The Strengths of SMS vs In-App Push Notifications

Posted on May 30, 2012 by

Often we’re asked whether a brand should use in-app push notifications or SMS for their mobile engagement and loyalty programs. It is clear that push notifications and SMS each have their own unique strengths. What is best for you depends on your mobile use-case.

SMS is the obvious choice for those trying to reach non mobile app users, but when you have app users and messages you want to get to your customer, the choice can become a little less clear. Hopefully this chart will help guide you to a decision.

Posted in Mobile, Mobile Loyalty, SMS | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Turning the NBA Playoffs into mCommerce Brand Engagement

Posted on May 18, 2012 by

While I was sending out Tweets this past week, and watching the NBA playoffs, I started thinking about mcommerce consumer targeting.  According to Nielsen, 86% of mobile phone owners use their phone while watching television.  Nielsen also states that multi-tasking is the user’s common behavior during this time. Usage varies from apps, search, location services, texting with friends, facebook status updates and of course sending out tweets in support of his or her favorite basketball team. So I question, why aren’t brands doing more to target engaged mobile users while watching television?

On Twitter and Facebook, I follow a number of major basketball brands, but very rarely am I offered unique content or offers.  It seems to be a missed opportunity because these brands already have commercials and digital creative assets that can be repurposed for mcommerce related promotions.  Brands can also examine season stats to determine who to build mcommerce based campaigns around in the playoffs.  For example, Kevin Durant of the Oklahoma City Thunder has led the NBA in scoring the past three-seasons.  In 2012, he averaged 28 points a game and never scored fewer than 20 points in consecutive games. I may not be sure that Durant’s team will win the game, but as a brand, I can be confident that he will score points, make highlight plays while scoring points, and be a key contributor to his team’s success.  Brands that are endorsed by Durant should utilize this knowledge by pushing live offer(s) featuring him during his games.  Also, since this tactic is mcommerce based, much like Durant’s points per game average, it can be tracked, measured and optimized.

MLB Tweets By Hour

MLB Tweet Chart From Crowd Riff

I shared this theory with one of my co-workers and she encouraged me to take a deeper analysis of what’s being done by major league sports, not just the NBA.  What I noticed is that leagues like the NFL and MLB do a great job of integrating SMS offers into their telecast.  By texting the correct answer to a trivia questions there is an opportunity to receive prizes and in some cases discounts.  While there is nothing wrong with this strategy, it marginalizes the capabilities of mobile phones and does not fully tap into user behavior.  In addition to SMS, sports leagues should drive ticket sales through apps, merchandise sales through mobile web, and brand awareness through social media.

The next major sporting event will feature the world’s greatest athletes – the 2012 Summer Olympics in London, England.  The 2008 Summer Olympics in the US had a domestic viewership of over 200 million people.  To put that number in perspective, the 2011 NBA playoff finals earned around 24 million domestic viewers.  It is also important to note that during the last Olympics’ the Blackberry Storm was CNET’s highest rated smartphone and both iOS and Android were on their first generation of phones.  The combination of the Olympic’s viewership and advancement in mobile phone technology seem to be a good opportunity for brands to test my mcommerce theory and “go for the gold.”

 

- Kam Taitt, 5th Finger

Posted in Apps, mCommerce, Mobile Loyalty, Mobility Planning, Trends & Insights, Twitter | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

How Mobile Made Superheroes Not So Super Anymore

Posted on May 7, 2012 by

Has mobile technology given us  super powers that we haven’t realized?  My eight year old nephew, Brandon thinks so!

Mobile Utility Belt

Belt pictured here is a utility belt created by Fabric Horse

As a former comic book collector and avid reader, I was excited to pass down the tradition of comics to  Brandon, so I invited him to see the Avengers movie with me.  The Avengers is a Marvel comic book franchise that chronicles the adventures of Captain America, Iron Man, Ant-Man, Wasp, Thor, and the Incredible Hulk.  The storyline is entrenched with the recurring themes that teamwork and cool gadgets can conquer any challenge or villain.

To my surprise Brandon declined my invitation! Brandon is very intelligent and inquisitive, so I asked him why he declined to see a movie with one of the greatest team of super heroes ever assembled.  He said that he simply sees nothing great about superheroes.  I said  to Brandon, “Don’t you like their cool gadgets?!”   “No,” he replied, “they have the same powers that I have.”

