The Mobile Marketing Blog - TellMyCell

The 3 Best Smartwatch Apps of 2014

 

Awear smartwatches are helping people achieve more with less effort. And that, after all, is what everyone wants out of a new gadget. Even if you’ve not jumped on the smartwatch bandwagon yourself, you’re probably aware of the main functions like delivering alerts straight to the wearers wrist. 

What you might not have heard about is the proliferation of smartwatch-specific apps that are being developed at a rate of knots by the global tech community. You can order food, call a cab and keep an eye on your fitness levels, all straight from your watch. If that feels pretty futuristic, consider this: we’re only at the beginning. The wearable tech boom is in its infancy. Think about that as you check out some of these pioneering apps and you can only wonder at what we might achieve in a decade or two.  

Lyft

The rain is bucketing down and you’re stuck outside a restaurant that’s closed for the evening. All your friends have gone home and you don’t even want to get your phone wet to call a car. Simply tap your watch face, swipe up and hit ‘Start’; next, hit the Lyft app and wait for that familiar fuzzy pink mustache to pick you up. All updates on your driver’s progress are delivered directly to the smartwatch. It hasn’t been quite the runaway success of Uber, but Lyft is available in 64 U.S. cities and isn’t going anywhere. If you own a smartwatch, this app comes highly recommended.

Duolingo

Taking much of the stress out of learning a new language, Duolingo uses flashcards to keep you constantly supplied with unfamiliar words whilst balancing that against positive reinforcement for the words you do know. Images and audio work together to help people learn (to date) one of the following languages: Italian, German, French, Russian, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch. Ideal for honing your skills on the move or in a crowded public place where holding a phone isn’t always practical, this is one of our very favorite smartwatch apps.

The Coffee App

A simple title for a simple messaging app, it orders your contacts according to who you communicate with most frequently. When you want to send a message, tap on a picture of that person and the app will list some of the most common messages you send to that individual. If you’ve had a history of showing up late for meetings, it may say ‘I’m running late’ (or else it’ll list whatever excuses you’ve concocted in the past for said lateness - also very useful!). You can resend or adjust one of those messages, and it’ll even prompt you to choose how late you will be. 

Best of all, the app works on a wide variety of devices, including smartwatches by Samsung, Asus and Motorola. With a few swipes, you can quickly send generic messages that won’t keep you tied up, hunched over a phone for minutes at a time. Simply glance at your wrist and swipe a few times until you’ve got what you need; by using intelligent message hierarchy technology, the app predicts what kinds of message you want to send with an accuracy that can be alarming.

Hip-hopify Your Text Messages

 

Replying to a question with a song lyric is a practice as old as songs or questions, whichever came first. Our brains are associative, and if a particular line of conversation brings to mind an appropriate couplet, it’s hard to resist using it in place of something more prosaic. And why even try to resist? 

This reference-happy attitude is what makes RapKey so satisfying. Designed by Babson student Jonah Kaner, it turns your drab, functional SMS responses into something a little hip-hoppier. 

Kaner has form in the rap world. A former digital strategist for some big-name artists (who remain nameless), the developer was familiar enough with the hip-hop lexicon that he would often send rap lyrics to friends as a way of making his texts more interesting. Realizing how easy it would be to automate the process, he teamed up with Ativ Patel and developed the first incarnation of RapKey in a matter of days. 

The turnaround was so fast because the app is devastatingly simple. All you need do is install the RapKey keyboard as an optional interface (after the QWERTY and Emoji keyboards that come as standard), scroll through a list of pre-loaded lyrics and select the most apt response to whatever you’ve just been asked. The message field will automatically populate and you can simply hit ‘send’. 

All messages are divided into categories. One category contains a collection of words that are entertaining and - vaguely - sensible responses to the question ‘where are you?’; another contains suggested ripostes to ‘what are you doing?’. Other categories include talking to your bae and money-related lyrics. Users can even submit their own suggestions for future iterations of the app.

