SnapTell Blog

White Paper: Opt-in with Image Recognition

No matter how fantastic your mobile marketing campaign is, you can’t engage with an angry consumer. Most of us have learned to tolerate e-mail spam but unwanted messaging on our mobiles simply is not acceptable.

To get the best return on your ad investment and sustain good relationships with consumers we need to keep mobile marketing strictly opt-in, sending information only when the consumer requests it.

But we can’t just hang around hopefully waiting patiently for the consumer’s wink and nod either. Often consumers need to be seduced with images, words, sounds – the brand’s marketing message – before deciding they are interested in finding out more about a product or service.

And that’s where image recognition mobile marketing comes into play; it leverages your existing, carefully developed marketing collateral, is completely opt-in, and allows you to concentrate your best efforts on consumers who are obviously extremely interested in your product or service.

To find out more about image recognition-based opt-in mobile marketing (along with dozens of ideas for innovative campaigns) download this new white paper by SnapTell CTO G.D. Ramkumar. The white paper offers fresh ideas for interactive promotions, product launches, scavenger hunts, polling and voting, event/in-store promotions, museum tours, city guides and much more … plus a behind the scenes tour of image recognition technology’s inner workings.

Stop... then Snap. Send. Get

Please don't use SnapTell's Snap.Send.Get mobile marketing solution while you're walking down the street. Stop for a moment or two, Snap a picture, Send it to us, Get the information you requested and then continue on your merry way.

You see, according to a story in U.K. newspaper The Guardian, apparently vast numbers of Brits are falling prey to “Walking & Texting” injuries --  colliding with solid objects, other people, sliding under buses and cars, etc (check out the video above for further details) -- due to being distracted by sending or receiving messages while walking.

The Guardian's story cheerily noted that: "In case anyone reading this is one of the 68,000 individuals who apparently interfaced thus with street furniture in London last year (mostly resulting in cuts and bruises, but with a fair proportion of broken noses, cheekbones and one fractured skull in the mix too) and therefore is self-evidently stupid enough to need the problem further delineated, these are injuries caused by people who do not understand the importance of peripheral vision. Until, that is, they compromise it by texting as they walk along the street and into lampposts, signs, bollards and other pedestrians."

The story goes on to note that "Researchers (admittedly the self-interested variety) from a text information company have found that 44% of people are in favour of padding street furniture, while 27% favour "mobile motorways" - coloured lines running down the pavement that texters can follow without fear of meeting immoveable objects."

The Guardian suggested that in addition sherpas should be posted on every corner, to usher the texter safely through the crowded streets.

SnapTell offers MMS Shortcodes

SnapTell is happy to announce that it is the first mobile marketing solution in North America to offer MMS short code-based mobile marketing campaigns.

Starting April 2008, a subscriber on any of the four major carriers in the U.S. can send a picture to a shortcode to receive cool interactive promotional content. Using SnapTell's Snap.Send.Get mobile marketing platform marketers can now create interactive advertisements that consumers can respond to effortlessly. If you are interested in deploying our unique solution, please contact us.

Snaptell "Best New Company" Finalist

We're pleased to announce that Snaptell has been selected as a finalist in the "Best New Company" category for the 2008 Andrew Seybold Choice Awards.

“This year we received an overwhelming number of entries for our awards,” said Andrew Seybold, President and CEO of Andrew Seybold, Inc.”We judge the products and services for their impact on the wireless market, how they embrace new, innovative technologies, their ease of use and how they simplify the user experience."

The Andrew Seybold Choice Awards were created to honor the most innovative wireless mobility products and concepts and their positive impact to the world of wireless mobility connectivity. Awards are presented at the Andrew Seybold Wireless Dinner. which is held annually in conjunction with CTIA Wireless trade show. This year’s dinner will be held on Tuesday, April 1, 2008, at the Venetian Hotel in Las Vegas.

Keep It Simple

RCR WIreless News has published an interesting column by Laura Marriott, president of the Mobile Marketing Association.

Among the points that Laura makes is a call for mobile marketing solutions providers to keep it simple and provide actionable metrics across the entire mobile marketing industry:

"I heard a great comment from Brian Fetherstonhaugh, Chairman and CEO of Ogilvyone Worldwide, at the CMO Forum at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain, who told us that marketing has moved away from the 4 Ps of Product, Price, Promotion and Place and has instead, evolved to the 4 Es including Experience, Everyplace, Exchange and Evangelism. Does this not sound exactly like what mobile can deliver? A dialogue of engagement between brand and consumer?!

So friends, what can we do?! For starters, stop speaking in jargon! Brands don’t care about SMS, EVDO, MMS or 1XRTT. They care about what their brand goals and objectives are and how mobile can solve it for them. Barraging potential clients with a litany of jargon does nothing but create a fear of the complexities of mobile. Let’s keep it simple, let’s drop the terms, drop the jargon!

Metrics! The GSMA Association, working with all operators in the UK, has launched a measurement initiative to determine what data can consistently be derived from operator networks to help metrics and reporting. A great step forward. The Mobile Marketing Association is working on consistency of ad currencies and flows so that we can deliver qualified metrics on the performance of campaigns rather than different data according to vendor or network. These are great collaborative steps to help build consistent, quality metrics and measurement for our global industry."