I was stunned by Brandon’s response,  and the more I questioned his behavior, the more I began to think about Brandon’s generation who has always had mobile technology.

  • Super Heroes have utility belts

○      Batman wasn’t blessed with super powers but he used his smarts, wealth, and utility belt to fight crime. His utility belt had the resources that he needed to defeat his foes.  Whether on a tablet or mobile phone, cloud computing allows us to always be equipped with documents, spreadsheets, presentations and more leisurely items like movies and video games.

  • Super Heroes have healing powers

○      Whenever injured in battle, Wolverine would quickly recover because his admantium spinal cord made him invincible.  Although mobile technology doesn’t allow us to recover that quickly, it does provide us with apps and mobile websites that keep us plugged into our healthcare networks and doctors.

  • Super Heroes have virtual assistants

○      Whenever Tony Stark had a question, he would call upon his super computer Jarvis to answer. Jarvis took up a whole basement floor of the Stark mansion.  We have access to Siri and Vlingo who fit nicely in the palm of our hands

  • Super Heroes have voice activated control

○      How many times have we seen Captain America within the clutches of a villain only to see him escape by summoning the Avengers car?!  Mobile technology helps us defeat the villainous winter by remotely unlocking our car doors, starting our engines, and opening our garage doors.

My 8-year old nephew helped me realize that mobile technologies are closing the gap  between my childhood superheroes and modern day reality.  Mobile has the ability to make superheroes of us all, and help to improve the overall quality of our social and professional lives. The question remains, “Are you doing enough with mobile technology to unleash your inner super hero?”   Mobile has given you the technology now you just need to add the creativity.

- Kam Taitt, 5th Finger

Posted in Devices, Innovation, Trends & Insights, Uncategorized | Tagged , , | Leave a comment

Responsive Design, breaking down what you need to know…

Posted on May 1, 2012 by

Ethan Marcotte from A List Apart wrote an excellent blog post in May of 2010 on the subject of Responsive Web Design. While Ethan’s observations on the state of mobile browsers were valid then, with groups like Nielson telling us smartphones account for half of new mobile handset sales they are becoming imperative now. But what is this new design world of responsive design? And when does it make sense to use it?

In its simplest definition responsive design means: presenting content in a way that best suits the display available to the viewer. A more technical description might be: utilizing CSS3, HTML5, JavaScript and modern browser features to display HTML content in the most suitable format for the viewport requesting the content. Or, finally, your site will look good across smartphones, tablets, small monitors and large displays using one code base. While this definition sounds somewhat similar to “rubber layout”, “liquid design” and other similarly named methodologies, responsive design differs from these in its attempt to not only resize layouts and content, but to adapt designs to vastly different behaviors, as well as display resolutions. Therefore technical details of each responsive design implementation will rely on a relatively modern browser and, just as importantly, a new thought process in producing the design.

Given that smaller screens tend to be the most challenging, responsive design usually starts with these form factors, while regarding what may happen further up the display “food chain”. Say, for example, we want to display a table of figures on our page. On a smaller viewport device a large table can be hard to use, we must scroll up and down and left and right, or zoom out in order to see the details. In this case a chart of some kind may serve us better. The middle ground of tablet displays might use a high level chart with drill down details, while the large display real estate of a desktop allows for all of these options.

For a more general case we can look at the modes of interaction between touch screen devices and desktop/laptops using touchpads and mice. A navigation bar containing a back button might well be a better control for a mobile phone, while a more standard header could be used for desktops. At this point some proverbial “line in the sand” needs to be drawn otherwise we’re once again heading down the path of two or three separate sites, our goal is to provide the same functionality and content across the range of display sizes that we encounter. A nice rule of thumb would be – in order to consider a page to be using responsive design we should never need to do a page refresh in order to see the results of a change in display size. This is where the design becomes “responsive”. Rather than just working out the size of the display port and serving up something that fits the page, responsive design uses CSS and some JavaScript and then changes the current content to match its new constraints.

So when does responsive design make sense? Basically whenever we have content that needs to be displayed across varying form factors, and we can design from the smallest screens up to the largest. This is especially true today as responsive design gives us a great degree of future proofing against new display resolutions as we target ranges of sizes rather than absolute pixels.

When doesn’t it make sense? If we have some content whose sole purpose is to service someone using a mobile handset, then considering larger form factors is probably redundant. An augmented reality app that uses the accelerometer, camera and location services of a smartphone is a bad candidate for responsive design. This use case simply doesn’t make sense in the desktop top experience.

