Mobile: The Foundation of Today's Connected Media ™
Posted on by Al MooreIf you ask your employees to define “marketing,” you’re likely to get a different answer from each of them. That’s because marketing touches on both the creative and the technical aspects of every business. Organizations must combine their “left brain” intuition for an ad message with the “right brain” evaluation of the many mediums, processes, and technologies available to deliver it.
Today’s challenge is that there are more of those mediums, processes, and technologies than ever before. But that’s also the good news, because more marketing options means more sales opportunity. The key is getting your various marketing vehicles working together. And that’s where mobile comes in. More than just another cool marketing fad, mobile tools are the foundation of a concept we like to call Connected Media™. They’re like a marketing glue, providing a critical link between traditional marketing vehicles (like flyers and billboards) with their websites and virtual brands.
So what does Connected Media do, exactly?
Simply put, Connected Media like mobile websites and QR codes reduce the time it takes your prospects to become your customers. By providing a conduit between the “real” and “virtual” worlds, Connected Media invites a passive viewer of your messages to get more information and become an active consumer of your brand. It also deepens your customers’ loyalty: by seeing your message in multiple places, and engaging with your brand actively and on their terms, viewers enjoy an immersive experience with your brand. The brand becomes a part of their lives.
Connected Media also embodies the idea that from a simple mobile landing page (e.g. after someone has scanned a QR code) you can engage and communicate with visitors in a number of ways: phone, email, SMS, GPS, social media, video, text, etc. Tools like Qfuse allow you to leverage connected media effectively by centralizing all of your communications channels into one cohesive mobile unit under your brand. That’s pretty powerful!
What’s Next for Connected Media?
QR codes and optimized mobile websites are today’s simplest and most widely-used connected media technologies, but exciting new technologies are emerging. Near Field Communication, for example, creates new connectivity between smartphones and everyday objects. See an item you like in a store? Your phone can become your “virtual wallet.” See an interesting movie poster? Touch it with your smartphone to watch a trailer video. Emerging technologies like this hold many new possibilities for fusing media and engaging with target audiences; we’re keeping a close eye on them as we expand the Connected Media space.
