Mobile Marketing – Back to School

August 1st comes around every year along with “back to school” commercials, during which time the National Retail Federation reports $75.8 billion will be spent on supplies. With Staples being the “King of Back to School” (MarketWatch), there are some great opportunities for Staples (and its competitors) to convert back to school shoppers to year-round regulars.

In our video, “How Staples Can Make Back to School Last All Year”, Copley Advertising lays out our plan to make engage back to school shoppers all year long.

First, Staples needs to geofence all stores during the back to school season. They can run video ads on tagged devices showing the top-selling (profitable) items. When a tagged device user clicks on the ad, they are taken to a landing page with an additional video ad featuring a chance to win a Staples “Spring Break on Campus” event. It will include an opportunity to sign up to receive free coupons throughout the school year, important tips on what students need to kick off their new year, how to get the most out of your academic experience and a Spring Break contest in which customer can enter to win with friends and host on campus: Staples Spring Break!

So, what have we accomplished? First, we tagged all in-store devices and if the user has seen an ad (impression), we download their ID to a Google Sheet. Second, if the tagged device user clicks on the ad, Copley Advertising places their ID in a retargeting program where the user will be served new creative immediately for up to 30 days after they leave the location; this helps ensure they didn’t forget certain (highest profit margin) items. If the device user signs up for the email program, Staples can send them newsletters with study tips, information about how working out affects your grades, advice for on-campus relationships, and more. This will help to make Staples a trusted agent with their audience. Then, when the occasional ad for a sale item is pushed it would no big deal. Oh… and don’t forget the big countdown to the Staples Spring Break! The winner will be able to win a large bash featuring Staple’s products on campus. The extensive video will be used to promote products featured at the event and a new landing page will be created, introducing people to ways they could be next year’s winner. Content, engagement, value, and trust time and time again. With a few small steps, you can easily keep clients engaged with your products and programs, all year long.

And remember the list of IDs that is captured when the tagged user views the impression (ads) during the back to school rush? Copley Advertising can create a look-alike model based on the demographic characteristics from the list, and increase the total pool to 2% of the US population. Then, we can drill down to store location, age, gender, interests and other demographic qualifiers. A/B testing of market areas, creative or products is only a click away.

Copley Advertising is a mobile marketing ad agency: we only do mobile. Any questions, please email [email protected].

Mobile Update: Black Friday

The first wave of information is in regarding mobile’s role in Black Friday/Cyber Monday revenue.  Below are some highlights.

The biggest news was that mobile revenue was over $1 billion by the end of Black Friday. That was a 33% increase from last year.  The most optimistic projections had revenue over $1 billion by the end of Cyber Monday.

PayPal reported that one-third of all payments on Black Friday were from smartphones.

Walmart reported that on Black Friday 70% of their online traffic was mobile. Target stated on Black Friday 60% of their online traffic was mobile.

On Thanksgiving, mobile revenue accounted for 40% of all sales and 57% of traffic. (MediaPost)

Amazon reported that mobile revenue on Thanksgiving topped last year’s Cyber Monday.

A very impressive week for mobile commerce.    Companies will continue to develop their mobile commerce platform.  Mobile’s advantage is the online buying cycle.  The consumer already uses mobile first to compare prices and check reviews.  Companies need to take advantage of those habits and help the consumers take the next step.  Consumers have always been ahead of companies in the demand for easy to use mobile commerce platforms. Companies need to catch up to smartphone users requests for the simple reason there is over $1 billion on the table.