Text messages and rap already had a burgeoning relationship before RapKey came along. Artists are finding it to be the best way of staying in touch with fans, another way of bypassing the traditional business hierarchy and a logical continuation of hip-hop's tendency to transcend norms. The two dialects - rap and textspeak - even share many commonalities, each favoring speed, slang and phonetics over standard English. They are a match made in heaven - a fact clearly not lost on the developers of RapKey.

And yet, by their own admission, the designers of RapKey have bigga fish to fry, yo. Not content with hip-hop lyrics, Kaner sees the potential for other musical genres, and even TV shows and movies that have their own standalone keyboard.

Majority of Cellphones Will Cost Less than $100 by 2020

 

Experts predict the majority of smartphones purchased in 2020 will cost less than $100. Analyst firm Gartner says about 78 percent of global smartphone sales will come from developing countries in 2018, therefore aiding the possibility of smartphones costing less than “one bill” in the next few years.

Vendors have starting latching on to this trend via initiatives such as Google’s Android One. The company has also formed a partnership with Indian handset brands, like Karbonn, in order to create sub-$100 devices using Android reference designs.

Microsoft is trying to get Windows Phone 8 devices closer to the $100 price, and is also offering free versions of Windows to device manufacturers in emerging markets. Mozilla is working on their “ultra-budget” Firefox OS smartphones, while Samsung is tinkering with the launch of Tizen, a line of low-cost smartphones. Cyanogen Inc. has jumped on the bandwagon as well, having distributed its Android ROM on Micromax's new Yu line of smartphones for Indian consumers. India has become the third-largest smartphone market behind China and the United States as of this year’s third quarter, and Strategy Analytics predicts the country’s economic growth will be due to lower-priced smartphones.

China has emerged as the leading LTE handset market in the world, eclipsing the U.S. for the first time in regards to “long-term evolution.”

Network equipment vendor Ericsson foresees considerable smartphone growth by 2020, predicting smartphone subscriptions will reach the 6.1 billion mark—this is compared to today’s 2.7 billion. Smartphone subscriptions are also expected to surpass basic phone subscriptions as of 2016.

As user base in developing markets that want a smartphone and data package continues to grow, Gartner believes high-end shipments to these markets will slow down, since users are likely seeing little value in features offered. 

Increases in subsidies and sponsorships are also predicted, including programs similar to those offered by Opera, a company that provides carriers the opportunity to sell targeted advertising to end-users in exchange for mobile data.

The combination of smartphone growth in developing countries and saturation in developed countries has Gartner estimating that the tablet or smartphone will be the go-to device for all online activities by 2018. 

"The use pattern that has emerged for nearly all consumers, based on device accessibility, is the smartphone first as a device that is carried when mobile, followed by the tablet that is used for longer sessions, with the PC increasingly reserved for more-complex tasks," Van Baker, Gartner research vice president, said in a statement. 

“This behavior will adapt to incorporate wearables as they become widely available for users,” he added. “As voice, gesture and other modalities grow in popularity with consumers, and as content consumption tasks outweigh content creation tasks, this will further move users away from the PC.”

Versatility, easy-of-use, and cost will all factor into the growing mobile market in the next 5 years.

 

Forwarding Text Messages from iPhone to iPad

 

OS X Yosemite isn’t a new-fangled name for Yosemite National Park, but rather the newest version of Mac’s operating system. Besides featuring a new look, the system offers a plethora of special features, including iCloud Drive file storage, streamlined design for Safari, an expanded notification system with widgets, mail and message enhancements, and more. Immediately available to all Mac users for no cost as of October 16, 2014, Apple is improving continuity between devices with this new system (although not, as a number of defectors have discovered, between Apple and Android devices...)

The new set of continuity features connect iOS devices to the Mac several ways, including allowing users to make and answer calls with Macs and iPads when such devices are forwarded through their iPhones. Macs and iPads are now able to receive SMS messages, including those sent from non-iOS devices. Before OS X Yosemite and iOS 8.1 launched, iPads and Macs could only receive iMessages, which are part of the company’s proprietary messaging system designed for the iPad, iPhone and Mac.

