ARCHIVES: This is legacy content from before Marketing Dive acquired Mobile Marketer in early 2017. Some information, such as publication dates, may not have migrated over. Check out the new Marketing Dive site for the latest marketing news.

Discover Card goes mobile

Discover Card has launched Discover.com Mobile, a mobile platform for its card members.

The mobile version of the Discover Card Web site will allow card members to manage their credit card account directly from the mobile phone's browser. The new mobile site offers a simplified version of the Discover.com account summary interface.

"We've got a strategic roadmap that we've put together for mobile," said Steve Furman, director of e-business for the marketing group at Discover, Riverwoods, IL. "It's a natural evolution, following what devices people are using and letting them use their mobile phones to manage their account and track what's going on.

"The iPhone has made people realize that they can do a lot of different things with their phone, it provides utility," he said. "Discover.com Mobile is a basic site with basic features, which is not intended to do the heavy lifting of Discover.com."

Discover.com Mobile lets card-holders use their handset to make a payment, view recent transactions, recent and pending payments and rewards activity, as well as enroll in the 5 percent Cashback Bonus program.

"Our 5 percent Cashback Bonus program has been extremely popular, and giving customers the opportunity to enroll right then and there on their mobile phone is a nice touch to have in there," Mr Furman said. "If you've got a phone with an Internet connection, you can use the mobile site.

"The next leg of our mobile strategy is to get more involved in SMS, from both a servicing standpoint and a communications standpoint," he said. "It's a great opportunity for us, and while we haven't launched it yet, we've been working on it pretty diligently.

"It could be a customer service channel for us, but there's also an opportunity for people to text in and get information, hear about promotions and hot deals from our merchant partners."

The third prong of Discover Card's mobile strategy is marketing.

"Mobile can definitely be an effective marketing vehicle for us, but at this point it's the least defined leg of our mobile strategy," Mr. Furman said. "Initially the biggest thing will be to do more with mobile to promote our Cashback Bonus program, which is ongoing.

"We could also take advantage of the relationships that our network provides with merchants to offer substantial Cashback Bonus rewards and giftcards via mobile," he said. "We could also let customers utilize ShopDiscover using their handset."

Discover.com Mobile is the latest of a string of products and services Discover Card has introduced to help card members stay in control of their finances.

The company recently launched the Spend Analyzer, an online personal finance tool that allows card-members to see exactly how and where they are spending their money through graphical charts that organize their purchases into broad categories.

Also, the newly-launched Paydown Planner gives card members a customized look at how long it should take to pay down their balances over a specific timeframe, while the Purchase Planner helps them understand how a large purchase could affect their monthly payment.

Discover.com Mobile can be accessed by visiting http://m.discover.com from any mobile device that supports Web-browsing functionality.

To log in, Discover Card members can use their existing Discover.com User ID and password.

Discover Financial Services is a leading credit card issuer and electronic payment services company.

While Discover Card realizes that mobile must be an integral part of its mix going forward, it is getting into the space one step at a time.

"Our approach is to try to get something out in the marketplace and listen to our customers and reassess after each phase of our three-pronged strategy and decide when and how to go forward," Mr. Furman said. "You had dialtone, you had Internet broadband and now you have mobile, so we want to make the service as ubiquitous as possible.

"It's not a fee product, it's out there as a service product," he said. "We're letting people know that it's available, that it's easy to use and secure, but we're not necessarily pushing them there."

However, the company has done some marketing to promote its new mobile platform.

"We've sent out an email message to our base of customers telling them to try it out, and we've already gotten pretty good responses from that," Mr. Furman said. "We're working also with our internal direct marketing portfolio team to find synergy with our mobile platform in our direct mail piece.

"As we get more people on it and we get more comfortable with it, we'll do a lot more promotional advertising on the Web site, which is a natural place for us to go, and we'll be communicating through our social media network, which includes Flickr, Facebook, YouTube and Twitter," he said.

"There's an organic, viral aspect to that -- those communities are really starting to get some traction."