Mobile Promotions: How Ringtones, SMS Promotions And Mobile Coupons Engage Customers

Mobile promotions dovetail seamlessly with your company's marketing objectives. While you want to increase sales and improve your revenue base, there are several ancillary goals you need to meet along the way. For example, you want to improve your brand awareness to consumers; you want to attract consumer data for future CRM efforts; you want to increase customer loyalty and drive traffic - both online and offline. Mobile promotions provide the lever to accomplish each of these goals. And they do so at a cost that fits nearly every marketing budget.

As cell phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices have flourished, they have created a new marketing platform from which you can engage your audience. Below, you'll discover how to use mobile promotions, such as SMS promotions, mobile coupons, and ringtone promotions, to capture valuable mindshare within your market. Once you catch the attention of consumers in a way that excites them, motivating them to take action becomes far easier.

Mobile Promotions Leverage Affordable Digital Incentives

Even if your profit margins are healthy, every marketing budget has inherent constraints. It is critical that you offer incentives to your audience that are as affordable as they are engaging.

Mobile promotions are delivered digitally to consumers' mobile devices. As a result, the cost of delivery is extraordinarily low. This is the case whether you're allowing consumers to download songs, play instant win games, enter sweepstakes, or redeem mobile coupons. Because mobile promotions are comparatively inexpensive, you can launch them while continuing to leverage conventional marketing platforms, such as print and DOOH signage.

How Mobile Promotions Motivate Customers To Respond

The right incentives can drive market participation regardless of your product. The key is to offer incentives that your customers find immediately appealing. This is one of the unique advantages of launching mobile promotions. Consumers can download digital content (e.g. songs, games, images, etc.) instantly to their mobile devices. They can enter contests and sweepstakes for a chance to win alluring prizes.

When you launch mobile promotions to your audience, you're not only offering consumers attractive incentives, you're giving them an opportunity to enjoy instant gratification. Those two levers complement each other. In doing so, they trigger a response from your customers.

Mobile Promotions Capture The Mindshare Of Your Audience

If there were no other demands on your customers' time and attention, motivating them to buy your product would be simple. The reality is that your audience is inundated with a constant torrent of offers and solicitations. Consumers instinctively erect a mental wall that deflects them. That means there's a high likelihood your market is unaware of your product or uninformed with regard to its benefits. Mobile promotions offers a seductively simple solution.

Free song downloads, instant win games, and mobile coupons can quickly penetrate the mental wall your market has built to block other companies' offers. These digital incentives tap into your audience's desire for instant gratification. They are irresistible. They capture mindshare and engage your customers. As a result, your customers become attentive to your message, and far more likely to purchase your product.

Leveraging Mobile Coupons And SMS Promotions

While mobile promotions increase brand awareness, attract customer data, and educate consumers about your product, mobile coupons lift sales and improve customer loyalty. For example, you can use them to reward loyal customers with discounts, thereby driving repeat sales. You can also use them to entice consumers to try a product that you have recently launched. You can leverage these type of mobile promotions to temper the impact of price increases, or to move excess inventory.

Mobile coupons can be delivered to your customers' cell phones and PDAs through text messages. You can communicate the offer, expiration date, and any other relevant information through short, targeted SMS promotions. Consumers can redeem your coupons at the point of sale in-store or online. Plus, because these mobile promotions use redemption-based incentives, you can easily control the financial risk.

How To Take Advantage Of Mobile Promotions

You have access to a broad menu of engaging and affordable mobile promotions that you can leverage to tap into your market and trigger a response. Ringtone promotions, free music downloads, instant win games, and sweepstakes are attractive to consumers on an instinctive level. They are seductive because they offer instant gratification. As a result, mobile promotions help you capture valuable mindshare, delivering your message to an attentive audience.

By capturing your customers' attention, you can educate them about your product and its benefits. You can motivate them to purchase, and collect opt-in data for future CRM campaigns. And in the process, you can improve the loyalty they feel toward your company. Mobile promotions can propel your brand ahead of other companies struggling to reach your customers. In today's competitive environment, that edge can be priceless.

