How Mobile Marketing Can Drive Auto Sales

Auto dealerships and car salesmen are starting to recognize the advantages of mobile marketing. For the most part, mobile advertisements are seen by individuals who are driving, walking, or taking public transportation. This is the perfect audience for any automobile advertisement because most of these individuals have busy lives that obligate them to constant movement. People on the move are always thinking of ways to save time and make their lives more convenient. People who are walking and taking public transportation will think about driving every so often. A person who is already driving may think about purchasing a new or bigger vehicle. An automobile ad will entice the individuals in these situations.

The term mobile marketing can be misinterpreted by some people if it is not properly defined. Several types of advertising methods are classified in this way. For example, a billboard mounted on the back of a large vehicle is a mobile ad medium. Trade-show marketing is another form of mobile marketing since the vendor needs to travel from place to place in order to promote their product or service and gain new customers. Using a mobile device to transmit advertising messages is the newest form of mobile marketing. This method attracts individuals and companies because of its low cost and far-reaching capabilities.

Individuals who sell cars are constantly looking for inexpensive ways to promote themselves. When they are ready to advertise, they may choose to advertise online in order to gain exposure through a mobile device. Smart-phones, PDA devices, tablet PCs and the like are internet-ready, which provides another means of exposure for online marketing campaigns. It also gives the user easy access to directions if they choose to visit the site where the vehicle is being sold. This type of marketing allows the advertiser to give their potential buyers lots of options and a good amount of information at a low price.

If the person chooses to advertise directly through a mobile device, text message marketing will allow them to do so. This is a powerful marketing method because it offers quick message delivery to a targeted audience. When a person reads a text message that interests them, they will either take immediate action or save the message for a later date. They will not need to connect to the internet to retrieve the information. A car dealer can use this method to offer a discount to anyone who responds to the text. They can place a numeric or alpha-numeric code in the text and treat this code as a coupon.

Potential buyers are more inclined to respond to digital marketing messages. Since digital marketing is personal, it allows an individual to make their decision in private. When a person makes their own decision without being influenced by anyone else, it gives them a sense of power. They feel like a smart buyer because they made a purchase on their own time without being pressured. Receiving a personal marketing text message also makes the person feel as if the offer is exclusive or limited to a certain number of people. A good exclusive offer will almost always strike the interest of potential consumers.

Arousing interest is good, but bringing customers through the door and making sales is the goal of every auto salesperson. It is the same for an individual trying to sell a vehicle. They may need to face several individuals before they come across a serious interested buyer. In order to separate the serious people from the indecisive ones, these advertisers need to use lead generation methods that will deter the people who are unsure. They should be honest about what they are offering and should offer as much information as possible. Misleading and vague advertisements will attract everyone. Using clear straightforward language will let the people know what they are in for before they arrive to a site to see a vehicle.

With SMS (Short Message Service) or text messaging, the number of characters used in one text is limited. On average, about 160 letters or characters can be sent through one message. In this case, it is imperative for a person advertising an automobile to keep their message short and to the point. If they do not, they will go over their character limit and raise their marketing cost. They can also make themselves look unprofessional since going over the character limit seems inattentive. Instead of risking their reputation, a person can send a video message or a picture message through a mobile device.

If an auto seller wants to send a video or picture of their automobile through a mobile device, it needs to be sent by way of MMS (Multimedia Message Service). This service works the same way text messaging works. It allows the advertiser to show an actual photo or video of their vehicle or dealership to their potential buyers. The individual on the receiving end needs to have a mobile device that is capable of receiving full color pictures and short video messages. An advertiser should only use this method if they have permission from the person on the receiving end. Multimedia messages can be costly, which is why one should use this method responsibly.

Before an individual decides to send a mobile text, they should consider the risks. An unwanted text can turn a person off and cause them to complain. It can also be viewed as an invasion of privacy since a mobile device is primarily reserved for personal use. Digital marketing should only be used in connection with relationships established through lead generation. This will prevent avoidable lawsuits and other issues from coming up. An advertiser that is careful will keep his or her reputation from being tarnished.

