Mobile Marketing

American Eagle’s latest campaign for its aerie label is a great example of using mobile to drive traffic to the brand’s social presence. To celebrate reaching 1 million “Likes” on Facebook, aerie sent a text message with a free shipping offer to encourage even more consumers to become fans of the brand on Facebook.

The dynamic mobile landscape offers many opportunities, but it will take a smart retailer to cut through the noise, capture consumers’ attention and drive action. Branding through excellent ad experiences, connecting consumers to deals, and targeting critical ad times will enable retailers to place themselves where the consumer is already browsing and keep their brand relevant.

Innovations in technology are transforming retail marketing strategies. One of the most promising developments is proximity marketing, an approach that leverages location-aware technologies to drive return on investment and garner priceless consumer insights through the secure broadcast of rich media marketing messages.

During July and August, the U.S. Postal Service is offering an up-front 2 percent discount on Standard Mail and First-Class Mail letters, flats and cards (presort and automation) that include a two-dimensional barcode or print/mobile technology that can be read or scanned by a mobile device. When scanned, the technology must activate a link directly to either a mobile-optimized web page that allows the mail recipient to purchase a product or service or to a mobile-optimized and customized web page uniquely tailored to the mail recipient and accessible by a personalized URL.

From iPads and mobile apps to social networking and location-based marketing, retailers are betting on technology and trying to be "liked" to sell more stuff. Sears emphasized technology at its annual shareholder meeting in Hoffman Estates, Ill.  last week. It trotted out a sales associate from a nearby store to demonstrate how tablets are used to connect with customers and extend the relationship digitally after they leave the store.

The retail marketer's toolbox is filling up with new platforms, gadgets and slick technology faster than you can say "pin it." Over the last year, we've seen social and mobile grow in importance for retailers, leading to lots of questions, but also lots of room for creativity. And since May is Marketing Month, we wanted to get a chief marketing officer's perspective on where this social and mobile wave is taking us. We turned to Jay Dunn, chief marketing officer for Bare Necessities, to find out.

Savvy retailers today understand the personal connection people have with their mobile devices, smartphones and tablets. Having a mobile presence is one of the best ways to reach prospects and customers immediately with the information they need to make buying decisions. The following three tips will help guide you through the mobile development process, pointing out strategies for success and common pitfalls to avoid.

Innovations such as Google's Project Glass suggest there will come a time when we’ll no longer converse with each other, but instead exchange data like a bunch of GPS-enabled cyborgs. While that may not be quite how it plays out, a highly connected future is definitely on its way. Data already shows that more than one-third of American teens own an iPhone. It’s easy to see what life will look like for the next generation of consumers, but will marketers be prepared? That will largely depend on whether they’ve considered these five post-mobile trends.

Even as big-box stores and major retail chains scramble to polish up their app and mobile web strategies, the overwhelming majority of small and medium-sized specialty retailers appear to be off the mobile grid. E-commerce solutions provider Briteskies did its own survey of 75 online retailers in the small-to-medium specialty segment across multiple categories and found that only 17 percent, or 13 of the 75, have a mobile-optimized site.

Wrapp, a social gifting service backed by Greylock Partners and Atomico, is crossing the pond with the U.S. launch of its mobile gift card and retail app. Wrapp, which was available previously only in the U.K., Norway, Sweden and Japan, is launching today with a number of U.S. retailers including Fab, Gap, H&M, Sephora, Wayfair and others.