--Cynthia Walker, Promotional Currency

Music Download Promotions Improve Brand Awareness & Encourage Customer Loyalty

Music download promotions are as powerful and wide-reaching as they are evergreen. They give your company a multi-faceted promotional tool with which you can leverage popular artists to grow your brand and excite your target market. Because new artists are continuously catapulted into the spotlight, your business has access to an unlimited resource of popular music. You can harness this resource to meet an unquenchable consumer demand. In doing so, you'll improve your brand and create a surge in product sales.

Below, we'll give you a comprehensive preview of music download promotions. You'll learn how they work and the unique promotional advantages they offer your business. We'll also describe how to use digital promotions to deliver a memorable impact at a surprisingly low cost. Lastly, we'll explain how you can tailor music download promotions to form a seamless fit for your target audience, regardless of your marketing objectives.

How Music Download Promotions Work

Digital music incentives are delivered to your customers online through customized landing pages and branded music stores. The music download promotions are launched by distributing promo codes and website URLs in-pack, on-pack, through email, text messaging, signage, custom-branded cards, and other platforms. You can customize your marketing campaign to control its reach into your target market.

When your customers visit the website URL listed on your promotion, they'll be able to choose from a library of popular artists and songs. Once your customers select their downloads, they are prompted to enter their promo code.

You'll enjoy a tremendous level of flexibility in customizing your music download promotions. You can broaden your music library to include millions of songs, or tighten it according to your audience and marketing objectives.

Harnessing The Advantages Of Music Promotions

Because the landing pages to which your target market is driven can be customized with your company's logo and artwork, your music download promotions dramatically improve brand recognition. And because music has such universal appeal, it is one of the most potent levers for increasing customer loyalty.

But, that is merely scratching the surface of their marketing potential.

When your target audience arrives on your customized landing pages, you'll have an opportunity to introduce them to new products your company is launching. You can also require them to provide personal information prior to downloading songs. That allows you to build a valuable database that you can leverage for future marketing campaigns. While music download promotions can be harnessed to generate a boost in immediate sales, their potential effect on your business's bottom line extends much further.

Digital Promotions: High-Performance Promotional Impact At A Lower Cost

Digital promotions have quickly evolved into a multi-billion dollar industry. Companies have realized music download promotions and other digital incentives can broaden their marketing reach at a remarkably low cost. Promotional incentives can be delivered online to mobile devices, through email, or customized landing pages. Given the high-performance impact of these promotions, the cost of distribution to a massive audience is exceptionally low.

Tailor Music Download Promotions To Your Audience

Your target market can likely be broken down into tight segments. You can launch music download promotions that cater specifically to each of these segments, according to their taste in music. The tighter your focus, the higher response you'll enjoy.

For example, suppose you're promoting a brand that appeals to multiple age groups. A younger audience may be motivated by music download promotions highlighting alternative rock and hip hop artists. An older audience might be more willing to respond if offered classic rock songs. Still other segments of your target market may be motivated to respond by music download promotions featuring Latino artists. Each market segment represents an opportunity to refine your focus and tap into a targeted pool of consumers.

Entertainment Promotions Leverage High-Profile Entertainment Content

Music download promotions are merely one of several types of entertainment promotions that can help drive your brand. Entertainment that has been created to promote high-profile content such as films, video games, television shows, and CD releases can be licensed and offered as digital incentives. That allows your company to benefit from the top of mind awareness enjoyed by these entertainment properties. Imagine launching music download promotions for your brand that ride on the coattails of the latest Hollywood blockbuster or CD release.

Executing Music Download Promotions For Your Company

You can penetrate new markets, invigorate your current customer base, improve brand recognition, and spur long-term sales by launching customized music download promotions. Your entire campaign can be designed as a turnkey solution. There's no need to host the music library on your site. Nor do you need to take an active role in driving web traffic to your branded landing pages. The delivery and fulfillment of your digital music incentives are also handled as components of the back-end system.

If you are not already leveraging music download promotions to reach more deeply into your market, now is the time to do so. Incentive customers to respond through music download promotions with promotional risk coverage.

