Mobile Texting Sent Millions in Charitable Donations For Haiti - Can It Also Sell Music?

Image Attribute: NYT

This was the byline to a recent article in Billboard by Antony Bruno about the challenges of delivering digital content to your phone. Only two days after a 7.0 magnitude earthquake leveled the capital city of Port-au-Prince, Haiti, the American Red Cross raised $7 million via text messaging from more than 700,000 wireless customers. Donations poured in from every wireless network, including ATT, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile.

For years, analysts have been waiting for mobile commerce to take off only to see it stumble. Red Cross' relief efforts in Haiti signaled a turning point in the history of mobile commerce. "It was a major validation about the possibilities of text and mobile commerce and what we're going to see in the future," says Gartner analyst Jeff Roster. Consumers have been slowly warming to the idea of zapping money through the air for years, from mobile banking to online shopping to purchasing mobile apps themselves. In fact, some analysts say that this year will be the year of the start of a mobile commerce tidal wave. Gartner predicts mobile app revenue will hit $6.7 billion this year, up from $4.2 billion last year, and the trend will continue to almost $30 billion in 2013.

Last year, a rare Lamborghini and a $150,000 boat were sold over eBay's iPhone app. "There's no question this is the year of social media and m-commerce for retail," Roster says. In Vienna, a majority of people pay car parking fees using their mobile phones. Ten minutes before your allotted time is about to expire, you'll get a text alert-and the option to extend parking minutes. "This isn't location-based services; it's anti-location-based services,“ says Diarmuid Mallon, product marketing manager at Sybase 365 "You pay for your car parking without being near your car."

We at Adva Mobile also see a turning point this year for mobile commerce. We’ve already powered show tickets and merchandise transactions, the artist and fans feedback was very positive. Further, we are working diligently to create a mobile-optimized content sales mechanism. The key guidelines for our solution is ease of payment, secure content delivery and content formatting optimal to all mobile phones.

Forecasts suggests that 70% of US mobile subscribers are interested in using their phone to make a purchase in 2010. It’s time for you to benefit from it!

Check Out the New Raffles Feature!

With this exciting participatory feature artists have not only been gaining new fans joining their mobile club (fans telling their friends, your tweets etc.) but also renewed energy with their existing fans. 50% fan participation or growth in your fan base is not above the average performance we've seen in recent raffles.

Artists have mostly been setting up show tickets as the raffle prize. However, as far as prizes go, let your imagination run about what’s cool for your fans to win. You can set up several types of prizes in any one raffle, and for each type, you can raffle as many as you like.

Scheduling a raffle is a breeze: head over to the Artist Portal, and find the raffles setup page under ‘your mobile web page’ menu item. The form is straight forward. You can take advantage of another feature that allows you to enter instructions to your fans who won, for example “show this page at the will-call booth and you will get your tickets”, or, “Contact me at xyz@xyz.com to claim your prize” etc. We recommend that you then schedule a fan blast to invite your fans to participate in the raffle, when it is scheduled to begin.

When the raffle ends, we draw the prizes. We tell the fans who participated to check on the mobile website if they won. For those who won, we will present them with their prize and a unique ID, so they can claim the prize. They will also see your message for winning fans that we described earlier. Finally, we will SMS them with that information, for their records.

Raffles are a popular way to engage your fans. Be sure to take advantage of this new mobile feature as part of your marketing effort. Good luck!

Mobile is to internet like TV is to radio

This post is based on an article by Allan Moore, bestselling author and the CEO of SMLXL.

Image Attribute: BBC

Mobile is to internet like TV is to radio. Mobile is as much superior to the internet, as TV is to radio. Today at 2.7 billion mobile phone users, there are three times as many mobile phones as personal computers (and over a quarter of all internet access is already from mobile phones). There are nearly twice as many mobile phones as TV sets. Twice as many people use messaging on a phone (SMS text messaging) as use e-mail on the web. In this article, (including key quotes from Alan Moore's article with the original headline) we'll discuss what makes mobile so effective channel to your audience, and why you should include it in your marketing plan.

I often hear various internet experts talk about how limiting the mobile phone is for internet consumption. That there are problems with scrolling, and the keypad entry is cumbersome, and we lack a mouse on the phone. This is as stupid as the TV experts. We should NOT try to replicate the existing internet onto the mobile. Mobile is not a "small internet", it is a NEW mass media. As different from the internet as TV is from radio. We can do so much MORE on the phone that cannot be done on the internet.

Allan highlights 5 unique elements that distinguish Mobile: Personal, The first always-on mass media, the first always-carried mass media, the first mass media with a built-in payment mechanism and uniquely offers the media audience the input tool, at the point of creative impulse.

Our service enables you to build your community and reach your fans on a recurring basis with rich-media, engaging experiences we power. Take advantage of the unique ability to engage your fans in the right context. Get started now.