When used properly, mobile marketing can drive auto sales in a positive direction. Small and convenient gadgets with internet connectivity enhance online marketing efforts. Text messages give auto sellers the ability to offer promotional codes, while video and picture messages allow potential customers to see the condition of the vehicle. If the auto seller provides straightforward honest information, the potential buyer can make an informed decision–and possibly an offer–before they ever see the vehicle in person. Mobile marketing benefits the advertiser and the receiver by combining a time-saving promotional method with a convenient personal device.

Nine Essential Tools for Hotel Marketing Online

Online marketing for hotels is the way to reduce costs while increasing visitors and profit. Reducing rates to attract guests and spending on printed brochures are things of the past. More people look online for holiday and business travel because it saves them time and gives them all the information they need to make a decision. They can access several sites at one time and compare prices and features. Online marketing is a complicated business, but there are nine essential tools for hotel marketing online. The first tool a hotel needs is the right kind of website.

1. The most important thing a website needs to be is easy to use. It should be very clear how a visitor can get the information they want and this information should be one or two clicks away. The most important elements on the site such as booking information should be on the home page towards the top. Most people spend less than a second looking at a page before they click away. The home page must have something that attracts visitors to remain on the page.

2. It is also important to be one of the top three search results seen on the first page of a search engine. These results get 79 percent of the clicks. To achieve this, the site needs to have the right kind of search engine optimization (SEO). Sometimes advertisements on search engine pages look like search results and appear at the top of the page. Organic search results are not advertisements but are genuine search results, and 86 percent of people click on those and not the advertisements.

So, how do you get a high ranking with organic search results?

Google has software called spiders that analyze websites, “crawling” those sites to find keyword search terms which Google then uses to rank the site. The more keywords it finds, the higher the rank. If the site has links in Flash animation, spiders will not be able to read those, so they will not help search results.

3. Building links with other sites connected with the hotel business such as tourist attractions, restaurants, museums, public transport and airlines will make the hotel site look important in the eyes of search engines. The larger the network of links, the more often spiders will come across the hotel site. Using blogs on related sites to link back to the hotel website is also an effective technique to get a high search engine rank.

4. The website should have direct feedback from guests. Reviews and guest comments should be easy to access either by scrolling down or by a clearly marked button. 41 percent of people looking for holidays online and 50 percent of business travelers plan according to reviews.

If a negative review appears on the site, there are several ways to handle it. If positive reviews have already answered the negative review or if it is the only negative review among many positive reviews, the best option is to ignore it.

If posting a response is considered by the hotel marketing team to be the right thing to do, the facts of the situation should be ascertained first. The response should not be in any way sarcastic or angry. It should appease the dissatisfied customer, without admitting any wrongdoing. This may or may not help the dissatisfied customer, but it will go a long way as good public relations for new customers. They will see that you aim to make their experience as positive as possible. If the facts are not correct, this will give a chance to correct them. Compensation can be offered which will also give a big boost to positive PR.

5. The website should reflect what customers need to know and give it in an irresistible way. Video Search Engine Optimization is one of the best ways to do this, both on the site and on video online communities.

6. Digital marketing includes television, internet, radio, social media and mobile. Hotels should tailor online marketing for mobile devices as potential customers will research hotels on their mobile more and more often in the future. If the website is mobile-friendly it will reach more customers. Research shows that interest in apps for travel is lessening, and more companies are investing in mobile websites.

7. Leads for potential customers can be generated for several reasons including e-newsletter list and acquiring guests. Lead generation can come from advertising, but organic search engine results and referrals from satisfied customers are the most productive.

8. Online marketing should include as many formats as possible to get and hold customers for return visits. Offer a newsletter, articles, PDFs with tourist, hotel and local information, press releases, videos and social media updates.

All of the information on these and the home page should be constantly updated to be the latest information including seasonal promotions, local festivals and entertainment. This is a strategy to get visitors to return to the website.

