STORES Magazine - November 2008 - (Page 40)

WORTH WATCHING / MARKETING TECHNOLOGY Sales on the Line MMS technology greatly expands capabilities of in-store messaging BY JANET GROEBER pay 20 cents per message sent. “This is important because we want mobile messaging to be available to brands and retailers of any size, not just those with large marketing budgets,” he says. MMS to customer’s phone Marketers compose their messages using Cellyspace’s online MMS Composer tool. In a typical implementation, marketers tag a custom Cellyspace keyword and shortcode on a product, its packaging or corresponding POP/POS display. As customers consider purchasing that item, they opt-in to receive the brand’s message by texting the keyword to the short code. MMS is convenient for shoppers because messages are delivered to their phone’s inbox in the same, familiar way as SMS text messages; they don’t need to download any software. The difference in capabilities between MMS and SMS technology “is quite dramatic,” Eicher says. MMS supports a wide range of media content and up to 4,000 text characters in a single message. By comparison, it would take more than 25 160-character SMS messages to match just the text capability of one Cellyspace MMS message, and “we expect the amount of content and the size of an MMS to increase several-fold in the next few years as handsets are offered with more memory and faster connections,” he says. Up to 75 percent of mobile phones are now MMS-enabled, Eicher says. StORES WWW.STORES.ORG M obile phone users can receive sports scores, weather updates or stock prices zapped to their hand-helds. They also can tap into mobile sites for recipe ingredients or housekeeping hints. Now, cell phone customers can do something more in-store thanks to Boston-based Skycore, developers of Cellyspace.com. Cellyspace offers a point-of-purchase-to-multimedia-messaging-service solution that allows retailers and brands to create and transmit coupons, promotional offers and product reviews to shoppers as they stroll the aisles. Not only does Cellyspace’s solution enable marketers to expand the reach of traditional digital signage and POP/POS displays, but MMS messaging can include images, audio and video, which offer a wider array of marketing opportunities than SMS (text) messaging. And with no infrastructure or special technical knowledge required, the Cellyspace application is ideal for any size retailer or any product category where more information could be critical to closing the sale, says Skycore president Rich Eicher. Customization is made affordable, he 40 STORES / NOVEMBER 2008 says, because Cellyspace’s MMS application is a do-it-yourself platform that doesn’t require contracts, minimums or registration fees. “The DIY platform is central to our goal of empowering users with the ability to create, launch and manage campaigns real time on the web, rather than having to rely on a managed-service provider or vendor to implement or modify offers,” Eicher says. Along with the immediate access a DIY platform provides, “it also keeps costs lower and enables us to offer free starter trial accounts.” Retail or brand marketers currently “We want mobile messaging to be available to brands and retailers of any size, not just those with large marketing budgets.” — Rich Eicher, Skycore http://www.Cellyspace.com http://WWW.STORES.ORG

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of STORES Magazine - November 2008

STORES Magazine - November 2008 Contents Executive Editor's Page President's Page Every Cup Counts What Shoppers Think Less Park Time, More Shop Time 10 Things You May Have Missed Numbers Worth Counting Full Price/Markdown Retail People Retail Held Captive First Look Concept2Watch Marketing Technology Custom Software PCI Compliance Data Security Arts Update Newsbeat LP Issues: Q&A Cover Story Surveillance Systems Online Fraud Industry Perspective LOEB Retail Letter Point of View NRF News Retail Crossword Retail Industry Calendar Last Laugh

STORES Magazine - November 2008

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