Mobile Banking

MOBILE BANKING
I thought that, in light of this week's discussion of mobile marketing, I would talk a little more about my discussion board entry of mobile banking.  Banking has come a long way over the years.  ATM's first allowed customers to quickly withdraw cash from remote locations without the need of a teller.  Years later, the Internet gave people the ability to manage their bank accounts and transfer money from their homes.  A new wave of banking, mobile banking, is now upon us.  Mobile banking gives people the ability to manage their bank accounts, transfer money, receive alerts, and even communicate with their financial institutions right from their phones!  As an employee for Discover Financial Services, my company launched its first application for mobile phones just over a year ago.  This application allows our customers to access their account for a wide variety of functions.  Customers can check their balance and payment due dates, they can make payments on the go, they can view previous transactions, edit their profile information, sign-up for rewards promotions, and perform other functions.  It's a great tool for customers.

Chase has taken mobile banking in a new direction as well.  Chase has implemented a feature where you can simply take a picture of a check, and you can send it to Chase to be deposited.  All you need is a phone with a camera!  Physorg.com goes into even more detail about this feature.

Mobile banking will only get more advanced as time goes on.  Financial Highway talks about the 5 key aspects of mobile banking:  Mobile Payments, Mobile Check Processing, SMS Banking (receiving alerts from your financial institution on your phone), General Banking functions, Increasing Mobile Application Technology.  These key aspects not only illustrate the benefits of mobile banking, but they also illustrate why mobile banking is becoming so popular.  Imagine paying your bills, and managing your bank account from your phone while on a camping trip!  In a time when the economy is poor, people can't afford to miss payment deadlines or not manage their accounts.  With mobile banking, customers are always prepared to manage their accounts.

Will Internet TV Make Broadcast Cable Television Irrelevant

With devices such as Apple TV, Google TV, Netflix Online and Hulu there is a question over whether cable t.v. and network t.v. will still be relevant in the next few years?  Streaming video is changing the marketplace for advertisers as well as audiences in a similar fashion to what MP3s did to the music industry.  Consumers such as myself can watch pretty much any show online, reducing the need for cable.  I can see shows such as the Office, Lost and Family guy usuallywithin 24 hours after they appear on the network.
Instead of the 8 minutes of advertising during a normal 30 minute time slot, on a website such as Hulu, I am subject to a 30 to 45 minute advertisement.  The question is will advertisers abandon the old TV commercial format for Internet advertising?  Will the networks embrace this technology or continue to fight it like they are doing with Apple TV?  Hulu's 50% Price Slash Signals Network Desparation talks about this very issue.

How To Effectively Educate Your Blog Readers

 How To Effectively Educate Your Blog Readers

Today I read an interesting article by Darren Rowse called How To Effectively Educate Your Blog Readers.  Since we are required to manage a blog for Marketing 595, I thought that this would be a relevant article to discuss.  Essentially this article explains 5 key methods to effectively educate your blog readers.  The first method is to write about what you are really familiar and knowledgable about.  A key to having success on your blog is reflecting true knowledge about a topic or concept.  People are not stupid, and they will quickly realize whether your blog content is relevant and true or not.  Thus, it is important to write about topics that you have a depth of knowledge on.  The second method is to mix general concepts with specific examples.  People are better able to grasp a concept when it is related to actual examples.  Therefore, when writing a blog, you should use examples mixed with the concepts that you write about.  The third method is to incorporate illustrative examples or diagrams.  The author explains that these diagrams or illustrations should be thoughtfully drawn out, and should incorporate concepts where words fall short of fully explaining the total picture.  Learning to properly write for the web is the fourth method of writing a successful blog.  People read and learn differently on the web, and it is important to learn how to write properly for the web when writing a blog.  The author provides an interesting article that explains how to write for the web.  The final method for writing a successful blog is to learn not to be a snob.  Basically, this mean that you should include third party links within your blog to further support your message.  Many bloggers are afraid of losing readers by providing links to supporting articles, but the author explains that this only helps support your blog, and will increase traffic.

