CK's Blog

Mobile Innovation Series (Part 6): Innovating Value Propositions

As introduced five weeks ago, I'm currently running a 6-Part Article Series on Mobile Innovation that illuminates 5 mobile innovation strategies across brand engagement, sales channels, product offerings, customer experiences, and value propositions. 

Throughout the series I've explored the wide-ranging strategies across innovating brand engagement through mobile, innovating sales channels through mobile, innovating product offerings through mobile and innovating customer experiences through mobile.

Which brings me full circle to the sixth segment and the final innovation strategy that will close this series: Innovating Value Propositions Through Mobile.

Value propositions are the heart, soul, and epicenter of a business, as they reflect an organization’s market positioning while communicating the core promises that companies make to their customers. And in the hierarchy of marketing, value propositions reign supreme: where tactics are foot soldiers, and strategies are generals, value propositions are the high priestesses.

While value propositions themselves are quite conceptual, their byproducts are not—as all products, services, strategies, and tactics work in concert to support and deliver upon each company’s value proposition. And we marketers take our value propositions very seriously: laboring intensely over their creation, fighting fiercely to ensure all products and programs support them, and working tirelessly to evolve them to ensure their ongoing relevance.

In this segment I guide marketers on how to wield mobile to move their brands into bigger, broader market positions that provide exponentially greater value propositions to their customers. Included are case examples of smart organizations leveraging mobile apps, mobile technologies and mobile sensors to innovate their value propositions through mobile.

Get Part #6 here. And for other mobile-innovation content, please choose from the below: 

• For Part 1 of the 6-Part Series, go here. 
• For Part 2 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 3 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 4 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 5 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 6 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• To download my eBook, Innovation through Mobile, go here. 
• For information on my Mobile Innovation Series & Innovation Clinics, go here.

Video Clip: Mobile Marketing & M2M Communications (aka "The Internet of Things")

Last week I had the pleasure of speaking on mobile marketing and m2m communications (aka, "The Internet of Things") at the BMA NJ Conference.

Below is a video featuring some portions of my speech focusing on Marketing in the Age of Constant Connectivity through Mobile Marketing and M2M Communications (run-time of 4:05 minutes).

For more of my videos, ebooks and articles, please go here.

 

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Mobile Innovation Series (Part 5): Innovating Customer Experiences

As introduced four weeks ago, I'm currently running a 6-Part Article Series on Mobile Innovation that illuminates 5 mobile innovation strategies across brand engagement, sales channels, product offerings, customer experiences, and value propositions. 

So far I've explored three strategies: innovating brand engagement through mobile, innovating sales channels through mobile and innovating product offerings through mobile.

And that brings me to strategy #4: Innovating Customer Experiences through Mobile.

Marketers go to extraordinary lengths in order to acquire customers. And customer courting hits all the hot buttons—between deep discounts, special upgrades, and extra benefits, customers are made to feel special for doing business with these companies. But once prospects have been converted into customers, marketers must focus the majority of their resources on acquiring more customers.

Yet the majority of complaints from customers don’t pertain to the buying process; their anger is sharply focused on the experience thereafter. (Just search Twitter for any major brand and the frustration from customers is on full display.) Poor experiences lead to customer attrition, which presses marketers to focus on acquiring yet more customers in order to make up for the high rates of churn.

It’s a numbers game that is played out every month, with the hopes of more customers gained than lost. 

Mobile is a boon to the customer experience, because mobile provides myriad ways for marketers to delight customers and improve their experiences in ways that they previously weren’t able. 

In this segment, I guide marketers on how to wield mobile as a way to identify innovative ways to streamline customer interactions, remove friction from customer-centric processes, and deepen the overall brand experience for customers. Included are case examples of sophisticated companies tapping mobile apps, mobile augmented reality, and mobile technologies to innovate their customer experiences through mobile.

Get Part #5 here. And for other mobile-innovation content, please choose from the below: 

• For Part 1 of the 6-Part Series, go here. 
• For Part 2 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 3 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 4 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 5 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• To download my eBook, Innovation through Mobile, go here. 
• For information on my Mobile Innovation Series & Innovation Clinics, go here.

Mobile Innovation Series (Part 4): Innovating Product Offerings

As introduced three weeks ago, I'm currently running a 6-Part Article Series on Mobile Innovation that illuminates 5 mobile innovation strategies across brand engagement, sales channels, product offerings, customer experiences, and value propositions. 