SMS messages, usually intended for mobile phone communications only, are getting their turn thanks to OS X Yosemite, as users can send texts to any device via Macs and iPads. Now known as “Text Message Forwarding” in the Settings app, it was originally called “SMS Relay” before the launch of iOS 8.1. Being able to answer SMS messages and calls on a Mac is highly convenient, especially when a phone is charging or otherwise unavailable. 

iOS 8.1 and OS X Yosemite is required to forward messages and phone calls from an iPhone to a Mac or iPad. The Mac and iPhone also must be logged into the same iCloud account, and the WiFi feature needs to be off to allow for call forwarding.

Separate steps are (obviously) required to enable text message and phone call forwarding. For text message forwarding, users must turn on their Mac and iPhone’s WiFi. Note that SMS forwarding works even if each device is logged into a different WiFi system. The next step is to open the Messages app on the Mac and scroll to Menu Bar -> Messages -> Preferences -> Accounts -> Click on iMessage account -> and then check the boxes next to phone and email. If the email is not already listed, the user needs to click Add Email and enter an address. 

The email address is subsequently added to iMessage on the iPhone via Settings -> Messages -> Send & Receive. Note a registered email is necessary for enabling text message forwarding. To turn on Text Message Forwarding on the iPhone, the user needs to go to  Settings -> Messages -> Text Message Forwarding -> Turn Text Message Forwarding On. This results in a prompt requesting an activation code, which will appear in the Mac’s Messages app. The code is entered into the iPhone, and is required for every device the user wants included in the messaging service.

Any incoming message can now be answered on the Mac, and iPhone will automatically appear as a push notification on the Mac in the upper-right corner. Click ‘reply’ to answer a text, with messages also appearing in the Mac’s Messages app.

 

How to Improve Sales with SMS Marketing this Christmas

 

Black Friday’s over, Cyber Monday’s done with, now all that’s left is the business of Christmas. For retailers, the holiday represents the year’s last commercial hurrah before practically giving their stock away in January and hunkering down for a cold financial winter.

The importance of a successful holiday shopping season can’t be understated. Most retailers rely on healthy Q4 profits to get them through the rest of the year. The spending public goes into a frenzy just before Thanksgiving, and it doesn’t stop until January 1. With such high levels of activity, you’re likely to benefit without doing much more than opening shop every day, but you’re also more susceptible to losing more potential customers to a rival who has their marketing strategy figured out.

To compete, try applying some of these SMS marketing ideas to your 2014 Christmas marketing plan. It’s late, but it’s not too late…

 

Limited Time Offers

Consumerism might be cranked up to eleven at this time of year, but people are still procrastinators, often waiting until the last minute for that unbeatable deal. To take advantage of this tendency, offer time limited coupons that expire within 48 hours of being issued. If the discount is attractive enough, the narrow timeframe will convince the hemmers and the haw-ers to grab it with both hands. 

Exclusive Deals for Existing Customers

It’s far easier to sell to people with whom you already have a business relationship. Often, your best strategy will be approaching current customers who trust your business already. Send a seasonal note or card to your existing clients thanking them for their business over the past year. As a postscript, include a special offer they can take advantage of by texting a shortcode. Be sure to inform them of the exclusivity of the offer – tell them it’s only open to your most valued customers.

SMS and Store-Only Discounts

Incentivizing foot traffic is one of the biggest challenges facing brick and mortar retailers in an increasingly web-oriented marketplace. In order to bring more people in to your store, promote special offers that only apply to foot customers. Once people come in, make them a separate offer that only applies if they sign up to receive mobile alerts. Tell them they will receive a text message within a week of opting in, and make it clear that only SMS recipients can take advantage of the deal.

