Telecom Lead America: Mobile major AT&T is extending
mobile barcode services to its small enterprise customers.
Three out of five small enterprises are planning to
increase their investments in mobile marketing in 2012, according to a recent
AT&T mobile marketing survey.
AT&T Mobile Barcode Services enables small businesses
to benefit by using everything from business cards to storefronts and products
with rich, scannable marketing content. The free AT&T Code Scanner mobile
application for both consumers and businesses uses smartphone cameras to scan
barcodes.
“Mobile marketing has been a driving force for small
business success, and with the explosion of smartphone use, it is more
important now than ever for small businesses to actively engage consumers and
gain market share by using a variety of mobile platforms,” said Chris
Hill, vice president, Advanced Mobility Solutions, AT&T Business and Home
Solutions.
AT&T estimates that 44 million people have a scanner
app on their mobile device. Of those 44 million, 20 million are active users,
meaning they scan from 1-20+ times per month.
More than a third of respondents in the AT&T mobile
marketing survey have featured mobile barcodes in their marketing materials,
with 60 percent of those having found barcodes to be very or somewhat
effective.
AT&T’s Code Management Platform allows small
businesses to create mobile and manage the associated content.
Small businesses can use customized, pre-made templates
within the Platform to easily create mobile-optimized web landing pages, which
appear on-screen when consumers scan a barcode.
Small businesses can use the Platform’s reporting tools
to gauge the effectiveness of any given mobile marketing campaign. And if users
grant permission, businesses can receive demographic and location data from the
users’ scans.
Flexible AT&T Code Management Platform allows
companies to keep content fresh by changing the results of scanning a barcode
without replacing the physical codes.
AT&T’s mobile marketing portfolio includes AT&T
Messaging Toolkit and AT&T Mobile Web. AT&T Messaging Toolkit allows
users to create multi-channel campaigns, including voice broadcasts, social
media, text messaging and more.
Since the beginning of 2012, the number of AT&T
Messaging Toolkit customers has increased 14-fold.
“A top priority for us is to make sure our Members
are well-informed about the status of their accounts. AT&T Messaging
Toolkit service offers this capability and helps us reach our Members with the
information they want, when and how they prefer it,” said Frankie Duenas, chief
technology officer at Cabrillo Credit Union.
