Rising Country Star Stovall first Artist to launch cross platform Mobile strategy with Mobile Web Site and Apps from Adva Mobile

We're proud to announce that Natalie Stovall has launched a mobile campaign to reach her fans across the three most popular mobile platforms - the Mobile Web, an iPhone App, and an Android App, all powered by the mobile marketing system from Adva Mobile. By releasing on all platforms, virtually all of the 6 billion mobile devices on the planet today can now access her music, videos, tour dates, and photos, make mobile purchases, connect with Twitter and Facebook, and more.



Every fan with a phone that has a mobile browser can join Natalie’s mobile site

by texting GETFIDDLE to 88704 or visiting www.adva.us/fiddle on their mobile browser. Android and iPhone fans can also get the Natalie Stovall App on the iTunes Store* and Android Market.

Natalie is at the forefront of Artists that know connecting with fans on mobile is the next big thing. It’s a cool way to put your songs and tour dates directly in your fans’ hands and it’s a great opportunity to let your fans get in there and really experience the music. She went the Apps plus Mobile Web route to make sure all of her fans could connect to her on their phones - you can't get that with just Apps.

(4/1/11)

Is Mobile Better Than Facebook for Engaging Fans?

Today I'm writing about an article from Hypebot (one of our favorite daily Blogs) to share with you because it's very germane to what we're trying to do here at Adva Mobile. The article is by Robin Davey at Growmyvision.com) it's titled "Only 10% of your friends see your Facebook posts and only 1% like it."It's worth the read. It's a very prescient article because here at Adva Mobile we've always thought that the ability to proactively reach out to your fans with SMS texts that drive them to your rich media mobile webpage was far more effect than any of your other tools that reach fans where they had to find you. I've included a link to the Hypebot article http://www.hypebot.com/hypebot/2011/03/only-10-of-your-friends-see-your-facebook-posts-and-only-1-like-it.html?utm_source=feedblitz&utm_medium=FeedBlitzEmail&utm_campaign=0&utm_content=395530

The article affirms that it is still early for mobile and that the music mainstream has just not discovered mobile as a way to reach fans, because Robin suggests direct contact with your fans via e-mail as the most effective and essential tool to keep your fans updated. The e-mail studies show that only 20% of the recipients open an e-mail, so all you've done is exchange a 1% success rate with a 20% success rate. SMS Text messaging, however, is currently running greater than 95% open rate. At Adva Mobile we think that your most effective marketing tool to stay connected to, and engaged with, your fans. More than Facebook. The statistics bear it out.

Everything. Is. Amazing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=itn8TwFCO4M

I posted this link on my Facebook page to remind my younger buddies that everything doesn't suck, and in fact, it's pretty amazing. It helps that it's a fun video with lots of laughs, especially if you're not so young that you don't know what we're talking about.

It's here on our AM Blog because being in music today doesn't suck, although I read every day about how hard it is to make any money, get fans, and the implosion of the labels. There are so many amazing tools make music, record music, edit music, tele-collaborate, distribute, build fan bases, sell direct, connect with fans. I mean, if you're in a band, you can show someone what you do right on your phone. They can listen to your music, watch a video, sign up to get messages and alerts from you, and buy your stuff. ON. YOUR. PHONE.
Amazing.

Adva Mobile Now Offers iPhone Apps

We've signed a partnership deal with Mobiflex to offer bands an iPhone App. To our knowledge, no other company offers a complete platform of Mobile Web, Android Apps, iPhone apps and a Mobile Marketing dashboard to manage marketing campaigns across the entire mobile ecosystem.

Here's the text from the Press Release:


Adva Mobile and MobiFlex bring the Power of Affordable iPhone Apps to Bands and Recording Artists

Leading mobile companies partner to deliver new online service for providing iPhone Apps and Mobile Web presence under integrated mobile marketing platform

Bands and recording artists can now quickly create iPhone Apps at low cost that extend their brand across the mobile Web and iPhones.

Adva Mobile Corporation, a pioneer of mobile web, mobile App, and marketing services for touring bands and recording artists, has partnered with MobiFlex™, a self-service portal that lets you create robust native smartphone custom apps in just a few hours without coding, to provide this new support for iPhones. Features include playing songs and videos, showing concert schedules, band photos, sharing fan feedback, mobile purchases, targeting fans through location and more.

“Touring bands and Recording Artists need to connect to their fans on mobile phones across all major phone platforms, and we’re excited to bring the MobiFlex App creation platform to help them achieve this goal,” said Jack Kelly, Adva Mobile CEO. “The MobilFlex platform is simple and integrates seamlessly into our portal, ensuring that their messages and marketing outreach efforts reach their iPhone audience.”