9. Social media networks are the place where people get reviews and independent travel blogs from friends, family and travel sites. A hotel needs a presence on the main social media sites to be brought to the notice of people looking for hotel information.

Today, with Google+, users can rate a website much like they do on social media networks. However, on Google the site must have a publicly accessible user profile and not be an artificial profile as is possible on social media networks. To take advantage of this, hotel websites should give only relevant information and not be overly promotional. Sales-speak will no longer get the attention required. Only valuable content will be profitable.

Marketing hotels online is essential for success in the business. If the hotel has a large marketing staff and budget, they will be able to get the hotel into the travel public’s eye online. If the hotel is small, it is better to outsource internet marketing to experts. The cost will be more than doing-it-yourself, but the return on investment (ROI), repeat business and referrals will be increased a hundred fold and well worth the expense.

The Trends and Evolution of Mobile Marketing

by Jennifer O’Brien

Mobile marketing can be defined as marketing by sending messages to mobile devices like cell phones. However, mobile marketing has come to mean so much more due to its having boomed within the last decade as cell phone technology improved.  There are recent trends moving from traditional SMS to MMS (Multimedia Message Service), in-game, QR codes, and more. The possibilities for mobile marketing are continuing to grow and evolve and provide great opportunities for the advertising of businesses.

SMS is the practice of sending messages to subscribers in 160 words or less in a text message. But, as smart phones came into existence, SMS started to evolve into MMS. This went from simple text messages to text messages accompanied with video, audio, and images. With smart phone users projected to reach 73.3 million by the end of 2011, the trend of MMS will continue to grow. Also with the increased popularity in smart phones, businesses are making their websites more easily accessible through mobile devices. Either they are making “apps” for their sites or they are just making it easier to navigate through their websites via smart phones and tablet computers.

Another trend in mobile marketing would be in-game marketing. In-game mobile marketing is when a company advertises within a game on a smart phone or tablet computer. While the gamer plays the game, they notice various advertisements. They have the option of clicking on it and purchasing whatever is being advertised.

QR codes are “a specific matrix barcode (or two dimensional code) that is readable by dedicated QR barcode readers and smart phones.” The trend toward these QR codes is fairly new. You download the barcode reader on your smart phone and then when you see one, you can scan it to see the message. This is a good way to market because it is very intriguing. People are curious about what the message is and will want to scan it. You can put QR codes on business cards, coasters, magazines, buses, etc. – anything you can photograph with a mobile device.

How to Use Mobile Marketing for College Lead Generation

We live in a world where nothing stands still; everything is in perpetual motion and change. This applies to education too. Some years ago every young man and woman ready to get a college education was lured in with a nice building and great athletic options. Things have changed now, people are looking for more, and they want more for their dollar and their time. Everybody is in contact with one another, news flies from cell phone to cell phone and computer to computer. We live in the era of communication where nothing remains secret or lost for long.

Selling your Product to Young Adults

Young and old people use their cell phones like computers. They are internet capable and it is possible to surf the web with them. This is something that did not happen a few years ago, today 90% of all young adults between the ages of 18 and 25 years old spend many hours per day looking at their phone’s screen. Chatting back and forth with their friends or surfing the web. This means that they are not being bombarded with advertisement on their computers only, it is happening on their phones too. Online marketing and digital marketing are the only way to sell today.

Mobile marketing has grown at the speed of light in the past two years. This revolution is the consequence of the phones we are using today. They are small computers which are on us every moment of every day. A small but intense advertisement campaign can bring to you not hundreds, but thousands of leads for your product and sales. The power of mobile marketing is an untapped gold mine which should be taken advantage of by colleges and universities all over the country. Today it is possible to reach thousands with the touch of a button or the ring of a phone. This is where the mobile marketing magic lies.

How to Use Mobile Marketing

To use mobile marketing for college lead generation is not hard but it is tricky. In the first place you need to have advertisement that is catchy and that will force the boys and girls to open their phones and to look at your message. This is the hardest part, getting them to answer and pay attention to your digital marketing. Young men and women today live on the fast lane and it is hard to get, and keep their attention or focus for more than a minute because they process information faster than their phones and computers do. But once you have them, they will be your best weapon and advertisement campaign. They will bounce your message from one corner of the world to the other.

