Best Practices: If You Use Push Notifications...Don't Be Pushy.

One of the most powerful tactics in your mobile arsenal is the use of push notifications.  It's important to remember that fans have self selected to 'opt-in' for the information and with that comes great responsibility.  More than any other mobile feature the acceptance of a push notification implies that the user trusts you'll be respectful of their time.

Marketing Land authored recently published "5 must-do push notification best practices for mobile marketers".  The article makes light of some key things to take into account when planning a push strategy.  If you don't have a long term, measurable strategy you're just using the tool as a tactic for short term gain.

Here's what they recommend as best practices:
1.  "Think Big"
2.  "Segment Smartly"
3.  "Define your KPI"
4.  "Timing matters and so does testing"
5.  "Use proven words and CTA's to entice users to take action"

Think Big
In an on demand world everything is breaking news, so how do we define what's "BIG"?  Think of it this way, scarcity and limited time events create interest and fear of missing out.  So ask yourself "Is this push notification exciting and relevant enough to have engagement impact".

Segment Smartly
The more relevant the information to the user, the greater the response rate.  Are you doing notification blasts and hoping for the best or have you researched and segmented your database before you set your push strategy.

Define Your KPI's
Is it downloads?  Is it click throughs?  Is it UGC?  How will you measure your results and benchmark it's success?

Timing And Testing Matter
Ready, Aim Fire!  Be sensitive to the scheduling of your messages.  When do you see the biggest usage peaks in your mobile app?  Are you using intelligent sending?  Are you using multi-language support?  Are you geo-targeting your messages?  These are critical things to think about before you send to the masses.

Use Proven Words
Words sell, it's that simple. Do your homework and think high impact/low word count when crafting your messages.

How Far Is Too Far?
Broadcasters need to be mindful of what they push out.  Irrelevant sales promotions will be your death knell so filter your opportunities wisely.  Push notifications should be about experience first and sales second.  "Wendy's wants you to sit in the first row for free" is different than a "2 for one"   Remember points 1 and 2 before you send a message, always question yourself "is it big enough and relevant enough" to use this sacred form of communication.

If A Picture Is Worth A 1000 Words...How Much Is A Video Worth?

If a picture is worth a 1000 words how much more value does video bring?  There are some impressive statistics to back up the use of video in your marketing efforts.

A May 2017 artictle on Tech.Co lists some of the staggering engagement numbers about video engagement and in particular, mobile.  Here are some very compelling reasons for you to include video in your mobile app.  It's not just for breaking news but retail views!

"More Than 50 Precent of All Videos Are Viewed on Mobile

Not only are more than 50 perecent of videos viewed on mobile, there’s been a 233 percent increase in viewing since 2013. It should be noted at the vast majority of views are through phones and not tablets. Mobile is also behind an overall 33 percent increase in video views. Anyone interested in mobile, video market should also know that their target audience members are frequently watching videos that are five minutes or longer."

And when it comes to making retail purchases the numbers are even more impressive.

"90 Percent of Users Say That Product Demo Videos Help Them Make Decisions

Using video helps customers through all parts of the consumer journey. This includes the phase where customers are narrowing down the products that interest them. By including product demonstration videos, brands can build goodwill by helping customers through the decision making process."

Mobile: Sure They Listen But Do You Know Where They Live?

One of the greatest challenges is working to identify who your mobile fans are.  Given that latitude and longitude are the most common data points; how do we as marketers build a profile of these active fans.  Most mobile apps will ask you to log in with a social network enabling them to capture some first person data that can help you start to build a profile and that's a great start.  When we build our apps we think about the audience first.  Not only what functionality will keep them engaged but what we do with the data we collect to build out new features.

There a number of easy ways to capture mobile user data.  Single sign on (SS0) is one such tactic but there's so much more that can be done.  If you don't have the ability to buy big data and overlay your audience you can start by doing some basic things:

1.  Mobile Only Contest Registration:  This may be one of the simplest things you can do by building hidden web pages or in app contest entry pages that allows you to collect first person data that can be merged with other user profiles.

2.  Gated and Windowed Content:  By creating content that is only open to premium users you can drive registration data.  An ongoing release of gated and windowed content allows you to create small chunks of bite size data on a regular basis which has high appeal (do your homework first to find hot topics!)

It's important to understand that mobile listening is different than desktop or listening and collecting mobile listener locations during live streaming will more than likely produce migration patterns during the day due to portability.  This is actually one of the greatest assets of mobile user data as it can give us insights to how people move around a city during the day.

Heat Maps and Retail Beacons

Heat Maps have been used in marketing research for decades and now that mobile users are not only receiving information they are also sending a wealth of information back to service providers.  At AirKast we allow our clients to quickly see where their mobile listeners are streaming from in a market down to County level.  Yet another data point that can be leverage for radio sales or programming or any advertising buyer who wants to know 'where do your users live'.

Below is a snapshot of a major national Conservative talk show host.  Not only do we see heavily concentrated listening areas but fringe areas where they are popular.  When working with national advertisers this is a great visual to explain where to aim your marketing.  The next immediate layer of data that will help guide your advertising efforts could be retail foot traffic attribution within these key states and counties.  You've now started to create a behavioral profile of your mobile audience.