Some more concrete examples can be seen at the goldilocks approach and the reponsive.is/foodsense example. You can get a great sense for responsive design in action by using a webkit-based browser such as Chrome, Firefox or Safari on a desktop/laptop machine. Start with the site at full screen width at height then grab the lower right hand corner of the browser window and start to shrink it. You’ll see the design change through the various phases of screen real estate as if you were looking at the sites on different devices.

Responsive design is a great culmination of modern web technologies, along with progressive design thinking. What’s your responsive design strategy?

Posted in Case Studies, Devices, Mobile Web, Mobility Planning, Uncategorized, Usability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

How NOT To Use Your Sales Force

Posted on April 17, 2012 by

In an effort to save media dollars, there is a trend for marketers to rely solely on their sales force to promote new programs. The idea being that a sales rep will detail an HCP on a new program, provide them with patient materials and ask the HCP to promote it to their patients.

As a marketer, I have seen this approach fail over-and-over again. Since November, I have personally seen three programs (from two different pharma companies) promoted solely using this tactic. Each program experienced extremely low response and was deemed a failure.

The results are not too surprising. For two years I personally carried a bag for a large pharma company. If my efforts as a rep didn’t directly result in an NRx, I wasn’t going to spend one second of my small window of time with the doctor talking about anything other than my portfolio of products.

Simple Solutions for Budget-Conscious Brand Marketers:
When paid media is tight, look to non-paid channels to promote your program and help drive response:

Dedicated Email Blasts:
Email promotion can be very effective, even more so when you utilize a dedicated email blast. Keep the messaging simple, showcase the value and make sure your email is optimized for mobile and desktop email clients.

Website Promotion (Mobile and Desktop):
Take advantage of traffic being generated through your paid channels (SEM, Display, etc). Like email, keep the messaging simple and focused on the value of the offer.

SEO:
Once you include the promotion on the website(s), don’t forget to update your SEO keywords, description, etc.

Adherence Program:
Assuming the content is relevant, promote your new program through existing medication reminders, education, etc. of your adherence program.

In-Office Collateral:
Add a call to action to patient education materials, in-office brochures and other types of collateral.

When looking to promote a new program, be sure to include non-paid channels to the mix. It has proven to be an easy and cost-effective way to drive response and help increase ROI.

Chris Crichton
VP, Mobile Health
@chrisjcrichton

Posted in Apps, Devices, Health, mHealth, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Web, Pharma, Trends & Insights, Usability | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Retailers See Impressive Pinterest Results, But Imagine Them With An iPad App

Posted on April 6, 2012 by

Pinterest Waiting for iPad AppIf being the third social network behind facebook and Twitter hasn’t validated Pinterest in your mind yet, maybe this will.

Home Good retailers such as Wayfair (formerly CSN Stores) found that Pinterest referrals are more likely to make a purchase and spend more on average than visitors from other social channels. Wayfair CEO Niraj Shah says that shoppers referred by Pinterest are more 10% more likely to make a purchase than visitors who arrive from other social networks, including Facebook and Twitter. They’ll also spend 10% more on average.

This amount is even more impressive considering Pinterest referrals spend 70% more than visitors referred from non-social channels, including search. However, an important note is they are less likely to make a purchase compared to those referred by other channels.

At this stage in Pinterest evolution, it is safe to say retailers are finding a way to capitalize on this new social media site. But what’s up next?

Pinterest is already available as an iPhone app and from third party developers in the Android Market (now called Google Play). But where is the Apple iPad app? Tablets are quickly becoming one of the most common ways shoppers browse and buy. Pinterest says an iPad app is on the horizon (no launch date given), but let’s take a moment to imagine the possibilities.

The already visual site combined with the most visual shopping platform will make for one eye tantalizing iPad experience. Larger images, sexy sleek interfaces with flick of the wrist scrolling will certainly create hours of consumer browsing while on the couch (myself included). Since iPad is already seeing surprisingly high conversion rates for most retailers, you can bet with the addition of a Pinterest app the impressive statistics will only spike. Not to be forgotten are other popular tablets such as Kindle Fire. Users and prospective users of the Kindle Fire have made their desire for a Pinterest app very clear, and some have even mentioned refraining from buying Kindle Fire 2 until there is an app. That is some dedication to a social shopping experience.

