Mobile marketing is increasingly becoming a part of the marketing mix, thanks to its ability to keep the user engaged and increase sales. With developing technologies, mobile marketing offers great opportunities to track the results of different marketing campaigns.  As part of an integrated strategy, mobile coupons are among the most successful tools that help leverage mobile marketing.  Since it’s easy to implement, monitor and track, mobile coupons score over their paper version in several ways.

A mobile coupon can be defined as an instrument with a designated monetary value, and allows the consumer to redeem it and receive a discount or a special offer on a specific product or service. These coupons are usually distributed to mobile users via text messages as well as other media as numeric or alpha numeric codes and they can be redeemed digitally, unlike their paper counterparts which involves manual processing.

In contrast to the paper version, mobile coupons are received and stored on a mobile phone or a computer which makes mobile coupons easier and quicker to distribute. They can be published across various online or print media. Mobile coupons can be delivered in 1D or 2D barcode format, but because they need scanners which involve the use of hardware and software at the point of sales, many marketers still prefer to text them to users.

Rate of redemption

Mobile coupons offer a high rate of redemption when they are distributed based on research and matched to customer profiles. They are measurable and as a result, the ROI of the coupon campaign can be accurately measured based on the goals set. Every marketer would like to get the maximum return on investment on any promotional campaign.

Easier distribution and cost-effective

Mobile coupons are digitally distributed to the users’ mobile phones and cost of distribution usually covers the cost of messaging.

Redeemable instantly

The mobile coupon can be quickly validated at the point of sale based on the availability of the product on which the coupon is valid.

Facilitates data collection

With mobile coupons, it is easy for marketers to collect market data helping them create customer profiles and study their behaviour while tracking the coupon from where it was distributed and where and when it was used. This is useful in calculating ROI and devising ways to engage the customer better.

With the above in mind, there are several types of mobile marketing campaigns where you can use mobile coupons, as they can be incorporated into other marketing channels to get the best benefit. Have you used mobile coupons as part of an integrated marketing strategy? Let us know in the comments.

Soon you may find yourself carrying a much slimmer wallet, without all those bulky cards as your mobile phone could replace them.  The mobile phone, also referred to as the “digital wallet” is set to transform the way we transact, by enabling payments directly from your phone.

For the user, it is always convenient to have a choice of payment methods, since it means more loyalty programs and consequently more benefits, while resulting in increased sales for the marketer. A quick look at NFC World, reveals that some of the top NFC enabled phones will also have a digital wallet where you can add your various bank cards and loyalty cards to give you the best mobile payment experience.

What about safety?

Naturally, as with any online payment method, adequate precautions must be taken to ensure that mobile payments are safe.  One way is using a secure digital wallet app, certified by your credit card issuers. Digital wallets are considered safe as they eliminate the possibility of someone memorising your credit card number and misusing it. Since the payment transaction happens between two computers, unless the right things are said, it cannot go through. Other ways to keep your mobile phone safe are setting a password, as you would with any account, keeping your software up to date, getting a security app, and being discreet when you download anything, as a rule. It is also advisable to pay attention to the list of permissions each time an app is downloaded.

How successful the mobile wallet is likely to be

Mobile banking will certainly be safer than credit cards. The mobile wallet will require the user to enter a pin number each time they use it to make a payment, to make it more secure. Perhaps the biggest obstacle in rolling out the digital wallet concept is convincing people about the safety of their transactions via a mobile phone. Although most people do not hesitate to use their credit cards, they are nevertheless nervous about using their mobile phones to transact. The first adopters of digital wallets will obviously be those who are already technology savvy.

Digital wallets, will, however, become popular, especially if issued and endorsed by the user’s bank. Mobile payments will likely follow the same trend as debit cards and online payments in terms of usage. Initially, users were skeptical about giving up sensitive information online, but today, online payments are quite common and considered more secure, reliable and convenient.

It is certainly advantageous to be able to carry less cash and credit or debit cards around, as it minimises the risk of stolen cards and all the damage control that follows. While nothing is 100% secure, with digital wallets, data encryption software could facilitate secure transactions over wireless networks. This is safer than credit cards being swiped without verification. Mobile payments will also require logging in with a password into the digital wallet app, adding to the security aspect.  On the flip side, there are the additional user charges the user will incur, along with the frustration of unstable wireless connections. Google has already begun rolling out its digital wallet in a phased manner and it is only a matter of time before mobile payments will become a way of life.

If you browse the topic “augmented reality” at, say, the iTunes App store, you will find a majority of the results relate to the travel and tourism industry.  A likely reason for this is the increasing number of smartphones, tablets and other intelligent handheld devices. These devices do away with the need to carry travel guide books, maps and phone numbers, as these are now bundled into a neat little app that can be conveniently carried wherever the traveller wants to go.

Augmented reality is technology that offers the traveller a lot of real time information at her fingertips at little or no cost. Augmented reality helps you superimpose the digital world on the real world via the camera’s view, helping you see data about cafes, restaurants, hotels, shop offers, menu translations and landmark locations, to name just a few. Augmented reality is not only practical, but also opens up a whole new world around the traveller. It makes a great companion that helps find places and attractions that one might otherwise miss. It is primarily a means for finding travel information. Augmented reality leverages the smartphone’s GPS, high resolution camera, compass, gyroscope and accelerometer to locate your orientation and feed you relevant information.

Popular augmented reality apps in tourism and travel

Among the big brands that have explored and adopted augmented reality is Lonely Planet, a trusted travel guide, which has over 25 Compass Guides. By holding up the mobile phone in front of you, you can receive info on your screen, superimposed on the visual via the camera lens in the real world. You can then choose the category you want from hotels, restaurants and sights based on your relative location from the place with the actual distance. Yelp and TripAdvisor also have their own augmented reality apps.

Among the top ten augmented reality tourism and travel apps are mTrip, Layar, Junaio and Wikitude which present data from third party sources. Here s an overview of some of these augmented reality apps:

• A free AR app from Layar gives you layers of real world information on your phone screen in relation to your current location. Let us say you are in Greece. You can use Layar to browse the history of Greece, find your way to the nearest train station, museum or restaurant or bank, all with the help of virtual signs.
• mTrip is a city travel guide augmented reality app that shows hundreds of features for over 28 destinations. It also has offline navigation and can create custom itineraries that do not need an internet connection. Users find it somewhat cluttered and limited beyond city limits.
• TripAdvisor’s travel app has an augmented reality feature called Live View which filters through hotels, restaurants and other interesting sights. Users can see hotel ratings and contact info with street view with just one click.
• Wikitude locates restaurants, shops and other sights using third party content from Starbucks, YouTube, Gowalla and Foursquare with photos and videos of the location. It lets the user narrow down results with a search tab.

On the flip side, many users prefer to stick with the Google Maps services that give them accurate directions without having to hold their smart phones in front of them all the time. Some augmented reality apps make it tough to adjust the distance range of locations. Users feel that augmented reality apps that can be pointed to a specific building and tell them what’s inside would be more useful.

As an emerging and exciting technology, while augmented reality has tremendous possibilities, it still has to develop because there is a huge area to be covered out there. There is much to look forward to!