The affordability and accessibility of mobile devices means mobile marketing plays a major role in the modern marketing environment. The question is whether mobile marketing is the next marketing Utopia or the Dystopia many digital adverting platforms have proven to be. Truthfully, I don’t know the answer, but I would like to examine a case study of a mobile marketing campaign that has worked and extract some insight out of it.
Ace Hardware – USA
Ace Hardware is a traditional American local maintenance and hardware store. During the holiday season of 2009 Ace decided to take advantage of mobile marketing to differentiate themselves from their competitors and drive their holiday season promotions.
Objectives
Their media and creative strategy had 4 clear offerings:
- 20% Off Bag Sales – Consumers received 20% off every item in their shopping bag
- Tis The Season – Holiday ramp up for decorations, ladders, etc.
- After Thanksgiving Sale – Storewide sale after Thanksgiving
- Your Holiday Helpful Place – In-store drive to position Ace as the Holiday place.
In addition, Ace drove users to a branded landing page that contained a range of content including in-store sale information, store locator, branded videos and an SMS sign-up page for users to learn more about their future promotions.
Implementation
To achieve these objectives Ace Hardware’s mobile advertising partner, Microsoft Mobile Advertising created a targeted media solution that targeted users through behavioral targeting and display media across mobile portals like Verizon Deck and Windows Live Mobile. In addition Ace hardware ran high impact media blitzes over two six-day time periods as well as behavioral targeted ads targeted at home improvement enthusiasts on the following websites:
- MSN Hotmail
- MSN Weather
- Verizon News
- Verizon Weather
- Windows Live mail targeted M35-54 and M25-54
All media drove users to the Ace Hardware mobile web site to drive further engagement.
Results
Brand Awareness – The mobile campaign developed by Microsoft Mobile Advertising drove a 60% lift in unaided brand awareness among A35-54 and reached 101% lift among A25-54.
Store Traffic – Ace Hardware experienced an 8% increase in-store traffic among the primary target audience A35-54 who have seen the mobile ads.
Click Through Rate – CTR rose as high as 11% in some of the campaign placements through the utilization of a broad reach and on-deck media strategy.
Insight
This campaign is very straightforward. I believe Ace hardware understands their target audience and were able to get through to them in a very straightforward manner with clear calls to action. Ace Hardware also understood the importance of targeting user behavior. Digital marketing tools have an advantage in this regard. It makes logical sense that a few targeted ads will be more efficient than 1000’s of randomly placed ads. When creating your mobile campaign, speak to your service provider about this, it is an effortless win.
Ace hardware also provided value to the customer through genuine deals and enhancing the customer experience by feeding them relevant information. The success of this campaign originated in Ace hardware’s outstanding understanding of their customer and was amplified by partnering with a competent service provider like Microsoft Mobile Advertising.
To read the full case study, click here
Read more posts by Ettienne Mostert
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