--Cynthia Walker, Promotional Currency

Digital Promotions with Promotional Risk Coverage

Digital Promotions with promotional risk coverage allows your company to launch high-impact promotions at a
fixed cost. Have you ever wondered how your competitors are able to offer $1 million
prizes? Have you ever watched in dismay as seemingly smaller companies in your
market are able to engage your customers with large-value premiums? How can their
marketing budgets possibly handle the potential redemption volume?

Your competitors are relying upon promotional risk coverage in order to stretch the
marketing reach of every promotional dollar. They are offering customers a chance to
win valuable prizes and premiums at a fixed cost. They are launching exciting rebate
and coupon promotions without fear of going over budget, even if those promotions
become runaway successes.

You can do the same. You can leverage promotional risk coverage to inject a new
level of excitement into your market without worrying about cost overruns.

In this article, you'll discover how over redemption coverage eliminates budgetary
uncertainty. We'll explain how promotional risk coverage works and how you can use
it to plan each of your marketing campaigns to the penny. You'll also learn how to
launch large-scale promotions with high-value prizes while paying a fraction of the
associated cost.

Over Redemption Coverage Eliminates The Risk Of Uncertain Outcomes

Imagine this scenario: You have launched a promotion to build awareness about a new
product among millions of consumers. To do so, you're offering a tie-in premium with
the purchase of a well-known, entrenched brand. The problem is, your budget can only
handle a 20% redemption rate. If response to your promotion exceeds 20%, it will
decimate your budget. How can you launch this type of promotion given the
uncertainty of your market's response?

Promotional risk coverage eliminates that uncertainty. It provides financial
protection in the event that your promotion's redemption rate skyrockets. You'll
enjoy the marketing advantages of a high response to your promotion while
dramatically limiting your cost.

How Promotional Risk Coverage Works

The lever that allows you to offer high-value prizes, premiums, and coupons without
the risk of devastating budget overruns is insurance. Your promotional risk coverage
is provided by an A+ insurance company. The insurance company assumes the risk of
awarding prize winners and the costs associated with higher-than-anticipated
redemption rates.

It's important to realize that promotions offering guaranteed prizes cannot be
shielded with promotional risk coverage. The coverage is based upon odds. Once the
insurance company calculates the odds of a high-value prize being awarded, they'll
quantify the risk and extend coverage for a fixed fee. Odds are also calculated for
redemption rates of premiums, coupons, and rebates.

Promotional Risk Mitigation Protects Your Marketing Budget

Your company's marketing budget has limits. The challenge is to work within those
limits while squeezing the most value from your promotional campaigns. Promotional
risk coverage preserves your budget and lets you plan your marketing costs to the
penny. It gives you the flexibility to launch promotions that deliver a stunning
impact to your market without assuming the risk of over-redemption or awarding
winners. Your budget is protected. Whether your customer wins a $1 million dollar
prize or your premium redemption rate hits 100%, promotional risk coverage shields
you from the financial risk.

Promotional Risk Coverage: Large-Scale Promotions At A Fraction Of The Potential Cost

Games and contests that offer consumers a chance to win prizes with a high-perceived
value attract enormous attention. The bigger the prize, the higher the response.
Without promotional risk coverage, these types of promotions would be all but
impossible to launch without assuming an inordinate level of risk.

For example, suppose you wanted to launch an on-pack promotion on a popular brand
through which customers could redeem a coupon for a free tank of gas. Further
suppose you don't have the financial protection of promotional risk coverage. What
would happen if one million consumers redeemed your coupon? Could your budget
withstand the expense?

Promotional risk coverage allows you to launch these types of marketing campaigns
without worrying about your budget imploding from a higher-than-expected response.
It delivers the marketing exposure at a fraction of the potential cost.

Leverage Promotional Risk Coverage For Your Business

Can large-impact promotions with high-value prizes help your company build brand
awareness while motivating a market response? Consider these findings...

According to eMarketer, "The chance to win is the number one most effective tool to
motivate consumers to participate in permission-based marketing efforts."

According to Jupiter Research, "82% of consumers will provide private information in
exchange for the chance to win."

Promotional risk coverage lets you launch high-impact promotions with budget
certainty. It lets you stretch your marketing budget while generating awareness and
prompting a response from your customers. Expand your brand; educate your market;
excite your customers; drive sales. Promotional risk coverage protects you
financially while helping you accomplish all four goals.