Stay Relevant

Your SMS contact list should be subdivided according to as many variables as you can gather. Recipients are much likelier to respond to an offer or message that they feel is highly relevant to them. For most of the year it’s a case of collating and capitalizing on personal preferences; at Christmas, things gets a little trickier as most shoppers are focused on buying food and gifts for consumption by others. Run a customer survey early in December to find out what sorts of gifts people are planning to buy for friends and family this Christmas. Even if you don’t gain any useful information, it’s a great way to add more user to your SMS contact list.

Marriot Appeals to Millennials with Mobile App

 

In most industries, trying to appeal to millennials occupies a lot of marketing resources. The hospitality world is no exception. If you assume the under-30s don’t pack enough of a financial clout to much concern hoteliers, think again: according to a recent Forbes article, millennials make up 50% of all hotel bookings. 

Even more surprisingly, they average twice the number of business trips as colleagues over 45, and they’re much more likely to order room service and take advantage of other perks (whether that spending should be attributed to the millennial whose name is on the card or the Gen X-er who’s probably footing the bill is another debate!).

According to Forbes, Millennials are not spendthrifts – but they are approaching the hotel experience from a different direction, and the big chains are doing their best to tune into this attitude. Marriott Hotels are leading the charge, tapping into – and in some ways helping to create – the idealistic Generation Y tourist. Their 2013 campaign ‘Travel Brilliantly’ fielded ideas about the future of travel from young people. Some of their suggestions have even been implemented.

The most notable of these millennial proposals to have reached fruition is the new Marriott Mobile app. It allows guests to check in and check out using their smartphones, and select which guest services they’d like to use during their stay. Marriott has also begun testing healthier vending machines. Partnering with Farmer’s Fridge, a Chicago startup, the hotel giants have installed a vending machine in the Windy City’s O’Hare branch. Instead of the usual array of candy bars and sodas, guests can grab a kale and quinoa salad, or fruit and yoghurt. Time will tell if healthier vending machines have a life beyond Chicago.

It’s not just regular guests that are benefitting from mobile apps. Business conventions who use the Marriott can now take advantage of Red Coat Direct, a meeting services app that allows event planners to change room temperature, order food and drinks, and request other amenities – all without leaving the meeting. It’s an executive butler service on a smartphone.

These changes are indicative of a hotel culture that’s evolving with the times. If you work in the hospitality industry and you haven’t yet taken advantage of the technology that’s helping the huge international chains grow bigger, it’s worth investing in a solid mobile campaign and a few bells and whistles of your own.

SMS Marketing Gives the Underdog a Leg Up During the Holiday Season

 

SMS marketing is an easy, cost-effective method of driving business to your online or brick-and-mortar store, no matter how “small” the store is. While smaller, independent businesses are often eclipsed by major retailers, especially during the holiday season, SMS marketing makes it simple to send exclusive deals, sales alerts, promotions and coupons directly to all customers, all at once. Group SMS gives smaller retailers a leg up on their competition, as one of the reasons to patronize small businesses is the personal service that comes with it. So don’t be deterred or feel overshadowed by larger retail chains, and remember that your business also has something to offer.

 

Direct Communication

While retail giants might use television and newspaper advertisements to announce big sales, a group SMS campaign allows small businesses to send store information and special deals directly to customers. Send alerts about extended store hours, new holiday products, exclusive deals and coupons, and promo codes. Reach targeted demographics by segmenting your text lists, rather than advertising to consumers who aren’t even local.

 

Getting Personal

Creating more personalized SMS campaigns is arguably one of the best marketing strategies for small enterprises to implement. Anticipate and address customer needs, and remember to “keep it exclusive.” Create a VIP feel in your text campaigns in order to remind customers why it’s so important to be a part of your communication lists. In addition to keeping your campaign exclusive and highly useful, remember to “get festive” as well. Thanksgiving and Black Friday mark the beginning of the holiday season, a time of peace and goodwill. So again, ensure your message is on the personal side, and reads as part of a conversation—this is what attracted many customers to your business initially. So keep it up!