If you are a brand without a Pinterest gameplan, its time to get on the ball. Should you be one of the brands who have already taken notice of this social media explosion, keep an eye out for that iPad app and make sure your analytics are in order.

- Cheryl Sansonetti, 5th Finger

Posted in Android, Apple, Applications, Apps, iPad, Retail, Uncategorized | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

5th Finger’s Five Tenets to Great Tablet Ux

Posted on February 26, 2012 by

Tenet #1: The NUI is not the GUI

The first tenet that we live by at 5th Finger is that the NUI is not the GUI. You’ve probably heard of the term GUI (Graphical User Interface), which is used to refer to user experiences such as the window, file and desktop interface used on PCs and Macs. The new touch based interface paradigm used on phones and tablets has been labeled the NUI (Natural User Interface) because it uses natural input – your fingers!

When we are onboarding designers and UX folks to work in the touch environment, we must spend a fair amount of time ‘un-training’ their traditional thinking which has been built up over many years of designing for the user with a mouse and keyboard. The design challenge has now become: to create a tactile user experience that is engaging, foolproof and intuitive when the user is using their digits (and their 5th Finger a.k.a their thumb) to prod and poke at a glass screen.

We’ve found it best to start with a clean slate, and ask our UX team to work in a new tool when they start in touch. Help build a new paradigm by building the first iterations of the UX with paper cut outs or even Lego–something that helps them relate the experience back to the tactile, finger-driven reality of tablets.

Tenet #2: Be thoughtful about the location of your main interface elements & navigation…

Traditional UX typically positions key interface elements, such as navigation, based on visual hierarchy. With the phone and tablet, an extra consideration must to be factored in – where the user  can reach with their fingers.

One of the key challenges with this is that folks can hold their tablet in a number of different ways.  In some orientations, some parts of the screen can be a stretch to reach, and certain areas of the screen are especially prone to “Fat Finger Syndrome.”

There is a great post by Josh Clark that talks about this. He suggests two good rules of thumb to use when  placing navigation on Tablet apps and sites:

  1. Position your navigation in the top corners where thumbs gravitate when sitting on the couch, chair or standing up (the middle is too far to stretch one’s thumbs).
  2. Place content advancement, interaction buttons,sliders/nav at the bottom of the screen so users can scrub through content without their hand or arm obscuring the content (which is the issue with a content advancement/scrolling at the top of the screen).

Tenet #3: It’s tactile like the real world so use existing real world metaphors!

business.model.toolbox.adobe.palette

The tactile nature of a tablet can make the introduction of real world UI metaphors much more successful than in the past. Be it a business app with virtual stickynotes that you move around a business canvas, or an Adobe color mixing palette, real world metaphors can be much more effectively leveraged in a tablet experience. Don’t hold back your creativity here as this is a huge opportunity to dramatically boost user engagement.

Tenet #4: Don’t be limited by what others are doing – create a new interaction paradigm

‘Less is more’ is a core rule in good UX. In the new paradigm of the NUI, there are new opportunities to do more with less by leveraging things such as finger gestures and other touch specific opportunities.

My favorite example of a new UI function on tablets, and touch devices in general, is the new approach to triggering a ‘refresh’ of content in a time based information feed. For example, look at the Twitter feed on the iPad. To refresh the feed manually, you can pull down the timeline to get into the ‘future’ of the current timeline, and if you hold it, it will  refresh. From my research, this technique was invented by Loren Brichter of Tweetie fame (read more on how he came up with this new pull to refresh approach).

Tenet #5: Be passionate, and iterate often, to build a tablet UX that customers go out of their way to ‘experience’ not just ‘use’. 

Look at Flipboard and Amazon WindowShop, both great examples of user experiences that you want to use and come back to again and again. Why is that? Undoubtedly, this is the fruit of passionate design teams’ labor.

At 5th Finger, we don’t just work on tablets and other mobile devices because they are new, we work on them because we understand what is possible with these devices.

We can’t go into this using a fixed, one-dimensional use-case driven approach.  We know the importance of getting out and talking to consumers, finding out what they are going to engage with and building an intuitive user experience that they want to embrace, not simply use.

So, there are the 5 tenets we work with when developing a tablet experience. I hope they help stimulate your thinking as you look into your next tablet development effort.

Steen

Posted in HTML5, iPad, iPhone, Retail, Usability | Leave a comment