--Cynthia Walker, Promotional Currency

Customer Loyalty Programs Including Digital Promotions Increase Long-Term Profitability

Customer loyalty programs including digital promotions can function as the promotional
linchpin that drives your company's long-term profitability. They are an essential tool for
improving customer retention. By offering your customers digital incentives, such as
music downloads, skins, and an assortment of mobile promotions, you can dramatically
increase the lifespan of each customer. Not only does this create an enormous level of goodwill,
but customer loyalty programs also encourage customers to respond to your ongoing
marketing campaigns.

In 2001, noted authority on customer loyalty programs, Fred Reichheld, released his
seminal book, "Loyalty Rules." Within its pages, Reichheld explained the influence
customer retention rates have on the overall value of your customer base. A 5%
retention rate can translate into a 75% improvement in the value of your customer
inventory.

Below, we'll explain how customer loyalty programs can produce these results for
your company. We'll also describe the difference between these programs and customer
rewards programs - each has a vital role to fulfill. You'll also discover how to
leverage music download promotions, skins promotions, and mobile promotions to
increase the loyalty your customers feel toward your company.

How Customer Loyalty Programs Generate Stunning Results

Your customers want to feel valued. They want to know that your company perceives
them as a critical factor in your success. Too often, companies treat their
customers as disposable commodities. This has produced a legion of consumers who
shop primarily based on price, all but eschewing brand loyalty. Customer loyalty
programs help eliminate price as the deciding factor and instead, transform your
customers into fans. By offering them digital incentives, you can cultivate their
loyalty while creating a more memorable brand experience.

That sharply increases the lifetime value of your customer inventory. It not only
inspires them to return, but it also encourages them to tell others about your
company, generating a new wave of customers.

The Difference Between Customer Rewards And Customer Loyalty Programs

A lot of companies make the mistake of thinking customer rewards and customer
loyalty programs are identical. They're not. Each has a distinct promotional role to
play. Customer rewards are a powerful lever that you can use to trigger a response
and gather customer data. By collecting information about your customers, you can
launch a sequence of marketing initiatives that build brand awareness and gradually
influence their purchasing behavior. In doing so, you'll be able to better identify
which customer segments are the most profitable for your company.

Customer loyalty programs fulfill a different function. They improve your customer
retention rate, which Reichheld showed to have a dramatic effect on long-term
profitability. By giving your customers a variety of digital currency incentives,
you'll encourage them to return to buy your products.

Music Download Promotions Can Spearhead Customer Loyalty Programs

Music download promotions and mobile promotions are cost-effective platforms from
which to launch your customer loyalty programs. Because they can be delivered
digitally to consumers' phones, PDAs, and other mobile devices, their effect is
often instantaneous. They trigger an immediate response from your customer base.

Music transcends gender, culture, and age to reach a broad audience. Your customers,
regardless of their backgrounds and musical tastes, will gravitate toward the
artists they enjoy. You can target certain segments by genre or provide your entire
customer base with a catalog of millions of songs from which they can choose.

Mobile promotions, such as instant win games and digital coupons, can also trigger
an immediate response. Your customers can enjoy playing instant win games the moment
they receive your promotions. Then, they can receive instant notification regarding
whether they have won a prize. Mobile coupons can be redeemed just as quickly.

When leveraged to spearhead customer loyalty programs, music download promotions and
mobile promotions can generate a new wave of sales while strengthening your brand
loyalty.

Customer Loyalty Programs And Skins Promotions Complement Each Other

Skins promotions are a unique type of incentive because they are delivered
digitally, yet physically adorn consumers' phones, PDAs, and laptops. They are a
perfect complement to your customer loyalty programs for two reasons. First, the
skins promote your brand not only to your customers, but to every person who
observes your customers' mobile devices. Second, skins promotions serve as a
perpetual reminder to your customers about why they're loyal to your company. The
skins generate enormous goodwill.

Customer loyalty programs remain one of the most potent promotional levers for
increasing your company's long-term profitability. They allow you to lengthen the
overall life cycle of your customer inventory. If you are not currently taking
advantage of customer loyalty programs, now is the time to reconsider.

--Cynthia Walker, Promotional Currency