 

The Time is Right

Now is the time to execute a mobile marketing strategy if you haven’t already. The holiday shopping season may be a seemingly unending shower of advertisements, but don’t be intimidated. An affordable option beneficial to practically every business in existence, the power of SMS enhances the holiday season and extends well into the new year. You’ll likely have a whole new list of consumers added to your database, and may alert them to sales, promotions, contests, special coupons and more throughout the year. With a little creativity and the power of SMS, you might be amazed at how many more satisfied customers you have when Black Friday rolls around next season.

 

 

SMS and Tourism: A Perfect Fit

 

Text messaging is a low-cost way of providing customers with information, sending alerts, mobile coupons, and other incentives. Consumers generally have their phones on and with them at all times, making text messaging an invaluable option for reaching customers, especially compared to email and other traditional channels. It therefore follows that SMS easily encourages repeat bookings and otherwise drives consumer loyalty, something the travel, tourism and hospitality industries certainly benefits from...

 

Airlines

Airlines such as Southwest Airlines utilize SMS as a method of cutting airport wait time and inbound passenger calls. Alerting passengers to flight delays, gate changes and cancellations via SMS are all part of Southwest mobile strategy. Other airlines take advantage of SMS for sweepstake-related reasons. Hawaiian Airlines created an SMS sweepstakes not only to build their mobile database, but also to promote its television sponsorship of the San Diego Padres baseball team. The campaign included a mobile call-to-action during every Padres game in the month of May for a chance to win roundtrip tickets to Hawaii. This encouraged Padres game viewership and offers consumers the chance to double-opt-in and receive targeted messages from the airline in the future.

 

Hotels and Resorts 

The hospitality industry turns to SMS as a method of improving customer service. Mobilizing existing loyalty programs and sending mobile coupons and alerts about on-site amenities, dining and entertainment options help hotels and resorts boost revenue and encourage customers to book again. For example, the MGM Mirage partnered with Acuity Mobile and interactive marketing services firm Acxiom Corp. to create mobile marketing programs for guests staying at MGM properties in Detroit and Las Vegas. The program allowed guests to opt in for access to special offers, contests, alerts and quizzes. 

The Hard Rock brand promoted its restaurants, hotels, shops and events via Air2Web’s mobile marketing service CampaignPRO to attract and maintain a customer base. The Eldorado Hotel targeted guests through SMS with instant special offers to area restaurants and nightclubs. As a hotel mainly patronized by the 35-65-year-old demographic, the Eldorado’s strategy to provide guests with hotel offers, dining deals and entertainment alerts proved an effective method for reaching guests in their 20s.

 

Tourism Organizations

Government agencies and tourism organizations are taking advantage of SMS marketing as well. CTM Media Group created the City-In-The-Pocket mobile marketing program to deliver targeted messages to New York City clients. The Pennsylvania Tourism Office used mobile marketing efforts to promote their most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil. Some 15,000 consumers signed up before February 2 (Groundhog Day) to receive alerts about the animal’s winter weather prediction.

Creative SMS short codes have proven the best means for helping brands and organizations establish essential two-way communications with customers, actual and potential alike. SMS technology is certainly proving to be a perfect fit for the travel and hospitality industry.

 

 

 

 

 

Wiper: The App that Lets You Delete Sent Messages

Privacy is a very big deal in the mobile age. All mobile devices are connected with the World Wide Web, and anyone using a cell phone with a data plan is subject to the prying eyes of the digital world.  Activities are tracked by businesses for advertising purposes, and everyone nowadays must consider that their actions may be viewed by government agencies – or worse, malevolent hackers. But there is a bit of hope, and its name is Wiper.

Wiper is an app that provides its users with the ability to delete unwanted text messages. This app is not the same as Slingshot or Snapchat, which simply make your messages disappear after an allotted period. With Wiper, everything in a given text, including photos, can be eliminated. Your sent messages, your received messages, even the text messages that were sent and received on other people’s devices. If you were in the conversation, you have the right to get rid of it with Wiper. The service they provide is exhaustive: they remove all evidence of your digital conversation, even from their own servers.

