Optism™

Welcome to Optism’s first blog acting as curator for the Carnival of the Mobilists. In our dynamic industry, we’ve found that keeping abreast of what ecosystem members are saying is critical to staying on top. That’s why we published our Permission Marketing in the News blogs for almost two years! Now, we’re happy and honored to be a Carnival of the Mobilists host — and we’ve got a great collection of articles to suggest to you this week.

Our favorite comes from mobileweb company’s Martin Wilson. Martin shared his thoughts on responsive web design and why he believes it is falling far short of what people need. According to Martin, responsive web design is “a lazy way to approach mobile.” It focuses on delivering content that suits the size, platform and orientation of the device in use, rather than the needs of the mobile user. Because the content is PC oriented, it includes information that is not relevant in a mobile context and bulky graphics that bog down the mobile experience. Worse still, the information the user is most likely to be interested in, such as store locations, is often buried under pages of this unwanted stuff. Mobile, says Martin, can’t be an afterthought. It’s time for businesses to think about “mobile leading their online strategy.”

Other interesting posts from this week: Read the rest of this entry »

The first of the MMA Forums for this year will be taking place in Singapore next week, 23 – 25 April. This year’s Forum is bringing together the world’s leading mobile marketers and big brands to showcase smart approaches to mobile marketing. Through their examples and discussions, you’ll learn how to capitalize on the power of mobile in your own endeavors.

We’re happy to report that Optism’s Avtansh Sharma, Commercial Director, Media Monetization for Alcatel-Lucent, will be presenting at the Forum. Avtansh’s session, Mobile Marketing Meets the Wallet, will focus on the promise of commerce aided by advertising and how you can use mobile as the connective tissue in your marketing strategies. Avtansh will explore the benefits of surrounding mobile payments with additional value such as offers, deals and loyalty programs. This topic is very timely, given the growing demand from the industry to bridge the gap from advertising to actual conversions and demonstrate the ROI from mobile marketing.

The MMA Forums provide an excellent opportunity to learn the inside scoop on our always-exciting industry. There’s still time to register so please check it out. If you can’t join us, then follow the conference chatter on Twitter #MMAF2012. We hope to see many of you there.

Two years ago, we started with a simple – but innovative – idea. We introduced a permission-based mobile marketing solution, called Optism, which put the user at the center of the experience. We asked people to tell us a little about themselves and their preferences so we could be sure that the ads they received on their mobile devices were relevant to their lives. And we gave them the ability to opt out of the service easily. We told them exactly what we were going to do and then we did it. Finally, we assured them that we would always respect their privacy.

Our solution provided a critical link between mobile operators and advertisers. Operators were able to leverage their unique relationship with subscribers to create advertising media that was more valuable to advertisers. For their part, advertisers loved being able to reach targeted, receptive audiences.

Like everyone else in this dynamic industry, we have learned from our experiences. We developed our own “best practices” for mobile marketing, based on the concept of “thinking human.” When you think human, you remember that there is a real person at the receiving end of any mobile marketing initiative and you engage with them in an open, honest and transparent way. Read the rest of this entry »