Thanks to the Bluporter team for compiling this.

We started with a small test campaign to understand the right creative, as this was our first time working with a cosmetics promotion. We chose two malls - Providence Place, Providence, RI and Westfield Topanga, Los Angeles, CA.

We settled on a “how to” video (the mobile version follows) explaining how to use Stila’s Smoky Eye product.

People learned about the videos via signage in the mall. If they downloaded and viewed the video, they were prompted to download an additional offer – we tested a variety of offers and eventually settled on this simple promotion to enourage people to learn more at the local Sephora stores.

The result? Stila saw lift in sales of  +6% (Sephora Topanga) and +17% (Sephora Providence) during the initial period of the campaign (compared to other Sephora stores in malls where no campaign was running).

When we deployed our first Bluetooth Marketing project a few years ago, one of the interesting learnings related to data produced as a by-product of the service. Today a number of our customers use our Bluetooth-based analytics solution to understand how people move through their retail environments, much as they would use web analytics.

Our partners at BlIP systems had been testing solutions to help manage security queue traffic in airports, since 2006 so this was familiar territory for them. Now more airports have been using the system, we can see some of the benefits – this time from Manchester Airport.  Manchester is using the data to understand how passengers move through the airport:

• - how long they spend at check-in
• - how quickly they get through security
• - how do they move around the retail environment

In a more trying economic environment, optimization is more essential. Additional insights ultimately help retailers improve their business as Rick Mernock, Head of Performance, Manchester Airport, points out:

“Making the passenger journey easy is at the heart of our business – and managing and reducing queue lengths is a critical part of our ability to achieve this. As aviation revenues decrease, the delivery of improved business opportunities for the airside retailers is also important to our overall business performance”

We see an impact everywhere that retailers are trying to better understand how people move through a space – what is working, what is not. It’s what online retailers have been doing since they moved online. Isnt it time for the “brick andmo

Roughly 10% of people who walked into the stores had their phones on and set to discover content from Bluetooth-enabled devices. About 30% of people, or 3% of total traffic, who came into the store downloaded content. About 9,300 pieces of content were downloaded from each campaign.

The 30% conversion number is very similar to numbers we see on our network. Although the 10% discoverable number seems a little low – its certainly at odds with the 30% we saw in a recent DMA report.

3% doesnt sound like a huge conversion rate, but its pretty comparable to many online campaigns and if you are paying for performance (per download, per redemption, etc) why wouldnt you try this?

Adage tells the story of recovering malls. Or at least the fact that traffic is stabilizing and perhaps people are starting to return. It may be too late for some of the mall operators, but there may be some winners – advertisers.

Mall Digital Signage Offers Efficient Reach

We’ll let Bill Ketcham of Adspace, explain.

“We are a mass medium. We reach 100 million people every month”

“We’re very efficient if you compare us to TV, a quarter to a fifth of the cost, on a CPM basis.”

Adspace, which has a network of 1,400 digital billboards in malls nationwide, reported a 71% increase in first-quarter sales.

Efficient Reach & Measurement Using AzureMayan’s Mall Network

AzureMayan has been deploying Proximity marketing networks and can now reach an estimated 10m people per month*. From a reach perspective, we are doing better.

But what mobile allows, which out-of-home signage (digital or otherwise) does not, is measurement. We track actions such as downloads, repeat visits and coupon redemption’s, for example. So we play nice with signage.

At 10m uniques per month, with rates of $1 per action or lower, we are hitting effective CPMs comparable to online.

And we think you will agree, thats good for advertisers.

* How can we say this? 20 malls with an average of 1 m visits per month. About 50% of phones are reachable via Bluetooth (and more are reachable when we add SMS and URLs to signage). So conservatively, we can reach 20*1*.5 = 10m per month.

There is more on the user experience for campaign managers and system administrators on the www.azuremayan.com site.

Recently, a few folks have spoken out against Bluetooth Marketing, in one case against T-Mobile’s instore application.And then more generally on why Bluetooth Marketing might be dead. This dialog has been happening for a while and its becoming more common, as new organizations evaluate mobile in general and Bluetooth Proximity marketing, in particular.

One of the benefits? We are seeing more detailed guidelines and suggestions about DOs and DONTs. This can only help to ensure that advertisers are encouraged to take actions that work in their interest AND in the interests of their customers.

So where do we stand?

Lets take a look at some of the charges

a. Bluetooth Markeitng is unsolicited SPAM – there seems to be agreement that most people have Bluetooth turned off, so its not clear who is getting these unsolicited messages. But lets try to understand this further. Assuming I do have Bluetooth on and I am not paying attention, I would receive a request to receive a file – if I dont respond, this just disappears (unlike SMS or e-mail which remains in my inbox). We discuss this Bluetooth SPAM in more detail in a previous post.

b. FREE doesnt matter – it seems that people are less sensitive to using one more SMS from their plan or using some of my data quota. But, there are some who really detest the idea that they pay for a message. This may change as we see more all-you-can-eat plans, but for now, there are simply some people who would prefer the free option, so why not make it available?

c. Bluetooth is difficult to use - I have watched a few people struggle to find Bluetooth settings, but this seems to be a small minority and usually has more to do with specific phone menu weirdness. There are certainly enough people who are using headsets, car kits etc so its a little like saying, people at a WiFi Hotspot might be confused. There are certainly going to be some, but again, its a small group.

d. There is no opt-out - in most current campaigns, opting out means leaving Bluetooth off, as we mentioned previously. However, nothing is transferred without permission – if you do receive a message, it is one requesting permission. But this doesnt satisfy some people and that’s understandable. Ideally everyone feels like they have complete control over what they receive on their phone, so we can do better. And we are working to more registration options which would enable opt-in/out control. 

