Yesterday I found myself sitting at home, contemplating life’s big problems. No, not how to find happiness or balance work and family or reach spiritual enlightenment. No, those are trivial dalliances. Yesterday I was contemplating how I was going to get over this super-duper combination of sinus infection and bronchitis that I’m currently suffering from while simultaneously finding the time and energy to create the most fantastic duck costume ever…by Friday. (And you thought your life was hard.)

Of course the best way to do this would be to

1. Go to a Doc in the Box and be diagnosed with near-death syndrome.
2. Visit a pharmacy and pick up my prescribed cocktail of antibiotics and cough syrup to be taken twice a day for four days.
3. Awake from my haze just in time to rent a giant duck suit from a costume shop so I can waddle my way to a Halloween party.

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The key to a good mobile campaign is to offer the user something that they can only get through mobile. Whether that be a coupon or an exclusive alert, the user should feel like they gained something of value.

The reason I bring this up is because I received another text message from the Barack Obama campaign yesterday evening (in fact, it was 6:53pm ET, which is a little late in my mind, but I’ll save that discussion for another day).

Here’s the value that the message offered:

Barack will announce his
VP candidate choice
through txt msg between
now & the Conv. Tell
everyone to text VP to
62262 to be the first to
know! Please forward.

That seemed pretty cool and valuable to me. The Obama campaign is giving its opted-in users something that no one else will get, or at least it’s giving them something before everyone else will get it: information. (more…)

Hello everyone! Hope you enjoyed the beautiful weather yesterday. I know I did, and my skin can prove it. It’s as red as salmonella-contaminated tomato.

I haven’t caught up on my mobile marketing research yet, so instead of informing you of the latest mobile news, I thought I share with you two small tidbits from Miss Mobile’s personal life. (more…)

For seven years, I didn’t have a landline phone. As they say in the mobile industry, I had cut the cord. My cell phone and I were free to roam (and believe me, it roamed constantly) across the country. Those were the most telemarketing-free years of my life. Never did I receive a call from a stranger who mispronounced my name and then had the audacity to ask for money. My email may have been full of unwanted solicitations, but my mobile was not.

Until recently. Ladies, gentlemen, I have received text message SPAM. (more…)

Miss Mobile here. I was just reading that Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) said it would be the national coordinator for a “cell phone alert system,” which would, I’m guessing, send mobile alerts to warn people of natural and man-made disasters. I say “I’m guessing” because the article wasn’t very clear about what the system would actually do. (more…)

For each Ask The Expert column, we consult a different industry expert, depending on the nature of the question. Today’s expert is Dale Gonzalez, Air2Web’s CTO. Have a question for the Expert or want to submit someone to be the Expert? Submit it here.

Q: What is a double opt-in? When is it necessary to use? As a content provider, what do I have to do to create it?

A: Great question. I’ll answer it in parts. What is a double opt-in? A double opt-in is a process that ensures that a user wants to participate in your mobile campaign. Usually this is done through text messaging, but it could also be initiated through other channels. Here’s the basic idea… (more…)