
I hate to say it, but Christmas is coming and it will hopefully be a busy time for many of us. As a marketer or business owner we are all going to be need to do everything we can to maximise the opportunities this period offers by ensuring maximum exposure for our businesses, products and services. And don’t forget, the increased footfall over the Christmas period is also an excellent opportunity to grow your direct marketing database in preparation for your New Year marketing efforts.

The growth of the Daily Deals phenomenon in the last number of years, and in particular the growth of Daily Deals behemoth Groupon has been quite phenomenal. Last year, Groupon revenues grew more than 22,000 percent to $713 million. Revenue in Q1 2011 has been even more impressive, with sales of $644, up 13,575 percent from last year.

Quick Respose Codes (QR Codes) have been around for a while, but are really starting to make an impact on the public consciousness. This is being driven by a range of innovative marketing campaigns that are utilising QR codes in a quirky, eye-catching ways. QR Codes are simply 2 dimensional barcodes that can be scanned using a qr reader on your smartphone. The barcode can be anything, but many marketeers are using QR codes to display mobile website URLs, that when scanned display a websites with promotional messages, mobile newsletters or other calls to action. And the good news for marketeers is that you do not need a massive marketing budget to run a quirky, eye-catching campaign that will help you promote your brand and communicate with your customers. Here are a few examples we have come across that caught our eye.

In a relatively short period of time mobile phones and smart phones have gone from being a luxury item to a must have item that we cannot do without. This point is clearly illustrated by the fact that smart phone sales in 2010 passed 300 million (up 74% on 2009). This potential direct connection offered to so many consumers has made marketing via mobile devices one of the most successful and effective forms of marketing available to us today.

SMS Short codes are memorable 5 digit numbers (e.g. 51444) widely used in SMS Marketing to gather sales leads, promote discount offers, as part of charity campaigns and more. Short codes are designed to be easier to read and remembered than normal telephone numbers and can be used to capture consumer mobile phone numbers (and other data) for direct marketing purposes and as a direct response tool for TV, Radio and Print advertising.

As more and more mobile smartphones are sold, the buzz around mobile apps gets ever louder. So, every business should rush out and get a mobile app developed - right? Maybe not.

With a recent forecast from Gartner predicting that by the end of 2011, over 85 percent of handsets shipped globally will include some form of browser it seems that the trend for consumers to access the web on their mobile devices will continue to grow.

We are very happy to launch the latest version of uConnect. A big thank you to all our users who have given us such great feedback and suggestions. We have made a lot of usability improvements and added some nice new features to help you get the most out of uConnect and your SMS Messaging and Text Message Marketing campaigns.Read on to learn a little more about the latest version of uConnect.

With the Restaurant Association of Ireland recently reporting that 1 Restaurant Per day was closing in Ireland and that 80% of Irish Restaurants were running at a loss this is a difficult time for Irish Restaurateurs. Increasing your businesses visibility and building a strong relationship with your customers has never been more important.

uConnect mobile coupons are similar to traditional paper coupons, with one crucial difference! The coupons are sent to and redeemed directly on your mobile phone. Using uConnect you can quickly build an eye catching, graphical mobile coupon using your business logo or an image appropriate to your business. You can then send the mobile coupon directly to your mobile club or host it directly on your own website. And now all members of RendezVous353, the business and social networking site aimed at the 80 million strong global Irish Diaspora, can avail of a range of special mobile coupons from businesses all over the world.

Busy Lizzie, one of Irelands leading business services companies offer a variety of services especially geared toward Small and Medium businesses that need an extra hand daily, weekly, monthly or on a project by project basis. Their goal is to make their clients lives easier and reduce their bottom line, and adding the uConnect text message marketing service to their portfolio will help them do this.

The rise in the number of consumers purchasing smartphones along with the increased affordability of data plans has made mobile an increasingly attractive direct marketing option for marketers. Indeed not having a mobile marketing strategy and SMS Marketing program means you are passing up an opportunity to engage with your customers in a very targeted and personal way. However, a common mistake made by many businesses who do dip their toes into the mobile marketing field is to run their mobile marketing campaign as a stand-alone effort and then write off mobile when they don’t get the results they expect. Mobile marketing, and in particular SMS Marketing , is more effective when it is integrated into your overall marketing strategy and run as a supplement to your existing marketing efforts.

At uMobilize we feel mobile marketing is a great way for retailers to connect with their customers, and ToysRUs obviously agree with us. They are now using a combination of mobile coupons and text message marketing to provide shoppers with new way of taking advantage of their promotions.

uMobilize Promotions are very proud to have been selected as the Microsoft Bizspark Start-Up of the Day. It is a great endorsment of uConnect and we would like to thank Microsoft for the recognition.

uMobilize Promotions will be exhibiting at TechLudd Limerick, in The Absolute Hotel on Thursday 18th November, 2010.

We're delighted to be exhibiting at The Midwest Showcase in Thomand Park, Limerick on October 21st, 2010. The Midwest Showcase aims to bring together the best examples of local entreprenuership, so we'll be in some excellent company. Drop over to our stand to find out about our SMS and text message marketing solutions. We've a fantastic special offer on the day. Looking forward to seeing you there.

If you are interested in sending out offers using text messages but aren't sure how to get that list of mobile numbers together, we have the answers. Create a "Mobile Club" in uConnect and you'll get two great tools to help you capture subscribers: a free txt2join keyword and a free sign-up form that you can easily brand and add to your website. Best of all, it only takes a few minutes to get it all set up.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, text message marketing (also referred to as SMS marketing) is already the most widely-used form of mobile marketing, and at uMobilize Promotions we expect 2010 and 2011 to see a far greater adoption of text message marketing (sms marketing). Here are some of the reasons why:

An SMS marketing campaign can be a powerful way to promote your brand or service. But to get the most out of your Mobile Marketing campaign here are a few things to consider.

Have you ever thought about using SMS marketing or mobile marketing for your business? Here are 5 good reasons why you should consider using SMS marketing: