ChoiceStream

Retailers build sales by reaching their customers directly, making mobile marketing efforts potentially profitable, a strategy that J.C. Penney discovered through a recent experiment that enabled smartphone users to access promotions and redeem them in stores. Still, retailers aren't investing heavily in one tech solution -- they're experimenting with options from mobile bar codes to Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare identities. Research firm Nielsen Co. earlier this month released data showing 23% of all mobile phone subscribers have smart phones. A recent survey by BIGresearch for the National Retail Federation found more than 50% of adults 18 to 34 years old want to be able to surf the Web on their phone. By 2015, Nielsen predicts "smart phones will be the primary enabler of consumer shopping engagements and new technology innovations will generate additional opportunities for retailers and manufacturers." Tim Lyons of JC Penney notes mobile commerce will continue to grow in importance because that’s where customers are. "We're really seeing that as the future of where retail is going as far as with customer interaction," said Lyons.Read the full article

The LA Times has an exhaustive profile detailing how traditional brick-and-mortar retailers are finding more sophisticated ways to compete with online-only retailers such as Amazon.com. "When you look at the big retailers, they clearly have not grown online at the same rate as Amazon has," said Marshal Cohen, chief industry analyst at market research firm NPD Group. "The online business has been the redheaded stepchild. That's starting to change." To be sure, online revenue still accounts for a small percentage of total retail sales. Although online sales totaled $134 billion last year, the National Retail Federation estimates that's only about 7% of all retail sales. But growth has been rapid, with online sales soaring nearly 400% since 2000. Analysts say economics is driving the trend. It costs less to process online orders than to lease retail space and field an army of sales clerks. Meanwhile, time-starved consumers also are finding it more convenient to browse items online instead of driving to the mall. "It's gotten to the point where you can't think about online retail the way retailers have thought about it in the past," said Kasey Lobaugh, a principal at Deloitte Consulting who advises major retailers on developing their online channels. The article discusses the e-commerce activity of Kohls’, Nordtsrom amd others including ChoiceStream client Zappos. According to Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh said that the big difference between online retail and its brick-and-mortar peers are " innovation versus lack of innovation. In the online world, there's just much more of a culture of embracing change and experimenting." Stay tuned. Read the full article at The Los Angeles Times

Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s Chief Content Officer noted his belief that personalization in one of the keys for success in the digital era for media and entertainment companies. Sarandos noted reason personalization is so key is that the Internet brings increased choice. He pointed out that one of his company’s key strengths is providing a simple menu of relevant choices for users, that allows users to remain relatively passive. Justin Herz, SVP, Direct-to-Consumer, Warner Bros. Digital Distribution echoed the point, noting that the recently-launched Warner Archive is all about targeting the micro-niches with catalog content that wasn't economic to deliver in mass-market approach. Another panelist, Ben Weinberger of Digitalsmiths said that metadata is what fuels accurate personalization and also pointed out that what specific input device the user has makes a big difference in how to navigate the choices offered.Read the full article at VideoNuze

According to a 2010 Juniper Research study, mobile retail opportunities in coupons, smart posters and advertising will together create a market worth more than $12 billion by 2014. This will be up from $4.1 billion in 2009. However, Chris Brassington argues that these and other statistics trumpeting the growth of mobile commerce don’t take into account that fact that “Many of the marketing solutions working currently in mobile are examples of old concepts migrated into a new medium.” What’s really needed according to Brassington is real “personalization in the mobile space,” that can underscore the “importance of targeting and therefore the relevance of the offers and advertising to the consumer. The mobile phone is seen by the consumer as part of their personal space so any unwanted intrusion will not be welcomed.” To read more stats on mobile growth and how to make mobile marketing better and more intuitive click the link above.Read the full article

DePaul University will offer what it says is the nation's first master's degree in predictive analysis, the school announced on Wednesday in conjunction with IBM, which will provide resources for the program." The program aims to teach students the technical skills to do computer-based data mining, including advanced data analysis and the ability to handle large data sets. The degree will require students to take marketing courses as well, which should help them better match their data analysis to the needs of end users. Predictive analytics is a subset of data mining, explained a DePaul professor. "Predictive analytics is one step of data mining. It is the concluding step, where you use data-analysis tools to extract values or models that will help make business decisions.” Read the full article at NY Times

