Optism™

In July, Oracle published a 40-page industry scorecard, answering the question, “When it comes to better data management, how are industries doing?”

Answer: Worse than bad.

Big Data is exploding, no surprise there. And businesses are not prepared to manage the data deluge in a way that is costing them real revenues.

For retailers, failure to properly process their customers’ data means that their already slim margins are even smaller. According to survey results, retailers estimate they are losing big bucks – to the tune of 10% of annual revenues – because they can’t leverage the information they collect across channels. The Oracle study found that only 17% of retailers rated themselves as having a 360-degree insight into their customers through data gathered across multiple channels.

Is this problem? We say it’s an opportunity. The Oracle report found that there is a silver lining within all the data to help retailers do a 180 degree turn to process the data and act on those insights.

Mobile.

How can mobile help? Here are 3 key areas which mobile can help retailers.

Mobility Element: For retailers, giving their sales teams access to mobile is key: 40% percent of retailers in the Oracle study said that providing store associates with mobile access to customer, product, inventory and other information is critical to combat “showrooming”. Mobile allows retailers to provide customized information to their customers using micro-location (in-aisle) technology. Mobile when combined with other CRM information (both offline and online) can provide the entire organization with a real-time, consistent and complete view of the customer.

Permission Element: A 360-degree solution is part technology and part human. You can have the greatest CRM system in the world and tie a mobile solution into it, but if you are missing the human element – it’s not going to work. We call this Thinking Human – which means asking the consumer what he wants and then actually listening and responding to the stated needs.

Engagement Element: For consumers, the ability to opt-in and share information with retailers allows them to share the products they like. Retailers can then target relevant offers to consumers. This concept was summed up very well over at the Mobile Demystified Blog in post entitled “How Mobile Solves The Retail Marketing Data Challenge.” Retailers, according to the author Kane, need to “look not for mobile marketing solutions, but mobile personalized engagement solutions.” A great example of personalized engagement is how Starbucks is using permission and mobile to connect all of its marketing channels.

Recently, I experienced two examples of how retailers were not using my data correctly.

1. I purchased a chair from JCPenney for my daughter’s bedroom and received a thank you email– with a $10 coupon. Cool. But the next email I received (and the several hundred I’ve received since then) told me all the things on sale in the store and online. Guess what? I’m not interested in the plethora of stuff they offered, from shoes to jewelry and baby gear. But I did recently buy bedding for my daughter at the store. Wouldn’t it be so cool if they referred to THAT and maybe even offered me new accessories that might go with the chair and bedding (throws, pillows, curtains)?
2. Earlier this month, I got email from my favorite restaurant wishing me “Happy Birthday”. Too bad my birthday is in August.

The Oracle study lays out the reasons why businesses and retailers should focus on using mobile to deliver “engaging and rewarding experiences to consumers”. All the elements are there for retailers to deliver a 360 degree experience; technology, mobile, permission and creativity. Retailers just need to get educated on the possibilities and really want to provide added value to their customers.

Our crackerjack staff reviewed a bunch of mobile marketing campaigns over the past few years and we picked 50 of what we thought were the best. We chose innovative campaigns that used mobile advertising, SMS, QR Codes, Mobile Apps and Mobile Commerce from companies including Starbucks, Macy’s, Target, O2, RedBox, McDonald’s and a couple of our own. We salute these companies for their ingenuity and hard work in creating these campaign that delight and inform us as mobile consumers. Stay tuned for next year’s picks.

Click here to download Optism’s 50 Best Mobile Marketing Campaigns.

Welcome to Optism’s second blog post acting as curator for the Carnival of the Mobilists. In our dynamic mobile industry, we’ve found that keeping abreast of what ecosystem members are saying is critical to staying on top of new and exciting trends. We are happy and honored to again be a Carnival of the Mobilists host.

In our pick of the week, Mobile Gratification — Now Please!, Matina Macintyre at the Speed Blog asks why marketers are being unresponsive to the needs of consumers who want to use mobile – easily and immediately. She tells a tale of frustration in which she fruitlessly searches for a QR Code on a theater poster in London, dashing her hopes of buying tickets to the show – on the spot – and in the end, at all.  She provides examples of companies, like Brita, which are evolving their product line to meet the needs of consumers with products like the portable water filter bottle. Ms. Macintyre cautions retailers who don’t make it easy to connect via mobile are losing not only sales but more importantly – the attention of the consumers upon whom they depend for sales.

In a post entitled, Project Oscar – It's Not About Advertising, Mobile Marketing Magazine’s David Murphy analyzes the recent announcement of the EU-approved Project Oscar a mcommerce joint venture of Everything Everywhere (Orange and T-Mobile), Vodafone and Telefonica. Mr. Murphy gets reactions from several mobile industry leaders about this potentially game changing development.

Over on the CodeNgo blog, The beauty of alternative app stores post by JT  discusses the fact that most people are only familiar with the Android and Apple app stores. They aren’t aware that many other mobile apps stores exist, including many non-English language stores. CodeNgo recommends that app publishers should offer the widest distribution possible by tapping into these alternative app stores. CodeNgo offers tips and resources to broaden your app distribution, plus a pledge to do more promotion of alternative app stores in the future.

On the CreateAppHere Blog, a post entitled The app journey to the top cautions app makers that there are sound strategies to promote apps and yelling the loudest doesn’t necessarily mean you are the best.

If you are fan of MAM (Mobile Application Management) or MIM (Mobile Information Management), then we have a post for you. Brian Katz wrote Identify yourself for MIM in which he discusses the placement of “Identity” in a Venn diagram created by Gunnar Peterson outlining Mobile Security, API Security and Enterprise Security. Mr. Katz says that “the advantage of MIM is that data can now be passed from any one app on a device to another app on the device that can read the policy and follows the policy.”

In a highly entertaining post about his trip to the Retail Solution Providers Association Convention in Las Vegas, otherwise known as RetailNOW, Bruce Burke says that it’s all about the data in Generation-M. Surprisingly, the Point-Of-Sale industry still sells cash registers with tape ribbons, but soon the data generated by all these purchases will be worth more, by orders of magnitude, than the transaction fees themselves. Mr. Burke isn’t sure that everyone in Vegas was hip to that knowledge.

Thanks for reading the latest installment of the Carnival of Mobilists. For more details about the carnival, to catch up with some of the best mobile blogs of the past please visit The Carnival of Mobilists Website. And now we turn over our hosting duties to Antoine RJ Wright for next week’s carnival #282 so please remember to submit your posts.