On a roll with mobile marketing, we decided to push forward and look at innovative ways companies are using mobile to reach and engage their customers. Within a short while, we found ourselves buried in tech words like geotagging, 2D barcodes, QR codes, MMS-enabled, and more. Our heads were spinning!
Last year we were introduced to Princeton-based mobile marketing firm, JAGTAG (www.jagtag.com) and, with everything we knew to date, this seemed like the perfect time to chat with them further about mobile strategies.
JAGTAG has created an easy way for organizations to send marketing messages and content to consumers, via their mobile phones at the moment they want it. It’s a pull approach, using permission-based best practices. No spam. Got to love that!
You can find out more from their website, but briefly JAGTAG creates custom 2D barcodes that can appear on print ads, direct mail, a poster, packaging, a t-shirt, a website, and so on. Responding to an invite, the customer takes a picture of the barcode using their camera phone and sends that picture to a provided text number. Within seconds, the customer will receive a response to their request. It could be a text message, video, audio, or an image, depending on the campaign. JAGTAG is a full service solution where they will help you to develop your campaign, respond on your behalf to the customer-initiated requests, provide analytics and help interpret results, store data safely, and more. While each campaign is different, we were told that a recent campaign saw opt-in percentages of 21%. That’s enough to make any direct marketer smile.
We hope you find the following interview with John Cashman, JAGTAG’s VP of Product Development, helpful as you explore mobile marketing as a way to connect with prospects and customers. While the questions center on JAGTAG and their 2D barcode solution, we feel that the answers will give you some insight into the factors to consider in any approach that you are evaluating.
1. Could you give us an example of how a company might use a tactic that combines multimedia messaging (MMS) and 2D barcodes to attract new customers or reward existing ones?
Sure, we had a consumer product company do a guerilla marketing campaign, where they had 15 people walking the streets of 3 major cities wearing t-shirts with a JAGTAG printed on the front. Anyone who took a picture of the JAGTAG and texted it to the number provided had their name entered into a sweepstake. They then received a message on their phones asking if they would like to be added to the database for future promotions. It was a really fun, unique way to get consumers excited about their product.
Some of your clients are institutions of higher education. Imagine being able to send informative, relevant content to prospective students while they are visiting your college.
2. Foursquare, a game designed for smart phones and a social networking site, is getting a lot of attention from the media at this time. What’s the difference between doing a mobile campaign using a web application like foursquare that utilizes location-based technologies/geotagging (e.g. current Starbucks campaign), and a campaign using 2D Barcodes as you would with JAGTAG?
Foursquare is app-based, so the consumer has to download an app onto their smart phone to participate. With JAGTAG, they must take a picture with their camera phone and text it to the number provided to participate. They are very different approaches.
3. Our clients vary in size and budget. Are 2D barcode solutions an option to consider for small businesses?
Like any marketing campaign, the decision depends on how much you are willing and able to spend. It is expensive to optimize rich content like video, audio and images for mobile phones—this upfront cost could be outside some budgets. We’re in the process of setting up an online version of JAGTAG to make our solution more affordable for small businesses. I think this has great potential for local marketing.
4. If I were looking in my marketing toolbox today, where would a 2D barcode campaign fit in?
We talked about the guerilla campaign earlier. There are so many ways you could use this channel—we have some examples on our website.
2D barcode campaigns are definitely complimentary to any app-based marketing solution. If you have an app to deliver info to your customers, you could use our solution to pique the interest of a potential customer by sending them a sample of the information offered on an app.
Cool stuff, eh!
John recommended a website called Mobile Marketer if you are interested in keeping up with developments in mobile marketing (www.mobilemarketer.com). In the mean time, we need to catch our breath and take a break from all this writing.
Give us a call if you want to chat about your mobile strategy. We’ve got some great resources at hand to help you.