Some infrastructure will be necessary to answer the leads your mobile marketing campaign generates but it will be well worthwhile. Many young men and women today do not have time to sit at home and watch television or even go to a college to get information about enrollment procedures and documentation. They are busy with their cars and their jobs and their dreams. So if they will not come to the college, it is necessary to bring college to them through digital marketing and online marketing campaigns. All this can be done through their telephones, while they are on the move.

Where to Start

It is a well known fact that people today do not go out to get information or to ask questions. This applies to buying insurance, cars, refrigerators and yes, colleges. The first thing people do today when they need information they go online and search for it. If you are a young man or woman searching for a college close to home or anywhere else, the first thing you will try is the internet. Whether they do it with their phone or their computer, this will be their first step. This is the only chance you will have to grab them and recruit them for your school. In a few hours or days they will be gone, someone else will have interested them in their college and you will have lost them.

It is time that colleges all over the United States start spending their money on online, digital and mobile campaigns to bring those kids to their doors. This is the way things are sold today; the days of the recruiter going from town to town are gone, people do not have the time to sit and listen to what you have to offer, even if it is a great education. Colleges that want to bring students to their doors have to design strong campaigns that will, in a few minutes say everything the school has to offer and also give them the option to ask questions and comment on their needs. It is necessary to answer their questions and doubts without interrupting them or taking them away from their activities. If you do, or try to do it, they will lose interest in your proposition.

Communication is the Key

This remote communication will have to be done through their mobile phones or their computers. This young generation communicates through their phones, they do not talk or visit each other, they chat and they text. It will have to be the colleges that reach out to them because they are in fact the most interested parties. The young men and women who want to go to college in any given year have approximately 6,000 options in the United States to pick from. That is a lot of colleges to choose from so it is necessary to have an edge over those around you, it is necessary to make the technological jump and contact your college leads by phone and online. College lead generation is harder every year as universities and college all over open online classes and carriers for those who prefer not to enroll for regular classes.

Technology will help colleges all over the United States to overcome this communication breach. Online marketing has been king for some time now but mobile marketing is catching up in great strides. Not everyone carries a computer with him or her all day, but at least 80% of the people in the United States have cell phones and out of these, most of them, are internet capable. That is itself is an amazing amount of leads and possible students for any college anywhere. This includes the parents of your potential students too. It is not necessary for you to reach the child, if you get through to the parents they will probably text and send your mobile marketing campaign advertisement to their children’s phones and they will make them communicate with you.

SMS Mobile Marketing

by Jennifer O’Brien

SMS stands for short messaging service. In marketing, it is the tactic of sending, in 160 characters or less, advertisements of products and services to potential customers through the use of cell phones. Cell phones have become a necessity and most people have text messaging capabilities. This form of marketing is fairly new and can be a great way for your company to reach out to new, untapped market segments.

SMS began in the early 2000s and has greatly increased in popularity recently. With over 300 million cell phone users, SMS marketing can be of great value to your company. SMS is not limited to smart phones like the IPhone or Blackberry. These messages can be sent to any cell phone with text messaging capability. Research shows that 94% of all text messages are read compared to only around 65% of all email messages being read. This is great incentive for more companies to engage in SMS.

Think about it. People walk around with their cell phones all day and are constantly checking them. In fact, over 90% of cell phone users read text messages within 15 minutes. Depending on the person, email can be checked maybe only once a day. People are also less concerned about spam showing up on their cell phones so they are more likely to respond without the anxiety of getting scammed or getting a computer virus.

SMS has a wide range of uses. It can be used for sending customers coupon codes, incentives, or inform them of upcoming promotions. Doctors’ offices can even use SMS as a way to remind patients of their appointments without having to call them individually.