Its clear that in each of these situations there are a minority who will not have a satisfying experience. Is it a negative experience? It depends. There is a lot we can do to address these concerns – it tends to be less about OR and more about AND.

That is, we need to do a little more to address shortcomings of the experience for these groups of people by adding or changing some elements. For example, if FREE doesnt matter, then offer SMS and URLs, too. If registration is an option, add an additional step before the phone is contacted (like placing it against a sign or POS device – like near-field payment devices). 

Some ideas

a. provide more than one option to get content - combine Bluetooth with SMS and a mobile URL. Depending on the plan, as an advertiser or agency you would pay based on usage for SMS and the URL makes sense for other reasons, not the least of which is local and mobile SEO.

b. use more explicit opt-in – or example, frequent visitors to a mall or retailer can register and unregister their phones simply by holding them near to a screen which will give them the option to register or unregister. We have showed this already and feel like this addresses many or the registration concerns.  We expect interest to continue to grow, but this is a different type of investment to most of the Bluetooth campaigns running today – its closer to a loyalty card program than a one-time contact. We look at some Bluetooth opt-in and registration options in a previous post.

Bluetooth Marketing doesnt need to be a solution for all mobile proximity marketing -  it just needs to be used in the correct situations – isnt this true of all tools?

But putting the word “marketing” or “coupons” alongside Bluetooth, makes some people nervous. Despite a number of success case that we and other service providers can point to, there are still a number of concerns that need to be addressed. A recent post goes a long way to helping to begin sorting through fact from fiction surrounding Bluetooth Marketing – by Mark Brill who Chairman of the Direct Marketing Association Mobile Marketing Council. The article has generated some good, thoughtful, response such as this one from Mobile Marketing Watch.

So we thought is was a good time to share some of our experiences approaching these issue.

Opting In & Opting Out

Lets assume I send a message to anyone standing within a define zone or distance from one of our AzureMayan hotspots. What happens? Well, some people will experience something similar to receiving a new SMS or e-mail message. These people would have Bluetooth turned on and visible and settings that result in a audio or vibrating notification when receiving a Bluetooth message. For many of these people, they might not be paying attention or know that an offer is available. They would receive a message but in the tests we have done, the Bluetooth message disappears if there is not response.

We dont pair devices (its too much work for customers). We do keep track of their responses, though. So for example, if someone has Bluetooth turned on and visible and they receive a message, they get to choose whether or not they want to receive the message. If they say NO, we remember this response and dont send them messages again. Or more specifically, we encourage out clients to do this – remove people from the list and like e-mail you can decide if and how you would like to try opt them in again.

For most people however, they dont leave Bluetooth on (Mr Brill says in his post that 30% might have Bluetooth turned on, which seems about correct although it is not something we have measured recently) and so they need to see signage to be prompted to action. We have observed people doing this and see this in our campaigns – when we add signage, opt in rates more than double, in part because people simply turn on the Bluetooth to receive the content.

The previous section described how most service providers are deploying Bluetooth Proximity marketing. We offer this, too. But we are moving towards multiple types of opt-in models. How do we do this?

Online Registration

We know we can do better delivering relevant messages. For example, we see many people who want to download a special offer but they dont act on it, because its not what they were hoping for. How can we do better?

Well, in the above example we have limited context. We know where people are (a mall, a stadium, an airport) but we dont know much else about them. If we can get some more information about who they are, we can send them better offers.

To do this, we tie into existing systems such as online profiles, loyalty cards or point of sale systems. All of these systems will tell us more about the user and make it easier to target. Also, if we see repeat behavior such as a person who tends to spend more time in electronics, versus a person who is routinely picking up medication, we can do even more to make offers, much like we see in some online commerce environments.

In practice, this means that customers needs to register their phones as a kiosk or point of sale, but this isnt too different from signing up for a store loyalty card or registering for an online account.  Most important, we think this give customers more control and more relevant messages.

New Rules

We are excited about the ongoing evolution and refinement of “rules of engagement” for proximity marketing. We like our clients to be informed because it makes it easier to work together to do the best thing for them and their customers.  We like what the DMA has done with their guidelines and will be reviewing and refining our own guidelines in response.

The simple answer is: most phones.

But its more complicated than that. So we’ll explain what percentage of phones can be used for Proximity Marketing and then what we can do to include the others. 

