Mobile marketing and commerce provider Weve – the cross-operator body set up to promote mobile marketing, payments and commerce – is working with mobile coupon pioneer Eagle Eye Technologies to streamline and personalize couponing. It will initially be working with media agency Capture’s brands, including McCain Roasts in a trial with Asda.
The “smart scanner” mobile coupon system enables customers to redeem offers straight from their smartphone, eliminating the paper process.
Weve simply sends a text message to customers, on behalf of the advertiser, with details of the offer and a link to the coupon. Once customers click on the link, they are taken to a barcode, generated by Eagle Eye, to scan at the checkout directly from their mobile, to redeem the coupon immediately.
With the integration into Eagle Eye’s digital promotions platform this means that advertisers can track mobile coupon redemptions in real-time, to gain an accurate ROI and to provide the ability to offer more personalised and relevant offers to consumers based on their purchasing behaviour.
Tom Pearman, commercial director at Weve, explains: “Previously, consumers who received digital offers were required to revert to printing paper copies in order to redeem at the till. Using Weve’s unique text messaging service, advertisers can now influence consumers in the vicinity of a mobile scanner-enabled retailer to drive product trial and purchase via mobile coupon redemption.”
“This bespoke system also makes it easier than ever for advertisers to assess the effectiveness of their campaigns. Two-thirds (66%) of consumers have told us that they would find it useful to receive promotional messages about relevant products while in, or near, a supermarket. This product not only meets that demand, but gives advertisers unparalleled insights into which offers are most successful among specific consumer audiences.”
Matt Lee, director and co-founder at Capture, adds: “It can often be a struggle to gain sustainable rates of sale when a product is hidden among over 30,000 others in a supermarket. We can now get them seen by using the right deal mechanics, to target the right demographic, when they’re in the purchasing mindset in-store. That’s a genuine win for the consumer, the brand and the retailer.”
Phill Blundell, CEO at Eagle Eye, adds: “For a brand or retailer, reaching new and expanding audiences with targeted offers is fundamental to acquiring customers and building consumer loyalty. Our integration into the Asda till means that we can track the campaign from issuance through to redemption in real-time, offering McCain Roasts consumer insights as well as eliminating fraud due to real-time validation and basket analysis at till.”
The move vindicates research we reported on last week from OpenMarket, which polled 100 e-commerce retail professionals about their use of SMS messaging for customer engagement and found that most aren’t benefiting from the power of SMS. Of those that do, however, nearly three-quarters (69%) of online retailers who leverage SMS do so because it affords them an opportunity to differentiate; nearly 40% use SMS to meet customer demand.
