Mobile Inc » Mobile Coupons

Seriously Now, Where Are These Mobile Vouchers?

Murat — Sun, 07 Feb 2010 00:26:48 +0000

I’ve written about this before, but last week it resulted in me getting less food for my money – which my friends will tell you makes me very angry, so I’m bringing it up again.

I was meeting a mate after work for something to eat, the plan was to get onto Money Saving Expert and see what was on offer, print out the voucher and go munch. Giraffe had a 2 for 1 on main meals deal which fitted perfectly.

In the rush out of the office I forgot the voucher, because of this I changed my mind and we went next door to Wagamama instead. Why? Because paying full price for something when you know it’s on sale feels like a massive waste of money, you either can’t live with knowing that everyone else around you is probably eating for 50% less or you tell yourself that you’ll return another time with the voucher. Plus I like Wagamama that tiny bit more if paying full price but when it comes down to a good offer like 2-for-1, Giraffe would win every time.

If I could have sent that voucher to my phone rather than to a printer, Giraffe would have had my business. The same has happened in the past with vouchers from Gap, Urban Outfitters and plenty of others. It’s even more of a pain when you don’t have access to a printer.

How many times have you used a mobile SMS voucher compared to lets say, a printed email/pdf voucher? There is no comparison, how can the most commonly used mobile service in the world be overlooked for something you can only do if you have access to a printer? It makes no sense, ask any person who has used a printed voucher if they would rather use a text message instead, what do you think the answer would be?

The question is why hasn’t it happened yet?

Easy – there is absolutely nothing in it for agencies who advise brands by suggesting such a simple solution as it cannibalises their profits. Designing and managing online and email voucher marketing campaigns makes money, if that switches to mobile then someone loses revenue.

Setting up a standard SMS send is easy, cheap and quick, any extra costs will be made back instantly with higher conversion rates, ultimately making more money for the business overall.

All I keep hearing is “you need tracking” – No you clearly don’t, if brands were so hung up on tracking then printed vouchers wouldn’t exist simple as that. I’m not saying metrics aren’t important but why are we overlooking this opportunity based on something that no one is bothered about when it comes to the paper version? Anyway it’s not like you can’t measure uplift whilst the promotion is runnning and do smart stuff with the sales data.

The concept of vouchers on mobile is still new, the industry needs to help increase awareness and adoption by making it as simple as possible. New technologies like NFC payments will benefit immensely by preparing consumer mindset now. And what can be simpler than following the lessons learnt from paper vouchers? They are easy to use and successful. Show it, get your discount, leave happy. Done.

It seems like there are more and more ’solutions’ companies are creating Java, iPhone and Android applications that need to be installed before getting discounts. We’re not even at the stage where SMS vouchers are commonplace yet we suddenly expect people to start using these fragmented services , each providing different brands and offers. We should mimic existing behaviour with printed vouchers until showing your phone to staff at Gap or GBK becomes the norm. But then of course all these voucher solution companies become unable to justify using their tech if actually all you need is a bog-standard SMS.

I’m going to make it my mission to convert a large brand from using email vouchers to SMS. Rant over.

Juniper | 3 Million Britons Now Redeeming Coupons Via Their Mobile Phone.. Sounds Great But..

Murat — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 08:35:39 +0000

Last month I got a email from the guys at Juniper with some lovely mobile coupon statistics that got a few blogs excited about the progression of mobile coupons:

Personal Marketing Comes of Age with 3 million Britons Now Redeeming Coupons via Their Mobile Phone - According to New Juniper Survey

According to a new survey report from Juniper Research more than 3 million consumers have now used mobile coupons in the UK with UK brands benefiting from a 6 fold increase in response rates through mobile coupons.

The mobile coupons consumer survey, launched globally today, provides detailed insight into consumers’ current usage of mobile coupons. It also gauges the future prospects for new interactive mobile marketing techniques such as coupon services and smart posters.

