mobile Commerce Daily, Macy’s “was a marketer that was willing to put resources, talent, thought, boldness and strategic execution behind every action in its efforts to place mobile in a multichannel context.” Macy’s mobile marketing strategy includes mobile commerce, advertising, database and customer relationship management, applications and mobile web.

Other winners of Mobile Marketer awards included Coca-Cola, Condé Nast, AKQA, Forrester Research, and our friends at Hipcricket. Congratulations one and all!

In other awards news, Mobile Marketing magazine has published the videos from nominees for their Effective Mobile Marketing Awards. (We reported on these awards in our earlier blog.)  These videos are like a crash course in innovation on mobile. The campaigns highlighted are excellent proof points for anyone who needs convincing that mobile works.

On Mashable Business, author Ted Iannuzzi wants retailers to consider “5 Small Biz Mobile Marketing Strategies for the Holidays.” He adds that if your 2011 plans are already set, you can get a jumpstart on 2012. For each of his recommendations he provides statistics and/or specific examples to back up why the strategy is important. For example, in support of his “create a specialized mobile holiday app” recommendation, he points out that “43% of mobile shoppers have downloaded a retail app.”  He notes that thanks to low cost, DIY tools, apps are no longer only accessible to large enterprises.

One recommendation that is particularly timely: build your mobile database. This is the time to start planning for next year. As Iannuzzi writes, “The increase in store traffic during the holidays will translate to a larger database. Hand customers their very last paper coupon at the point-of-sale to redeem in-store post-holiday, in exchange for their mobile number.” Building your database now means you will be able to take advantage of SMS marketing next year.

Finally, to close on an article that highlights one area in mobile marketing poised for growth, we look at Direct Marketing News’ “Study: 40% of October mobile ad campaigns targeted.”  As author Tim Peterson points out, mobile is a channel that is ideally suited to targeting consumers based on criteria like geolocation. Some of this lack of targeting may be due to the fact that marketers wanted to maximize their reach during the holiday period. However, according to Mack McKelvey, SVP of marketing at Millennial Media, “There is a ton of promise with mobile for more targeted campaigns.” She went on to note that advertisers “are starting to replace their traditional ad buys from radio and local newspapers with mobile, where they know that they can target a local message” to drive local results.”

Happy holidays to those who participate in year-end celebrations. We’re looking forward to an exciting 2012, with more and greater things on the horizon for mobile marketing and mobile commerce. You can reach us on Twitter @Optism or join the conversation on our Facebook page.