Optism™

This year at MWC, we will be showcasing a complete Mobile Commerce offering that includes our permission-based Mobile Marketing solution, Optism, as well as the Alcatel-Lucent Mobile Wallet Service and Digital Media Store. Our Mobile Commerce solution addresses the entire lifecycle of user purchases from preferences, promotion and discovery, to storefronts and settlement. Thomas Labarthe, Vice President of Mobile Commerce Solutions, will be at MWC ready to talk to you about how our Mobile Commerce offerings can help you foster new business opportunities.

Optism is one example of the innovative thinking at Alcatel-Lucent, a company that combines technological expertise, hands-on global experience and creativity to help operators maximize profitability. Alcatel-Lucent’s strength in both IP and wireless has put the company at the forefront of the mobile broadband revolution. At MWC, Alcatel-Lucent will be offering guided tours of the booth, with seven tour options to fit different business needs and interests. To learn more, check out the Alcatel-Lucent Mobile World Congress website.

Join us at MWC — February 27 to March 1, 2012, Barcelona, Spain — to find out what Optism and Alcatel-Lucent can do for you. We’ll be in Hall 6, Booth 6C23. Even if you can’t make the show, you can participate in the excitement by following us on Twitter @Optism. We’ll be sharing our insights into the show throughout the event.

It’s another week of good news on the mobile marketing front, with lots of proof that the importance of mobile marketing is growing worldwide. We start our roundup with an article by the MMA’s Michael Becker that analyses why permission mobile marketing is so effective. And we finish this week with some excellent examples of how brands have made mobile work for them.

RCRWireless U.S. featured an article by the Mobile Marketing Association’s North American managing director, Michael J. Becker on why permission-based mobile marketing is a win-win for consumers and brands. Michael writes, “For most businesses, getting customers is important, but keeping them is what’s generating long-term value and profitability.” Done right, mobile can help businesses build meaningful relationships with their customers.

For Michael, permission-based marketing goes beyond “a simple binary of opt-in/opt-out.” Marketers need to allow the customer to control how the mobile relationship evolves, “enabling them to overtly identify the branded communications they consider valuable.” The extra effort is well worth it in the end because consumers are more inclined to trust the messages they receive and to pay attention to them. Citing Alcatel-Lucent research, Michael notes, 63% of the young people surveyed said “they would be more likely to purchase products and services from preferred brands that use permission-based mobile marketing.” Read the rest of this entry »

We start off with a look at how SMS continues to offer retailers an effective means to engage with their customers. As you’ll read in several other articles we’ve collected for this week’s Permission Marketing, some of us are even going to be able to pay for our holiday purchases using our trusty mobiles.

Mobile Marketer had advice for retailers on how to incorporate SMS into their mobile commerce activities this holiday season. Author Giselle Tsirulnik notes, “The personal nature of SMS makes it a great recommendation tool. Consumers trust their friends and family, and will likely open a text message with product information from a loved one.” Tim Miller of Sumotext in Arizona agrees, adding, “SMS is inherently viral because it’s inherently unobtrusive.” Companies like Gilt Groupe, Amazon, Best Buy and Target are taking advantage of this by including a feature on their mobile sites that lets people easily send product recommendations to friends.

According to Wilson Kerr of Unbound Commerce, SMS can also be combined with short codes to drive traffic to mcommerce sites. And SMS is an effective tool for encouraging people to sign up for loyalty programs. Kerr adds, “If a shopping cart is abandoned, SMS can be used to ping the customer who did not complete their transaction, to remind them that their cart is full and they forgot to check out.” Read the rest of this entry »