Digital Marketing and Web Strategy by Bob Hazlett | One Half Amazing!

Two cool new ways that companies are beginning to integrate mobile into multi-channel campaigns.

Huggies introduced a training pants mobile campaign designed to help parents potty train their kids. The adult can enter a SMS code found on Huggies Pull-Ups packaging and the service will arrange a congratulatory call for the child with a character from the movie Cars or Cinderella.

I can just picture the same service congratulating husbands for finally putting down the seat with a call from John Madden, Chuck Norris or John Travolta.

Coke also initiated a program in Singapore which labeled cans with QR Codes that could then access limited edition content, media and games from EA such as Tetris, The Sims and FIFA 09.  The technology could also push fresh content to the user once they had initiated the service.

Are you currently using mobile in your campaigns? If so, in what ways and what have your results been?

Searching the App Store can be less than fruitful sometimes.  Check out uQuery, the search engine that indexes all the apps for the iPhone.

The LA Times is reporting that augmented reality apps will finally be a reality in September with the release of iPhone OS 3.1.

Augmented reality software works to overlay useful info onto a real-world view using a mobile device.  Imagine the amazing apps that commercial ventures could create with the augmented reality technology like the videos show below.  You could walk into your favorite store, search for the products you’re looking for and potentially have information, coupons and offers pushed to you at the exact point when you’re ready to make a purchase decision. Both sides would benefit – stores would have to employee less people and customers would have a richer experience.

Imagine going to an outdoor concert, finding all the folks you know attending that same event and even exploring information about the bands and songs going on at that exact moment.  The list is endless.  Developers and marketers should be salivating like a wild dog over the potential.

There are tons of great webapps out there today that can help you do one thing really well.  Here are a few of my favorites.

1. Prezi – move beyond the standard linear presentation and give your next deck a stunning zooming effect.  Create maps of texts, images, videos, PDFs and drawings. Prezi is still in private beta, but they have a test tool you can kick the tires with.
2. Fliggo – is a platform solution for creating your own video website. Whether it’s a video blog, a YouTube-like community or a private site for your company or family, Fliggo can be as much or as little as you’d like.
3. FeedWeaver - combine multiple RSS feeds into one. Feedweaver allows you to create, filter and mashup personalized RSS feeds similar to Yahoo Pipes, but without the learning curve.
4. Qipit - copy and share notes using your mobile phone.  Capture whiteboards or handwritten notes with your camera and they are converted into a PDF form.
5. Pixlr – online image editor built in flash similar to Photoshop Elements.
6. Drop.io – easily share images, video, audio, documents and other digital content using a simple and private interface.

What is your favorite new webapp?  Login to the comments with your Facebook account below and let me know.

In case you were too busy giving birth to 8 kids this week, here are some of the highlights you missed.

Advertisers are mashing online and offline events.  This week Facebook partnered with AT&T to stream a live Lil’ Wayne concert and Sunday Pepsi is hosting and online Super Bowl Party.  {NOTE: I wonder how you could take your event or product and engage people who aren’t physically there?}

Razorfish came out with a report that ties consumer social media activity to purchase behavior. They determined that the more deeply engaged someone is with social media, the more likely they are to make a purchase.  Glad to have the data to back up our assumptions.

Rumors of the GDrive surfaced

Web Site and Social Media metrics you should monitor

Jiffy Lube is using mobile marketing to bring in 50% new households

Originally posted January 19, 2009

Developing your web site for mobile devices can be confusing.  What screen size should you optimize for? What device is the most popular?  What content do you keep in, what do you remove?  There are many decisions to make, but allow me to make one suggestion. Save yourself some heartache and instead of using a separate domain such as a .mobi version, use a subdomain such as m.yourdomain.com or www.yourdomain.com/mobile. Using a subdomain keeps your brand strong, reduces customer confusion and better optimizes your site for search engines.

Additional Resources:

Mobile Plugins for WordPress – easily make your site viewable on mobile devices.Setting up a Google Analytics filter to track mobile visitors to your site
Designing for the Mobile Web