Different screens and media playback options

Its essential that any Bluetooth solution support multiple versions of a piece of content. Most of our campaigns make use of video and images and we use tools to help reformat this content to support as many phones as possible. When the phones are detected, the type of phone is reported and the appropriate content is sent to the phone. 

Without this, many phones might receive content, but it would not be viewable. So this should be a key criteria when picking a solution provider. 

Can the phone receive content via Bluetooth? 

If we look at mobile phone sales in the US, reports at the end of 2008, showed the following (via IntoMobile.)

On the surface, this suggests that at at least 75% of phones will work. We know that within the 14.4% is the iPhone and although the iPhone has Bluetooth, it does not accept files via Bluetooth (at least not if you dont want to void the warranty). A similar issue exists for some of the RIM devices (10.6%).

But it more complicated than this because in the US, Verizon has made a point of disabling or limiting Bluetooth capabilities on some phones.  In the past, this prompted some of their customers to sue, so it seems that they have been relaxing their previously hard stance.  Today, Verizon provides details about what handsets and smartphones have Bluetooth capability (and what specific type of capabilities – headsets, file transfer, etc). The important “profile” is the ability to trasfer files and we can see from Verizon’s data that most of their Motorola, LG support this profile as do many of the smartphones. 

So assuming Verizon has about 30% marketshare and about half their phones are not compatible, we have to say conservatively that in the US market, 60% of phones will work with Bluetooth Proximity Marketing. 

Since we want to reach as many people as possible, this seems bad. What do we do about the smartphones, particularly the popular ones like the iPhone and Blackberry?

For iPhones: Make Offers Available Using WiFi

This works for other phones that have WiFi, too, but from the traffic we see, it looks like mostly Apple devices (iPhone and iPod Touch) that tend to connect to the WiFi networks. 

We typically deploy WiFi networks (or use an existing WiFi network) as part of our infrastructure. So we use WiFi to provide another way to get to offers, at little or no additional cost to the Bluetooth Solution. This can be achieve using:

• splash page  - i.e. the first page people see when they connect to the network
• message bar - Meraki has a wonderful mesh networking solution and we take advantage of their tools (such as their message bar) to build in links to the current offers and content. 
• offer URLs – once people are online, we can simply point them to a URL which contains current offers. Simple. 

URLs and Shortcode let Blackberry users play too

In all cases, we see improved awareness and better response rates, when we include signage to explain to people that content is available. For the most part this is static signage, of the type shown below. But increasingly our partners are looking at digital signage, which opens up even more opportunities to refine and change approaches to promoting awareness of mobile content at the location. 

Since we have the signage, why not include URLs and Shortcode options? We expect this to be a more common approach, letting people decide how they would like to receive content.

Today people run a Bluetooth Proximity Marketing campaign OR a shortcode text campaign. But we know that a combination of approaches will yield higher response rates, since the different approaches each have their own advantages for reaching mobile devices.  

Bluetooth has the advantages of being free to end users and simply requires turning on Bluetooth and accepting a message  (versus typing a message or URL to get to the same thing). But for phones that dont play nice with Bluetooth, URLs and Text messages provide an ideal alternative.

His findings are consistent with ours – often its not HQ driving adoption, but the local franchisees or folks on the frontline who are willing to try and learn, as we found with Hard Rock”s Bob Boemer, who warmed to the idea of mobile coupons and then put his campaign into action.  

Mickey outlines a few areas of education, which we’d like to begin addressing – we know we need to do a better job, so we’ll start here. 

First is the lack of education among retailers.

We increasingly address this question upfront. We deal in price per download, for example so we can compare the cost of getting people into the store using paper coupons vs mobile. This doesnt always work as we found with at least one client – the numbers simply didnt make sense for their specific case.  

But we do go beyond this valuing things like: opt-in value, detailed analytics (such as new versus returning visitors, or paths through a store), integration with point of sale data and perhaps the most overlooked – the ability to quickly test what is working. We can change creative at any time and A/B test different creative options, meaning we can find messages that work, sooner and avoid needless wast for offers that dont resonate. 

Second is the need to educate consumers.

This is hard because there are still a number of ways to deliver coupons – SMS, mobile web, Bluetooth, etc. And then redeeming them is done in different ways. We find that on location, signage helps and digital signage may help more.  Very often people in crowds will talk to each other – we have seen this first hand quite  few times at densely packed locations such as popular malls. So events seem to work well too, as word spreads. But it needs to be simpler still – Japan is leading the way with ever simpler ways to interact with 2D barcodes or various POS readers. But a lot of this is enabled by software loaded onto the phone by the carriers their. So we still have lots of work to do here and we are working to solutions that don’t require customers to do less and less. 

Next is the inadequacy of point-of-sale systems to redeem mobile coupons.

We hear you, Mickey. And we are trying to find ways to reduce costs of integration. Hopefully we’ll be able to show off our progress with some customers, soon. 

Finally, there is the tracking issue.

As above, there are approaches that make this possible, but the integration needs to happen. So again, we hope to show off some approaches, soon. 

Sorry to be vague on the last issues, but we are working on some interesting solutions. And we’re just not ready to share, yet.  At least we tried to answer some of the questions.