Here are some quick stats on beacons:

65% of retails who employ the beacon technology claim they are able to target customers “down to the aisle level”;

24% of beacon adopters have registered a steady growth in sales;

59% of customers who receive beacon notifications feel more engaged in stores.

If relevancy drives engagement this combination of data can be a very potent mix for your mobile marketing plan.

Mobile Engagement. Is It Happy Ever After Or Death Do Us Part?

Cigar Dave Live from Las Vegas

The advertising world is abuzz with some key words when it comes to mobile users.  How many times have we heard the term 'immersive',  'engaging' and 'sticky'?  Bottom line is great content drives engagement.  The biggest challenge is how do we as marketers keep the content consistent with what the user expects (relevancy) and deliver that message without becoming annoying.

It's pretty hard to argue the facts:

"Mobile marketing's awesome potential in 2017 is reinforced with reports like this one: research firm BIA/Kelsey predicts that U.S. mobile-ad spend will exceed $40 billion -- and the industry can expect that number to pass $65 billion by 2020. Last year, mobile digital ad-spend fueled mobile-side growth on a path to outpace desktop ad-spend. Meanwhile, smartphones and tablet devices account for 51.3% of Internet use. By year's end, 75% of online content consumption will be mobile, media buying agency Zenith forecast late last year."

The value of video experiences continues to grow and when done in combination with programmatic and behavioral targeting campaign performance continues to prove its value.

The report later continues:

"New ways of approaching the mobile ad unit will drive a focus on key ideas, such as non-intrusive mobile experiences, dynamically animated and adhesive banners, and ad delivery that dovetails even further with consumers' locations and activities. Mobile video ad-spend is projected to exceed $6 billion by the end of 2017, meaning 2017 will be a prime moment for mobile marketing to capture its share of resulting media allocations."

Recently one of our clients "The Cigar Dave Show" took advantage of our in-app live video capabilities to help expose their clients at the Las Vegas International Premium Cigar & Pipe Retailers trade show  The goal was simply to give fans a behind the scenes look at some of the best new cigars and products.  Through a combination of push notifications and publishing a broadcast schedule in his app and email, nearly 600 fans turned on the live broadcast to watch Dave talk to his clients.

How well did it do in driving fan engagement?  How about a CTR over 3.2%?  Why did it work so well?  When fans can gain access to exclusive content that is timely and meaningful their curiosity gets the best of them and they become 'engaged'.  What's even more intriguing is that the broadcast was concurrently shown on YouTube and and still drew a significant number of fans to the mobile app. 

While most brands are fascinated with Facebook video, the only company that monetizes that activity is Facebook.  AirKast believe being in the path of the fan at all times is important but we shouldn't do it at the expense of brand control.  

How is your brand using mobile and video to drive engagement, relevancy and stickiness?  

AirKast Launches New Radio Personality Branded Apps and Business Intelligence Initiatives

  

 SAN FRANCISCO, CA, July 18, 2017 /24-7PressRelease/ -- AirKast, a leader in mobile app development for broadcasters and media companies, announced today a series of new partnerships with nationally syndicated radio show hosts and podcasters. World renowned sex therapist Dr. Laura Berman, country music morning show personalities Big D & Bubba, and former "Survivor" star Shane Powers are partnering with AirKast to engage and monetize their audiences using AirKast's AirBridge mobile platform. The apps are compatible with iOS, Android, and Kindle platforms and include Apple CarPlay, Android Auto, and Alexa connectivity. Each show and brand can now engage their audience and fans with on-demand audio, social media interaction, live video, and more.

"We're thrilled to announce these new partnerships. With audio and mobile app listening showing continued growth, AirKast is excited that our broadcast and media clients are experiencing the great benefits of this boom in audio listening and monetization. From on-air hosts, syndicated radio shows, and podcasters, we allow each personality, show or brand to have their own app allowing them to take control of how they're represented, promoted and monetized in the mobile marketplace," said Michael Fischer, vice-president of business development.

In addition, AirKast has recently integrated new technologies to continue to deepen audience engagement and provide even more monetization capabilities. The AirKast platform supports advanced push notifications including multi-language support and geo-targeting, mobile listener heat maps, live local weather, retail beacons, and second screen experiences triggered by subsonic audio tones.

AirKast specializes in creating unique listening and content experiences for audiences and fans who are then served with relevant sponsor messages. "Our cloud based CMS makes it easy to assign attribution and success metrics for both advertisers and our content partners giving them the analytics they need to drive their businesses," continues Fischer.

AirKast currently works with over 60 media companies and 800 media properties including Cumulus Media, Fox News Radio, and CBS Radio News.

About AirBridge and TuneKast

AirBridge, the industry's award-winning hosted digital media delivery platform, is used to build enterprise-class mobile applications that are reliable, secure and scalable so companies can target large audiences that require simultaneous access. AirBridge currently supports market-leading mobile devices, including iPhone, iPad, Kindle and Android. Designed for terrestrial and Internet-based radio stations to increase AQH, TuneKast is a mobile application framework that features real-time digital media and online content within branded mobile applications. www.airkast.com