. . . developed for Liberty Tax Service^®, an AdGeo franchise customer with almost 4,000 retail tax preparation locations in the United States and Canada. This new app engages customers with a Lady Liberty Arcade game, provides daily tax tips, maps to the closest Liberty Tax location based on the caller’s location, and connects callers to that location with the push of a button. To see how it works, download the free app from the iTunes store or the Android Market. 

Fall means back to school, cooler weather, and planning for next year’s marketing budget. But keeping up with new marketing technology trends and tools can be a challenge. As you begin your 2012 planning, here are four important trends to keep in mind.

Mobile applications are outpacing online advertising.
Have you received strong responses from online advertising? That may begin to change soon. A recent study found that mobile advertising is more effective than digital advertising, especially in verticals like retail, technology, and entertainment. Why? Because people are doing more and more web surfing via smartphones and tablets. In fact, Gartner is forecasting that global mobile advertising revenue will double this year compared with last year. Mobile applications and advertising campaigns can be much more engaging than static online ads.

There’s a good case for building a mobile version of your web site. 
The growth of web surfing via mobile device has another implication ... your current web site may not cut it. This is especially true if you plan to use QR codes in your advertising. Most web sites were not designed to be accessed from a smartphone, and while the quality of web surfing via smartphones continues to increase, navigating a traditional web site with a smartphone can still be a frustrating experience. When using QR codes to engage a mobile audience, be sure to have a clear expectation of what your customer will be able to do on the web site (i.e. download a coupon or complete a quick survey), and make sure the site you link to is mobile-friendly.

Be aware of CTIA standards and compliance requirements for mobile campaigns.
If you plan to incorporate SMS text or multi-media campaigns next year to engage your mobile audience, you should know that the CTIA (Cellular Telephone Industry Association) and the MMA (Mobile Marketing Association) have certain standards for marketers to follow when designing and implementing these campaigns. This year the CTIA began a new ongoing compliance monitoring effort to identify problems and rank violations with severity codes, including appropriate consequences and penalties. If you need help in maintaining compliance, let us know. We stay abreast of these standards and have helped several of our customers navigate the always-changing waters of compliance.

Measure your success.
Finally, regardless of whether your marketing plans call for mobile, print, or online tactics, be sure to include a method for measuring results. This will help you know which ads, offers, and campaigns are generating the most bang for the buck. Some companies use different toll-free numbers to track responses for different campaigns. Others use geo-coded reports to analyze results. There are several ways to effectively track marketing results, so we can help recommend the best approach to ultimately help you achieve more leads at a lower cost.

-- Charles Austin, AdGeo, cwaustin@adgeo.com or 314-336-3202.

Mobile shoppers may be a minority among consumers today, but they won’t stay that way. As more and more smartphone manufacturers and payment giants develop mobile payment applications, the number of consumers making purchases over their smartphones can only increase.

Certainly, smartphone users that have strong Internet browsing capabilities can use their mobile devices to surf the Internet, compare prices, and make payments, just as they would on a computer. But, what if they could make payments from their phone rather than swiping a credit or debit card? 

That’s what NFC, or Near Field Communication, makes possible. NFC is perhaps the most widely-used mobile payment platform today. It allows data to be transferred between two devices (i.e. a smartphone and a merchant payment device) over a short distance, either through a tap or a wave. NFC technology is being built into the next generation of smartphones. Users just tap or wave their phone at the point of sale to make a purchase. 

Of course, in order for this to work, banks and credit card companies have to be prepared to process payments in this manner, and they are doing just that. Visa, MasterCard, and American Express have all announced NFC initiatives. Even Google is embracing NFC technology with its forthcoming “Google Wallet,” an Android application that allows users to store virtual versions of credit and debit cards right in their phones, and tap their phones to make purchases. 

NFC isn’t the only technology that can process payments through smartphones. Other startup companies are working on enabling mobile payments using different technologies.