In our last article we discussed how Location Based Marketing can provide businesses with a tremendous marketing advantage.  We also saw how important it was for a business to be able to gather research about the wants and needs of their customer base.

The speed of Technology

In this article we will look at the way that smart businesses are using the latest technology to continue to gather the important market research without burning out those same customers.

It is one thing to interact with your customer base through social media platforms such as Facebook and Twitter.   In most cases the purpose of using social media is to build a loyal and deep relationship with the customer base.

Although it is possible to draw inferences from the social media conversations, it is at times better to simply use a different avenue to get your market research quickly and accurately.

Wireless Application Protocol (WAP)
This is a basic technical standard for accessing information over a wireless network. This technology works particularly well for sending out surveys which people can fill out quickly.  An added benefit is the ability for the business to include logos and links to video content specifically formatted for mobile phones.

Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS)
This is a similar technology as WAP in that it provides a way to send messages that include multimedia content.  However, this technology is especially useful for obtaining a quick response to a specific inquiry.

For example, there are times a business may have mailed out or placed an advertisement and wondered if anyone had received the promotion or seen the ad.  Using this technology the business could include a picture of the promotion in the message and get a quick response back whether or not the intended audience had seen anything.

Near Filed Communication (NFC)
Many folks have heard of NFC as a mobile money solution.  However, it is possible to use this technology for much more including rewarding visitors and doing market research.  One way that this technology is currently being used is at trade shows and events.

Interested visitors to a booth can wipe their NFC enabled phones thereby unlocking videos and other information about the business.  Then,  after accessing the information the visitor can give the information a thumbs up or down just like a Facebook like button. In this way a business can evaluate the value potential customers find in their materials.

Use Mobile Coupons to Reward
Mobile coupons are a great way to reward customers after they have filled out a survey.  Too many businesses make the mistake of asking customers to take time to answer questions without compensating them for their time.

When this occurs too frequently, customers begin to ignore or worse, they opt-out of any further communications.   However, when a customer is rewarded promptly for their efforts it encourages them to continue to support the organization going forward.

The great thing about using mobile coupons is that the customer does not have to print them out to use them.  This is a rather straight forward mobile app that can easily be designed and implemented.

We have only begun to scratch the surface of mobile technologies that are changing the way businesses discover information about their customers.  The great news is that much of this technology is easily accessible to the average business without the costs and technological barriers of the past.

As and industry leader, Gomobile Solutions is committed to staying on top of the latest mobile marketing technology in order to help businesses prosper, and provide their customers with an exceptional level of service.