George Adams, MobiFlex CEO, added “Mobile apps for the iPhone and other smartphones have quickly become a major new touchpoint for professional musicians and groups to engage their fans and reach new audiences. We’re very pleased to provide Adva Mobile with a version of MobiFlex to empower their band and recording artist customers to quickly create their own apps, leveraging the native resources of the iPhone without having to find engineers to do the coding.”


The Adva Mobile service has quickly become the leading mobile marketing platform for bands and recording artists, with more than 1,100 artists using the service to acquire, engage, and sell to their fans on mobile phones. Combined with Adva Mobile’s mobile web and Android App services, bands can now also use the MobiFlex iPhone App creation service to have a branded iPhone app presence that can be deployed in a few hours as part of outreach programs to virtually all of the 6 billion mobile devices on the planet.

Adva Mobile Analytics - Measure Your Success

A music band's fans are essentially its "customers" and you should make every effort to understand and please them. That include's of course, maintaining close contact through a band-specific mobile web and App and other band-management tools, but sometimes, there's no substitute for good, hard analytics. The Adva Mobile service includes incredibly deep analytics to help you identify fans, measure social engagement, find hot markets, discover trends, gauge attitudes, create in-depth reports and more! The Reports tool - part of your Dashboard - is designed to give bands new insight into where their biggest fans are and what they want to hear.

Mobile allows you to collect so much more information about your fans than traditional media, even the Internet and Facebook.

Fan Analytics
o Collected information including phone number, carrier, location, phone type
o Volunteered information including email, age gender, likes, dislikes.

Of course, location is critical. And also, you can test their likes and dislikes to help you craft the right products and approach. Don't discount info like phone type and carrier. If your fans are heavy smartphone/Verizon - AT&T users, they haver more money to spend than Virgin/Boost/Cricket featurephone fans, and that can help you target price points more effectively.

Behavior Analytics
o Activity on mobile website, most visited pages, content downloads
o Graph, statistics and trending analysis

Being able to test over time and measure what fans want to download from your mobile site helps you figure out what they will buy from you.

Engagement Analytics
o The platform allows you to test positions and fan preferences and measure engagement and response

Behavior Analytics allow you to measure what fans are doing on your mobile website. Engagement Analytics allow you to ask questions and engage in contests that measure the response of offers you make to your fans. This can be tremendously valuable in crafting the right set of products for your fans to buy.

The reports and analytics engine that comes with your Adva Mobile marketing platform are a tremendously valuable tool to augment your efforts on stage, on the web, and in print. Take advantage of these knowledge-creating tools and watch your music career explode.

Use Voting on your mobile web to atract new fans

I am noticing a lot more polls today, being used on everything from Sports Illustrated, the Weather Channel, and my own Yahoo web landing page. Advertising for car insurance is even presented as a poll. It got me thinking about how valuable the VOTING feature on the Adva Mobile service is for music artists.

Fan engagement is the key to maintaining loyalty and Voting represents a very cool way to keep engaged with your fans. You never want to overwhelm your fans with too many texts, but I can see where they would never get tired of answering polls because they are so much fun. Asking your fans about everything from what they think the conclusion of the Egyptian revolution will be to what should your encore song be at the next show helps you understand your fans and connect with them in a personal way that only the mobile phone can offer.

The Adva Mobile Voting feature is easy to set up. Under “Your Mobile Web Pages” on your Dashboard, go to the Voting page and set it up. Then, scheduled a text blast to your fans that drives them directly to the Voting page on your mobile site. Very simple. It's only available to our Silver and Gold members so another good reason to upgrade your account - get a better looking mobile website and take advantage of some of the terrific tools on our platform that help you acquire new fans, engage with them and convince them to buy your stuff. The insight you get from asking your fans questions and getting that feedback is a key component to understanding your fan base and being able to connect with them in a very personal, rewarding way.

New Mobile Web & App Designs

We've been busy and excited about new designs we've built for bands that are using our service. Over time, we may be able to take these designs ideas, turn them into templates, and offer them to other artists.

Our latest design is one we're building for country star and Entertainer of the Year nominee Natalie Stovall. I like the simple but visually stunning design. Also, the social links at the bottom of the home page send you to pages that are mobile friendly - that wasn't the case a year ago, when none of these sites rendered correctly on a mobile phone browser.

We also made a web design for Fistful of Mercy. This design is sort of a "portal" design - the home page doesn't provide a lot of content. Instead, the site links you to other pages to learn more and engage the band. I like the way this site "lays out", as the pictures represent the visually exciting element of the page and provide a clear delineation between the links. This picture shows it as an Android App.

Good designs are important to maintain the brand of the band and engage fans visually in ways that make them want to explore the site. There's some challenge to making that happen on a small screen (and even more behind the scenses to make them look good an the many different phones, browsers and operating systems). The design doesn't impact the back -end mobile marketing engine we provide, so all of the services for both Artist and Fan are available, regardless of design.