Santa Claus makes list, checks it twice, calls your mobile

By Giselle Tsirulnik

December 24, 2008

Santa Claus is comin' to town

Even after a year of stellar mobile marketing efforts by some of the world's most well known brands, some businesses are still struggling to find the best marketing medium to promote their product or service.

SmartReply, a provider of voice and mobile marketing services to retailers and businesses, has brought in an expert in mobile marketing -- Santa Claus. The company is using Santa to demonstrate the impact and efficiency of an integrated voice and mobile marketing campaign.

"Mobile marketing offers an interactive experience for consumers and allows them to interact with a brand or advertiser at their convenience, with urgency and spontaneity," said Eric Holmen, president of SmartReply, Irvine, CA.

"The mobile channel allows companies to establish direct communication with core customers, providing an avenue to discover their preferences and their impressions of the brand," he said. "New media, and specifically mobile is an increasingly important way for retailers and businesses to engage their core customers."

Direct from the North Pole, Santa will be calling his favorite friends to wish them good cheer for the holiday season through SmartReply's TXT2SANTA event.

To schedule a call with Jolly Old St. Nick users just need to text XMAS to 50799 and then follow the instructions to speak to the Big Man (in Red) himself.

SmartReply created this event to demonstrate to potential clients and retailers the immediacy and versatility of a mobile campaign -- how it can be used to respond to immediate market demand.

This particular event was created in week's time demonstrating how quickly a mobile campaign can be created and implemented compared to traditional advertising mediums, which can often take months to develop.

Mobile marketing is a billion dollar per year industry, and growing.

Importantly, brand recall is very high -- with survey results as high as 51 percent, with 96 percent remembering the call-to-action from the message.

In a July 2008 survey by the DMA titled, "Mobile Marketing: Consumer Perspectives, SMS campaigns were found to be the most successful mobile ad medium.

Seventy percent of those surveyed responded to a marketing text message, whereas only 41 percent responded to a survey and 30 percent to email offers.

"Mobile technology has the power to change the way people live, affecting healthcare, social networking, entertainment, commerce and finances," Mr. Holmen said. "Therefore it is a natural progression for retailers and brands to turn to the targeted and personal medium of mobile marketing when they are looking for a high-impact, low-cost marketing vehicle. --

SmartReply clients include Lane Bryant, Meijer, La Redoute, among other top North American retailers and businesses.

Non-traditional media is the engine of growth in the today's national ad market -- outstripping traditional channels in terms of incremental increases and approaching giants like print and television in terms of total spending.

As the centerpiece of non-traditional media, mobile has the greatest potential for advertising growth and one of the best current growth profiles, even outdoing online ad growth in recent months.

For 2009, SmartReply predicts that mobile marketing's transition from emerging, niche market to widely adopted medium will continue.

Chief marketing officers and marketers are looking to less expensive options for reaching consumers, especially as the recession continues, and they're shifting to cost-effective online, mobile and voice strategies, as those channels provide quantifiable results with shorter turnaround and significantly lower costs than traditional mass-media counterparts.

Mobile advertising spend in the U.S. is projected to break $1 billion for the first time in 2008, and surpass $7.5 billion by 2013.

In a recent CMO survey released by Epsilon, 63 percent of marketing execs were planning on increasing interactive/digital spend, while 59 percent reported a decrease in traditional marketing.

Also, 29 percent were interested in mobile and 22 percent have already added mobile to their marketing mix, recognizing that this tough economic period is precisely the time when highly targeted and more effective marketing channels play a crucial role.

Another trend that SmartReply sees developing in 2009 (and beyond) is location-based mobile advertising.

To be able to deliver location context-sensitive-content in the here and now -- real time -- will make it indispensable for consumers and for marketers looking to target a specific demographic.

When applications are able to bring content to that context of my immediate physical world, it will be the beginning of a real revolution with the mobile phone.

Once the industry has location awareness, we will open a door to augmented reality systems, artificial intelligence, and a personal information decision tool.

"With the release of the iPhone, consumers have received a new user experience at such a rapid rate of adoption," Mr. Holmen said. "Apple has raised the bar for all handset manufacturers to compete on user experience innovation.

"As carriers, handset manufacturers and mobile operating systems developers provide a faster and better user experience, the prevalence of mobile marketing will also increase," he said.