Every year since 2001 has been hailed as the year of mobile. But after years of hype and over-revved anticipation, the year of mobile may never come to be. Instead, it looks as though this is the year mobile will morph into something else entirely. "We're rapidly evolving into a more mobile, always-connected, open Internet society --- moving from a 'mobile generation' to a 'connected generation,'" Albert Chu, vice president of global alliances at Access. "Not only will mobile phones be smartphones -- consumer electronics will also be 'smart connected devices.' In the coming years, we will see tremendous growth for consumer electronics manufacturers, software developers and service providers to create the platforms, solutions and services that will drive the next 10 billion connected devices -- and associated services and e-commerce -- to market," predicted Chu.Read the full article at Electronic Commerce Time

Marketing e-mails using a house list are seeing an average open rate of nearly 20%, a click-through rate of 6.64% and a conversation rate of 1.73%, according to a recent survey released by the Direct Marketing Association. “People are using a lot of digital channels. The conversion rate of paid search and Internet display are pretty healthy,” said Yuri Wurmser, research manager at DMA. “Traditional channels are holding their own in terms of response, but it is a multichannel market out there where everyone is using a lot of different channels.”Read the full article at DM News

Big Blue is jumping into the web analytics software space with the acquisition of Coremetrics. Financial terms were not disclosed. With the purchase, IBM intends to expand its business analytics capabilities with Coremetrics’ cloud-based delivery platform, which enables companies to gain real-time insight into consumer interactions internally through social and other online media networks. As a result, marketing teams can gain deeper insight about their consumers and present personalized recommendations, promotions and other sales incentives across a variety of channels, including on ecommerce sites and through social networking services, where the consumers can interact with their brand. Coremetrics is said to currently provide web analytics capabilities to more than 2,100 global brands across a wide range of industries including retail, financial services, media and publishing, travel and education. Customers include Bank of America, Holiday Inn, 1-800 Flowers, Office Depot and Victoria’s Secret. IBM says Coremetrics software complements its existing software and services portfolio of offerings from WebSphere, information management and business analytics and optimization. Upon closing, the company will become part of IBM’s application and integration middleware portfolio. The deal is expected to close in the third quarter of 2010.Read the full article at TechCrunch

A full 20% of consumers indicate they have bought something using their mobile device, according to a study by Retrevo. That number was just 10% in Retrevo’s February 2010 study, showing just how fast mobile commerce is growing. Also, 27% of consumers said they have never purchased something from their mobile phone, but expected they would eventually. “Whether you prefer to see the glass half empty or half full, cell phone owners are divided down the middle when it comes to using their phones for buying things,” said Andrew Einser, director of community and content at Retrevo. “The scales could tip as consumers discover new, fun and easy shopping apps on their mobile devices while retailers make consumers feel more secure about using their credit cards,” he said. One interesting note, mobile shopping applications are growing in importance as 42% of those who have shopped with their phones said they have used applications to make purchases.Read the full article at Mobile Commerce Daily

With the recent flurry of activity in the mobile marketing space, there's been significant speculation about its importance for North American marketers. While there's legitimate debate about what the mobile marketing ecosystem will look like over the long haul, forward thinkers already know that the North American practice needs to quickly evolve to more closely resemble what we see in Europe today. The best of the European practice takes a converged and integrative approach: advertisers look across the full suite of mobile marketing tools and bring the right mix to their larger communications platform. By contrast, North American marketers are best described as very curious about mobile and, by and large, they continue to experiment with one-off, stand-alone, SMS-based mobile tactics. Historically, operational and economic factors were cited as the primary causes of the divide. However, with Gartner predicting that more than 50% of mobile phones in use in the U.S. by 2011 will be smartphones, up from just 14% at the end of 2008, they’ll be more pressure to make mobile marketing practices both converged and integrated. Stay tuned.Read the full article