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SMS key factor in successful mobile holiday campaign execution: Simon Malls exec

Please click here to access the archived webinar, ?Holiday Mobile Marketing: Lessons Learned, Surprises and Best Practice for 2011?

A Simon Malls executive said that SMS plays a key role in the company?s overall initiatives with more than half of its online subscribers opting into the company?s mobile club.

During the ?Holiday Mobile Marketing: Lessons Learned, Surprises and Best Practice for 2011? webinar, panelists discussed how the 2010 holiday season marked a turning point in mobile marketing?s history with more ad campaigns and responses that matched expectations and often exceeded them. The webinar was sponsored by Hipcricket.

?We want to try and create a fun shopping experience for consumers,? said Patrick Flanagan, vice president of digital strategy and marketing at Simon Property Group?s Simon Brand Ventures. ?We?re trying to find ways to lighten the mood and make it fun."

Best practices
According to Mr. Flanagan, companies should always ask for a mobile number when asking consumers to opt-in to their mobile clubs.

Additionally, if they can, companies should use a carrot, an incentive to drive consumer participation.

Simon Malls did a holiday execution in all of its locations where it featured a generic call-to-action.

Consumers were encouraged to ask Santa for a $10,000 shopping spree by texting the keyword WIN to the short code 71610.

After consumers texted, in they received a message back from Simon Malls that said ?Great! Please reply with the name of your favorite Simon mall to start getting msgs. Max 5 msgs/month. Msg + data rates may apply. STOP = optout, HELP = help."

?We saw a 34 percent conversion rate to our mobile shopper club,? Mr. Flanagan. ?It?s important to tie SMS into your existing promos.

?It definitely makes a difference,? he said.

It is also important to test media and placement of the calls-to-action, per Mr. Flanagan.

What surprised the executive was the amount of responses the company received after it sent out a holiday email with a mobile call-to-action.

The email offered consumers a chance to win a $10,000 American Express Simon Giftcard and the chance to meet singer Selena Gomez by either going to the company?s site, its Facebook page or by texting the keyword WIN to the short code 71610.

Twenty-five percent of consumers who received the email messages texted in.

?The one that definitely blew me away was the email to text,? Mr. Flanagan said. ?As a marketer, email is about driving a click.

?Over a fourth of our holiday sweepstakes entries came from our holiday cal- to-action,? he said. ?It was unintuitive ? for us it was a breakthrough.?

Mr. Flanagan also suggested to not forget about the important impact social media has on mobile.

In addition to SMS, Simon Malls was promoting its sweepstakes via its official Facebook page.

Fifteen percent of the text-to-win entries generated from Facebook posts.

It is also important to lighten the mood with the calls-to-action ? be playful and use games.

Simon Malls featured an in-store call-to-action where it asked consumers if they know of any good holiday jokes.

Consumers were encouraged to text the keyword FUNNY to the short code 71610 to get their first joke.

According to Mr. Flanagan, the company saw 1,482 responses for unique jokes and a total of 5,560 responses for the overall call to action.

It is also key to localize keywords.

The company saw that the number of active keywords increased from more than 400 in 2010 to more than 2,000 in 2011.

?You should also always allow for a response,? Mr. Flanagan said. ?In 2010, Simon Malls pushed 116,994 messages and received 75,245 back.

?It?s easy to get carried away and push, push, push,? he said. ?But we always try to make sure that we allow for a response.?

Biggest surprise
Jeremy Lockhorn, vice president of emerging media at Razorfish, said that marketers got many things right with mobile in the 2010 holidays.

There was an increased demand for mobile marketing campaigns that engaged consumers.

Many holiday campaigns included interactive mobile video and mobile rich media.

?We saw significant growth in technology,? Mr. Lockhorn said. ?We?re really excited about the potential here."

Mr. Lockhorn said that brands use mobile well and intergraded it into their holiday marketing mix.

MillerCoors promoted its beers to customers and prospects via many campaigns that also included mobile sweepstakes.

Additionally, OfficeMax rolled out an iPhone application that let people connect around holiday events.

Toys R Us took its Great Big Christmas Book holiday catalog to the iPad during the holidays, and Sears used multiple mobile channels such as a mobile site, applications and QR codes to enhance its multichannel holiday marketing strategy, as well as drive sales.

?We saw growth in the mobile space and it definitely spiked in the holiday frame,? Mr. Lockhorn said. ?Retailers definitely led the pack.

?There are a lot of opportunities for marketers,? he said. ?We see higher click through rates or other direct responses.

?We see higher performance for mobile when we see a brand objective. Lots of marketers are experimenting and I think it?s a missed opportunity when you don?t activate your entire ecosystem.?

Head of the pack
Eric Harber, president and chief operating officer of Hipcricket, Kirkland, Wa, said that there are definitely some lessons learned from the 2010 holidays.

While smartphones grab all the headlines, feature phones were prevalent last holiday season and will still be a major factor in 2011, per Mr. Harber.

It is also important to consider that during the holiday season consumers are typically tight on both time and money, so anything that can be done to help them save in either department is a good thing.

?We saw folks be able to use mobile Web site, compare prices and we saw an increased use of mobile bar codes,? Mr. Harber said. ?Not only are the devices more capable, but consumers are interested in using their devices.

?Also, mobile coupons have been done right during the holidays,? he said. ?We saw retailers being very active as well.

?The revenues are driven during that time.? 

According to Mr. Harber, some holiday mobile tactics should include SMS basic display, rich media and different modalities in the medium.

?Just grow the loyalty engagement program,? he said. ?Mobile advertising is a great way to get it started.

?If you don?t have a mobile presence then you?re really missing an opportunity.?

Please click here to access the archived webinar, ?Holiday Mobile Marketing: Lessons Learned, Surprises and Best Practice for 2011?

Final Take
Rimma Kats is editorial assistant on Mobile Marketer, New York