Wiper is simple. It functions like any other messaging system, allowing users to send and receive messages, photos, and videos. The Wiper app can also call the conversant, right from the text messaging console. It’s got a few fun features too. For example: since it’s automatically connected to YouTube, you can share videos just by clicking on them, right from the app. (Also, when and if you decide to “Wipe” a conversation, it gives you a warning – the app asks you to confirm that you want to delete everything.) 

The app was created by Manlio Carrelli, when he realized that consumers have little control over their data once it’s out in the cloud. Claiming that we don’t have much say over how long service providers retain our information, Carrelli set out to invent a service that gives that control back to the consumer. And Wiper does just that: with the push of a button, any text conversation you want to delete will vanish into thin air. 

The only caveat to Wiper is that it cannot prevent someone from trying to take a snapshot of the text messages. The developers at Wiper have been working to solve this too: users are alerted anytime someone attempts to take a screenshot of the conversation.

So if you’re the type of person to regret that 4 a.m. text, then consider the Wiper app. It’ll give you back the privacy you deserve.

5 Elementary Mistakes Made by Mobile Marketers

 

Not every mobile marketing campaign will be the success you’d hoped for. In business, as in life, you win some and lose the rest. Pay close attention to each loss, however, and you’ll start to learn where you went wrong. The more you learn about past mistakes, the fewer you’ll make next time.

If you’re devising your first mobile marketing strategy, you can get a head start on that learning curve by avoiding a few basic but common errors. Be as creative as you like, but avoid the following fundamental faux pas.

 

1) Fail to Optimize Content for Mobile

A mobile marketing campaign should provide quality content. It implies that your brand offers good value to its customers. But there’s little point having compelling content if people can’t easily view it from a mobile device. More than 50% of consumers only read emails on a mobile device, and for many people their smartphone is their primary point of access to the web. That’s why your website must be mobile-optimized.

Some of the culprits of this most basic of mistakes are major brands who really should know better. As recently as last year, Amazon sent a mass email that was not mobile friendly.

 

2) Use MMS Over SMS

Commensurate with mobile optimization, it needs saying all on its own: SMS messaging is the only text message protocol you should be using in a mobile marketing campaign. End of story. Many a company has tried to get clever with rich media messaging. Both Starbucks and Macy’s came unstuck after running MMS campaigns that only appeared as intended on a few devices. Resolution varies widely depending on what kind of phone the recipient has, and a significant minority of people still use older phones incapable of displaying images at all. Keep it simple. Send SMS messages containing links to all the rich content you've created and you can be certain people will see it.

 

3) Omit the Call to Action

A strong call-to-action is an essential element of any successful mobile marketing campaign. If you’re a retailer with a new in-store app you want people to know about, there’s no point waiting for them to visit your website to find out about it – foot traffic in a store won’t go home and do that unless there’s a problem with what they’ve bought. Clearly signpost the availability of the app around the store, and tell consumers why it’s of value to them. Equally, text message campaigns should state what customer x must to do get value y.

 

4) Fail to Tell the World

You might have the greatest special offer in your industry, but without a strong promotional campaign it’s all for nought. For maximum promo penetration, spread the word across multiple channels. Social media, website, SMS messaging, guest blogging, traditional ad buys – leveraging all available touchpoints will yield dramatic results in terms of traffic and, ultimately, sales.

 

5) Make Opting In & Out a Headache

There are two actions you should make as simple as possible for customers: opting in to receive notifications and opting out of them. If there’s a disparity between the two you’ll irritate people and even make them suspicious of your brand. QR codes are a good example of how to waste people’s time – and your budget. Can you be sure everyone in your target market has a QR scanner? Is it convenient for those that do to use it when they see your code? 

Instead of using gimmicks, offer something of real value to consumers who sign up to your contact list. Equally, include a clear link in every communication that allows people to opt out in a single step. People are fickle, chopping and changing brand allegiances as it suits them, so the more user friendly your experience is the likelier they are to return later - even if they’ve opted out. Make them jump through hoops and your brand will be mentally blacklisted.