One tip for SMS marketing would be to space out your messages. You shouldn’t send people more than one message per week. Sending more than this could be annoying to your customer and increase your opt-out rate. When you limit the number of messages being sent out, you increase the redemption rate because people will see that they don’t have an unlimited number of chances to redeem promotions. Another tip for SMS marketing would be to give exclusive offers through text messaging that you don’t give through email or social media sights. This makes your customer feel like they are in more of an exclusive club and have less regrets about giving out their personal phone numbers.

By using a company like BMI Elite to help you develop your SMS marketing campaign, you can be sure you’re getting the most relevant information for your target market. BMI Elite has over 70 million opted-in phone records to help your company’s SMS efforts get underway.

The Advantages of Mobile Marketing for Home Builders

If you are a home builder, the idea of doing mobile marketing – marketing using cell phones, may or may not have occurred to you. But as a builder this is definitely an angle you might want to look into. The following are some reasons why.

Mobile Marketing is Growing Fast

The web traffic that is viewing mobile marketing messages is growing very quickly compared to desktop or laptop internet traffic. This means that it is a great new way to reach people with advertising, and one to which people are turning more and more. If you are a builder you can take advantage of this new wave of public attention with SMS advertising that gets cell phone users’ attention.

Targets the Right Customers

One advantage of mobile marketing that goes well with the advertising goals of builders is the fact that many home buyers are “on the go” looking for houses to purchase and thus can be reached fairly easily on cell phones. They tend to be driving around looking at properties, going to and from jobs or their own businesses and checking their cell phone messaging often, and so on. They thus have a good chance of seeing your ad and will be actively looking for ads dealing with newly built houses. Even though, obviously, only a certain percentage of cell phone users are actively looking for houses, the ones that are involved in the house hunt are very likely to respond well to your advertising.

Knowledge of Location

Another builder based advantage is the fact that with cell phones, you can get accurate knowledge of somebody’s location quite easily. Bluetooth can deliver location information as can other cell phone functionalities. This can be very useful for a builder who wants to target customers in a particular location. The advertising can be tailored to the specific area and that will again increase the response rate to the advertising.

Location is what buying a house is all about. So targeted location information not only shows an individual that there are possibilities in their local area but also that the advertiser is not viewing them as a statistical, impersonal prospect but rather someone with a community feel that knows where they are and about the areas they are considering purchasing a house and can address their specific needs as a home buyer. The advertising can, for instance, talk about attractions or news in the town or region where an individual is situated or is house searching to help generate this personal, locally involved feeling.

More Personal

Cell phones give people a sense of personal communication. People using cell phones have private conversations on them and generally associate cell phone use with person to person discussions. Buying houses is also in many senses a personal matter. People looking for a house are thinking about where they will spend the majority of their informal time – where they will eat, sleep, do leisure time activities, and so on. Thus when someone gets a cell phone message about a potential new house to buy, the cell phone advertising medium fits right in with the sense they have of this being a “personal” matter. This combination of the personal cell phone medium and the topic of buying a house can be quite powerful from an advertising standpoint.

Prescreens Customers

Many times customers must opt in to receive cell phone messages. This has the effect of, in a sense, prescreening calls. People who will receive the SMS advertising messages sent on a cell phone will be ones who have given permission for advertisers, in this case home builders, to use this method of contact. These will be choice customers – ones that have shown interest in what is being offered – newly built houses for sale.

Builders can Market to Other Construction Professionals

People in the construction industry are constantly on the road. So mobile advertising will work with other people in the industry as well. If the builder is selling a house to some kind of middle man in the industry that individual will almost surely be a heavy cell phone user. So again cell phone based marketing is a very good idea. It reaches others in the same business and generates a lot of interest in the houses being sold.

Foreign Markets

Buyers of houses in the US are not all located here initially. Many of them may live in foreign countries and may be interested in relocating to the United States. These types of buyers can be reached by way of cell phones by way of international cell phone networks. These foreigners will most likely find it especially impressive that they are getting cell phone advertising at such long ranges rather than other types of marketing contact such as desktop internet or magazine advertising.