Howard Wilcox, Senior Analyst at Juniper Research, commented: “The redemption rate for traditional paper coupons is typically 1% or less, but, based on our survey, mobile coupons offer 6 times these rates. This means that retailers and brands have the opportunity to exploit the mobile channel via personalised coupon offers direct to the ultimate personal device - the mobile phone.”

The survey showed that in excess of three quarters of those questioned were aware of mobile coupons and that once people receive coupons then there is a strong probability that they will also redeem them. The Orange Wednesdays campaign is a prime example of a successful mobile coupons programme.

I think that ‘personal marketing comes of age’ is a bit pre-mature, I hardly ever see mobile coupons in the UK apart from Orange Wednesdays. Do you?

So I emailed the extremely helpful guys at Juniper with the following question:

Would be great to know how many of those 3 million came from Orange Wednesday, I rarely see mobile vouchers so I'm expecting the results to be skewed by initiatives by Orange

and the reply:

Yes Orange Wednesdays accounts for a major share of the users but our survey also identified usage in supermarkets, restaurants, bookstores and other retail outlets. Awareness of campaigns for products such as both alcoholic and soft drinks as well as books was also evident from the survey.”

Although Orange have owned coupons in the UK for a long time (since 2004), I wouldn’t say we’re at a point where it’s common place. And how many of that 3 million does Orange Wednesdays account for? Well Mobile Marketing Magazine says that 300,000 people a week (!) use the 2-4-1 cinema vouchers, that’s 1.2 million a month and 14.4 million a year. Which is actually more than Juniper are saying “More than 3 million consumers have now used mobile coupons in the UK”.

That means the bulk of mobile coupons are used by customers on one operator, not exactly prolific. Looking at Orange Wednesdays history, the first week it launched in 2004 only 12,000 coupons were sent out, it took a 5 years to get to 300,000 per week. Why more companies don’t look at these figures and get involved is absolutely beyond me. I wrote a post about turning printed coupons into mobile ones and I still believe this is the way forward for adoption.

Also the stat on “The redemption rate for traditional paper coupons is typically 1% or less”, we should start comparing printed coupons that get emailed around instead of the ones you cut out of newspapers/magazines, who even does that these days?

Why Location Based Coupons/Advertising Won't Work In Its Current Form

Murat — Wed, 09 Dec 2009 21:48:29 +0000

No sooner than my post about location about to become interesting for consumers, Techcrunch posted an article about a concept by AT&T for ‘on-the-go’ mobile coupons.

Ever since the dawn of time mobile marketers have been using the ‘Starbucks coupon’ example to sell the idea of location based coupons into brands and businesses. I’ve used it a few times because it’s the easiest way to explain to someone who’s ‘non-mobile’ about location and the possibilities.

The scenario goes like this, you sign up for a mobile coupon service, fill out your profile, ticking coffee and various other things as your interests. You walk past Starbucks one day and BAM, your mobile beeps and it’s a 20% discount SMS coupon for a cup of coffee. Then you stroll in, extremely happy and redeem your coupon. Win for you and a win for Starbucks.

This basically applies to the concept by operator AT&T, the idea is simple, as consumers walk around a city, they get mobile alerts whenever their favourite nearby stores and restaurants have a deal. It works by the mobile operator constantly monitoring the customers location (opt-in of course), then matching that info to available retailers to push coupons/info.

Sounds great, apart from one problem….it uses SMS.

Firstly you will never escape the fact that SMS advertising messages are intrusive. They arrive into your inbox just like personal messages, they don’t have a separate folder, they don’t arrive silently, they don’t generate a different on-screen alert or icon. Oh and if it’s a coupon, you can’t sort by expiry date.

Just like any consumer, I’m interested in around 100+ different brands, everything from clothing, electronics, all the way to peanut butter. Do I want discounts on these brands? Hell yes (I love those printed vouchers), gimme as much as possible. Do I want my phone beeping several times a day and my inbox filling up? Hell no.

