R.I.P. SMS 1999 - (Not So Fast)

At the pace in which we live our lives, 

it can come as a shock to remember that SMS Marketing, aka "Text Message Marketing", wouldn't even be able to vote (and no, the Supreme Court's 2010 decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission did not extend "personhood" to SMS, so relax!).  This is especially so when one hears the oft-repeated - but completely erroneous - urban legend that "SMS is dead.  Nobody uses SMS for marketing anymore.

Right.

The list of "dead" marketing methods is long.  And wrong.  SMS, like email, and direct mail, and print, aren't "dead roses" (h/t Rolling Stones) in the marketing bouquet.  Each still works.  That they don't work the way they did in their earliest incarnations is largely irrelevant.  Nothing works like it did at first.  No marketing method.  No machine.  No "person".  No human.

For example, one of my granddaughters was born in 1999, the same year that that Insequent tells us short codes were invented.  She just got her permit.  She certainly doesn't "work" like she did as a newborn, or toddler, or kindergartner, etc.  She grew.  She matured.

And so have all of those allegedly "dead" marketing methods.  Some have even "risen" from the dead.  Who, in 1999, would have foreseen the renaissance of "walking sandwich boards"?

I've written before that "‪#‎MobileMarketing‬ is the new ‪#‎MMA‬";  It's "Mixed Marketing Arts".  That includes SMS.  No, it doesn't work "instead of" other methods.  ALL of these, and everything that Local Motive Marketing (and its "sister", Phoenix Day and Night) does incorporates tools.  The right tool for one purpose is almost universally the wrong tool for other purposes.  Who tries to drive nails with a screwdriver?  Or turn a bolt with a hammer?

So I wasn't the least surprised today when I saw - in my email!!! - a Marketo article titled: "Spring Forward: Jumpstart Your SMS Marketing Campaign", or "7 Tips to Leverage the Power of SMS Marketing" from Convince and Convert Blog's newsfeed.

Don't know which tools will work best, how, for your business?  That's where I come in.

For more on SMS text marketing, click here.  Email effectiveness, click here.  Direct Mail, here and here.

Even "Bloomies" Gets It

It's actually a brilliant marketing ploy.  (h/t to Luxury Daily)

Take something that evolved from ancient folk games, and was so popular in the pre-WWII era that a "culturally significant" 1936 movie ("My Man Godfrey") is preserved in the National Film Registry), and create an interactive shopping experience resulting, Bloomingdale's hopes, in an emotional connection.

It's brilliant because its so unexpected.  At least, it is to me.  Sure, "brands" (a brewing company, an auto manufacturer, and even an airline)  have already done interactive scavenger hunts.  The first "internet scavenger hunt was in 1992.  And movies and TV series have done interactive scavenger hunts.  But this is... Bloomingdale's.

Bloomingdale's was around when Gossip columnist Elsa Maxwell made scavenger hunts popular in the early 1930s.  If there were ever a prime example of an "old school" "old economy" "flagship" company, Bloomingdale's has GOT to be close to, if not at, the top of the list.

Bloomingdale's.  Using a microsite.  With a hashtag (#BloomiesHack).  Using social media.  Heavily.  Integrating smartphones, because someone - at Bloomingdale's - who lives in, and knows he or she works in, the 21st Century, understood that in-store mobile phone usage while shopping is commonplace. That an interactive scavenger hunt would get Bloomingdale's into the participating consumers’ phones.

"The other guys" might still have their parade.  "They" might have "an in" (or even a relationship) with an "old school" "old economy" "flagship" broadcast media company.   But Bloomingdale's has definitely stepped up the game.

And it's IMPORTANT that local small businesses understand that marketing technology - "martech" - makes it possible for them to do the same thing, and engage their customers through their customers smartphones.  That they can reach their customers with Mobile Coupons; give their customers Mobile Rewards; make their customers Mobile members; have a Mobile (or mobile "friendly") website; offer WiFi (especially, Social WiFi).

They don't have to have Bloomingdale's square footage, or even a Bloomingdale's budget, to be as impressive as Bloomingdale's is with this.

For more on mobile search & research, click here. Smartphone content, click here, or here, here, and here.  Engagement, here, here, and here.  Social media, here.

Can Neuroscience Explain Mobile's Growing Popularity?

It should come as no surprise that I keep up, as best any #Entrepreneur can, with the latest data on #MobileMarketing.  I need to know what's up, so I can inform my Clients.  But my ongoing research encompasses "all things future" -- i.e., our present times -- because #mobile IS our fu...

Anyway, my last post included a video (h/t Futurism.com) about how the Jet Propulsion Laboratory plans to use holography to "teleport" JPL engineers to Mars as early as September. And, of course, I tied that to how mobile marketing can "teleport" small businesses into their customers' smartphones.

Today, I watched a video about recent neuroscience experiments, found here: http://futurism.com/scientists-just-made-mind-controlled-wheelchair/ (I already posted about this on Local Motive Marketing's facebook page.)

And (being me), I could not help but see connections between an anecdote within the 15 minute video -- about how a monkey essentially "embodied" a computer- avatar-hand, and how the monkey's brain learned, rather quickly, to recognize that as "an extension" of the monkey's limbs -- and how people have, in a relatively short time, adopted mobile marketing delivery systems as "natural" extensions of the way they receive marketing messages.

The data show that mobile marketing -- which didn't even exist before the cell phone, and was limited to "text" as recently as a decade ago -- has not only made it faster for small businesses to reach their market, but has made it possible for customers to actively pursue and obtain the offers and rewards they choose; to seek out those products and services they most desire, when they desire them, to find the best  combination of product quality and price point, and to act upon that information by downloading mobile coupons, mobile rewards cards, mobile punchcards; and to "reward" the small businesses that make the best that "combination of quality and price" on those "most desired products and services" most available by providing a mobile-friendly website, and making that accessible through free wifi.

Businesses have learned, just as quickly, that "the transaction" is no longer and end, but a wayplace on an "ongoing mission" of engagement that begins long before the customer even thinks of visiting, and continues long after; hopefully, with many other visits to follow.

And businesses can now further reward their own customers -- those who have already chosen to deal with them -- and simultaneously attract new customers, by making themselves and their products and services ever more accessible and affordable; giving loyalty for loyalty.

These are exciting times, indeed.

For more on smartphone content, look here, here, and here. Engagement, remarketing SMS and mobile data/usage? Here and here.