Greater Responsiveness

Mobile advertising is known to have a far higher response rate than desktop internet advertising. Prospect respond on average 6 times higher to mobile advertising than other types. This, of course, translates directly to sales. As a home builder gets increased calls back concerning houses for sale for their advertising dollar, they are economizing on their advertising budget and getting much more bang for their buck as far as interested parties go.

Lower Competition

The fact that mobile advertising is a relatively new and growing marketing medium also means that there will be less competition from other advertisers. Home builders should think of mobile advertising as a ground floor type opportunity to get in on. It is a way for advertisers to find the customers that their competition may be overlooking. This medium is growing fast, so the time to act on this new marketing opportunity is now.

As mentioned above, if you are a home builder the time to act as regards using mobile marketing is now. This medium has virtually everything a home builder could want in advertising – a local feel, personal communication, contact with people who are on the go in vehicles searching for houses to buy, and the quality of being a hot new opportunity. So if you are a home builder interested in communicating well with your prospect base and making sales, you would do well to consider mobile marketing as an advertising method.

BMI Elite Ranks #1 on NextMark’s Data Card Quality Report

Every quarter, NextMark releases their Data Card Quality Report of the top list managers for data card portfolios. This report scores data list management companies on the quality of their data cards. The scores are calculated electronically using an algorithm which calculates 13 key factors. Some factors influencing the score include the appropriateness of markets, geographic breakdown, frequent updates of data cards, and accurately noted segments. BMI Elite topped the list this quarter, ranking #1 for the category of 100-249 data cards.

From last quarter, BMI Elite’s score went up 11 points granting them a perfect score of 100%. From this report it is clear to see that BMI Elite would be the best choice for email marketing, SMS marketing, and postal data. Strictly following the Direct Marketing Association’s guidelines and CAN-Spam compliance, we work to build long term relationships with clients while providing them with a positive purchasing experience. An online tracking report is included in every CPM email campaign.

BMI Elite’s data cards are updated frequently and our list of available titles continues to grow. To browse our fully searchable data card offerings, please visit http://datacards.bmielite.com.

Education Data at its Finest….

BMI has some very exciting news regarding our Education Database! With the new school year a couple months away we have recently obtained several million new records. While we implemented this new data BMI has also thoroughly cleaned an revamped our education master file. This extensive update took place over the weekend of June 25th through June 26th, 2011.

This update not only allows our production department to run counts more efficiently, but it also gives our clients access to a significant amount of new schools and demographic selections to choose from in their requests. BMI’s database grew to more than 14 million students attending over 7,000 different schools nationwide. We are proud to announce that this list of all available schools as well as the city and state in which they are located in is now available to our clientele. Choosing the school selections based from this list will not only allow our clients to narrow down to the specific campus location, but this will also avoid any confusion as to what schools may be unavailable. It will also be able to help aid them in selecting an alternative school in the geographic area they are seeking if a school they preferred happens to be unavailable.

We are extremely excited to make such an advancement in the industry!

All Work and No Play Makes BMI Elite Hit the Video Game Machines

At BMI Elite digital advertising agency, we’ve been so busy lately that we needed a bit of a break from email marketing, SMS campaigns and lead generation… so we added three new video game machines to our lounge area!

Sun Sentinel Reports on BMI Elite Staff Expansion

BMI Elite is hiring on 65 new employees and Marcia Heroux Pounds of the Sun Sentinel has the scoop!

Click here to read about the BMI Elite expansion: http://www.sun-sentinel.com/business/careers/ask-marcia/sfl-digital-advertising-hiring,0,2998997.story

From the article:

“BMI Elite, a digital advertising agency, said Wednesday it plans to hire an additional 65 workers for its Delray Beach headquarters office.

“The company is seeking 52 new sales associates, as well as 13 others in marketing, programming, and design.

“BMI Elite, which began just a year ago with two people, currently has about 30 employees. The company’s services include direct mail and postal verification, e-mail marketing, lead generation, SMS mobile messaging, and search engine optimization.”

For more information on careers at BMI Elite, go to the career section of our website at http://www.bmielite.com/network-careers.aspx