No matter how targeted the coupon is, there is no way a location based SMS service can remain useful and scale to cover the amount of brands an average consumer likes without severely pissing them off, regardless of opting-in.

Often you’ll hear the answer “Well you can just set how many offers you want per day so you’re not inundated”, however it’s not the amount of offers that’s the problem ‘cos I want them all, it’s the way it’s delivered to the phone. SMS just isn’t the right technology to handle it. Anyway, no matter how über targeted that advert, it needs to find a way through a number of real life obstacles first.

Pushing adverts and coupons to people based on their location has so many variables involved to get a positive reaction. One of the 1000+ things to consider are – when did they last get paid? Are they in a hurry? Are they waiting for someone they met on Saturday night to text them back? All of these things will have a influence on the person receiving that coupon to a) not be pissed off and b) actually use it.

It’s clear that SMS ads can’t scale for the consumer but what about the advertiser? The costs for SMS and location lookups aren’t cheap. So how do you get small/medium sized businesses involved? Do you really want to keep getting offers from McDonald’s, Coca-Cola and Nike all the time?

The consumer research I’ve done has made it clear that it’s not only variety of businesses and brands that’s important but the type of communication too. People don’t just want to be told about discounts in an effort to constantly part them with their money, it’s about things like free gigs, days out, local events and all that other stuff.

Research I was involved in at Nokia showed that even in emerging markets where people are more receptive to ads, SMS push advertising can still annoy the hell out of people.

The solution?

Looking towards the future, mobile coupons need seamless integration into the phone operating system. Especially with technologies like NFC coming into the mix. No downloads and no crap, just comes as standard like your SMS inbox. Pushing adverts is still the right solution because location based ‘pull’ is unrealistic.

What if you had another inbox for coupons that used your data connection? Always running in the background, it’s own entity on your phone, and constantly updated with proper coupon management.

When a coupon comes in you get a notification on your homescreen which contains the companies logo and offer info, then fades after a few seconds and then goes into your coupon wallet. You can sort coupons by expiry date and distance as well as get alerts if one is about to expire. You’ll even be able to control the way alerts sound and act.

If you take Tweetdeck on the PC/Mac as a example. The way it deals with large amounts of constantly updated information could provide some great learning’s for how coupon wallets should work for the average person who walks past dozens of shops every day.

Large detailed notifications provide enough information at a glance for you to decide to find out more info, it’s unobtrusive and has enough options to customise alerts so it doesn’t annoy you.

Here is a Tweetdeck notification:

Using this, I’ve come up with a coupon notification on the mobile phones homescreen:

Now lets look at how the Coupon Wallet might look:

The benefits over SMS are clear, a real solution for mobile coupons rather than a hack of a existing messaging technology.

The only company I can see delivering something like this is Google. Not only do they have a great mobile operating system which more and more handsets are adding everyday, but also the ad serving technology to easily enable small, medium and large businesses into location advertising. They mastered it with search advertising and they’ll do it with location too.

It’s not just about premium brands, it’s about huge inventory made up of small and medium sized businesses, allowing thousands of locations to push ads to users. Big brands are great if you live in a major city but there many high streets and towns that aren’t oozing with well known names. Just take a look at Google Local Business Centre, it’s so damn easy for a independent store to get involved in location and coupons, that’s how it needs to be.

Google have already started integrating coupons with maps, it’s very early days but businesses can use printed or mobile coupons with their company map placement. The way it works at the moment is by you actively searching for businesses in maps and if they have a coupon your in luck. But what if your in a area you already know? How will you find out coupon offers in your area? That’s where the Coupon Wallet idea comes in.

I’m eagerly waiting to see how this pans out, third parties like Cellfire will always have their applications but once it becomes a out-of-the-box mobile feature they’ll be in trouble. Whether it’s integrated with Mapping applications or stand-alone, it’s definitely coming.