Overall, I think that the author lays out some pretty basic, yet solid methods and tips for writing blogs that effectively educate blog readers.  As I am new to blogging, I found these tips and methods very helpful.

Week 3: E-Mail Subject Lines

This week my department launched an email campaign to our customers.  I had to decide upon three subject lines to use for this email campaign that would attract customers to open the email.  I thought that this may be an interesting topic to talk about this week.  How do you properly write an email subject line?  There are a lot of obstacles that you face when you develop any email subject line.  The first obstacle is that you only have seconds to capture the reader's attention, and then you have to try and convince them to open your email rather than deleting it.  Another obstacle, is that you want to avoid getting your email caught in spam filters.  From my experience, and from what I have been taught, there are a few tips to follow when developing a proper email subject line.  These tips are listed below:
1)  Do not write the subject line in all capital letters.  This can actually turn the reader away, and it can increase your risk of the email getting caught in a spam filter.
2)  Many readers may not actually open a solicitation email - even if they are interested in whatever product or service that you are soliciting.  It is important, therefore, to try and put the actual offer within the subject line.
3)  In addition to listing the offer within the subject line, it is important to put a sense of urgency in the email.  Phrases like "limited time only" or "immediate response" tends to encourage reader's to open the email because they want to how great this offer is that it is going to expire so soon.
4)  Another tip to follow is to keep the subject line brief.  You really only have room for about 60 characters in most default setting inboxes.  It is important to make sure that your subject line does not get cut off.
5)  Finally, try to avoid using too many symbols within the email subject line.  An exclamation or question mark or period is fine, but the more symbols you use in an email subject line the less of a chance you have that it could be taken seriously. 

I did some reading online to see if I could gather more tips on email subject line marketing.  Five Ways Not to Squander the Email Subject Line supports many of the tips that I have listed above.  In addition to these tips, this article explains some helpful ways to go about writing a subject line.  First, you can read the newspaper to see how the headlines are written in there.  This practice can  help you to get an idea of how to develop a subject line in your email.  Another extra tip not mentioned in the 5 above is to use personalization.  If you have the ability to personalize an email, it can help to get the reader's attention.

These are all helpful tips when developing subject lines for emails.

MKT 595 JOURNAL ENTRY 1 - Social Media / Virtual Gaming

Social Media / Virtual Gaming has become a very popular new craze for Internet users who use sites such as Facebook and MySpace.  At the beginning of 2009, a company known as Zynga began developing social media games such as Mafia Wars, YoVille, Farmtown, etc.  These games allowed players to interact with friends and other online users while in a role-playing environment.  It didn't take long for these social media games to become a very lucrative business for a wide variety of companies.  Many of the games required the use of "virtual currency" in order to develop your "virtual persona" or "virtual enterprise."  For example, in the game Farmtown, players must acquire things such as food to feed their animals.  These virtual necessities could be purchased with virtual coins or currency.  What is interesting is that this virtual currency could actually be acquired by real currency.  As a result, companies found a way to make money and acquire new accounts through incentive offers on these social media games.  OfferPal is a company that acts as a currency intermediary between a company and an online user on behalf of the social media site.  For example, a company may offer an online user $500 "virtual coins" for a specific social media game if the online user signs-up for an offer that the company has.  OfferPal will actually manage the posting of the offer, and it will translate the actual currency into virtual currency for the company and customer.  Few people know that these online currency intermediaries have actual economists working for them to better understand the translation of real money into virtual money.  Social Media gaming and online incentive offers are something to keep your eye on in the next few years.  The more popular they become, the more this enterprise will develop.  I am not sure if our economy is fully prepared for the introduction of virtual currency quite yet, but it is out there.  I am using this as my first journal entry because I used to manage the affiliate program for my employer, and I worked specifically with these social media incentive offers. 

Mc6overn's Blog (1)

Introduction:  My name is Andrew McGovern, and I am MBA student at DePaul University.

MBA Concentration:  Marketing Management

Occupation:  Marketing Project Manager

Employer:  Discover Financial Services