So far I've explored two strategies: innovating brand engagement through mobile and innovating sales channels through mobile. And that brings me to strategy #3: Innovating Product Offerings Through Mobile.

Inarguably, the lifeblood of any company is its revenue. And the sale of product offerings—be it products, services or solutions—are how companies garner the revenue necessary for them to grow and flourish. With revenue being the top priority, companies must continually improve and evolve their product offerings in order to maintain current customers, attract new customers, differentiate from their competitors, and gain more market share.

But we are now a mobile world, replete with mobile work styles, mobile life styles, and mobile expectations. And customers, whether they are consumer or executive audiences, are expecting companies to use the very same technology that has improved their lives to improve the products and services that they use.

In this segment, I guide marketers on how to wield mobile as a way to energize existing product offerings, and by tapping mobile to develop entirely new offerings. Through the former, mobile can serve to keep a company’s product offerings more compelling, and relevant to its target markets. And through the latter, mobile can open entirely new worlds of revenue.

Included are case examples of savvy companies leveraging mobile technologies, mobile augmented reality and mobile sensors to innovate their product offerings through mobile.

Get Part #4 here. And for other mobile-innovation content, please choose from the below: 

• For Part 1 of the 6-Part Series, go here. 
• For Part 2 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 3 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 4 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• To download my eBook, Innovation through Mobile, go here. 
• For information on my Mobile Innovation Series & Innovation Clinics, go here.

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Mobile Innovation Series (Part 3): Innovating Sales Channels

As introduced two weeks ago, I'm currently running a 6-Part Article Series on Mobile Innovation that illuminates 5 mobile innovation strategies across brand engagement, sales channels, product offerings, customer experiences, and value propositions. 

Last week—view the article here—I explored the first strategy of "innovating brand engagement" through mobile and this week I dive into Innovation Strategy #2 where I explore: Innovating Sales Channels through Mobile. 

As any marketer knows, sales are mission-critical to the success and survival of all companies. But what many a marketer doesn’t yet fully understand is how many ways mobile can be wielded to stimulate sales... more so than through any other media.

In this segment, I guide marketers on how to wield mobile as a channel to sell and up-sell product offerings at, or near, to the point of purchase; as a virtual sales assistant to inspire more purchases; and as a means to transform existing places and activities into entirely new sales channels. Included are case examples of smart brands leveraging QR codes, mobile videos and mobile apps to innovate their sales channels through mobile.

Get Part #3 here. And for other mobile-innovation content, please choose from the below: 

• For Part 1 of the 6-Part Series, go here. 
• For Part 2 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• For Part 3 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• To download my eBook, Innovation through Mobile, go here. 
• For information on my Mobile Innovation Series & Innovation Clinics, go here.

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Mobile Innovation Series (Part 2): Innovating Brand Engagement

As introduced last week, I'm currently running a 6-Part Article Series on Mobile Innovation that illuminates 5 mobile innovation strategies across brand engagement, sales channels, product offerings, customer experiences, and value propositions. 

Last week—view the article here—was the introduction to the incredible innovation moment that mobile heralds for marketers. And this week, I dive into Innovation Strategy #1 where I explore: Innovating Brand Engagement through Mobile.

Without question, winning in today’s crowded, chaotic marketplace means attracting and maintaining high levels of brand engagement. Where mobile is rife with newfound potential for bolstering audience engagement, it also proffers many a welcome solution to the status quo.

In this segment, I guide marketers on how to wield mobile to transform why, when, where and how audiences engage with their brands. Included are case examples of smart brands leveraging SMS alerts, augmented reality and mobile websites to innovate how they are engaging their target audiences through mobile.

Get Part #2 here. And for other mobile-innovation content, please choose from the below: 

• For Part 1 of the 6-Part Series, go here. 
• For Part 2 of the 6-Part Series, go here.
• To download my eBook, "Innovation through Mobile,"go here. 
• For information on my Mobile Innovation Series & Innovation Clinics, go here.

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Mobile Innovation Series: Welcome To Your Innovation Moment (Part 1 of a 6-Part Series)

Starting today, I've launched a 6-Part Series on Mobile Innovation at MarketingProfs. For the next 6 weeks, I will air one article weekly that will illuminate 5 mobile innovation strategies across brand engagement, sales channels, product offerings, customer experiences, and value propositions.

Why innovation? Because innovation is the single most important part, product and process of any organization.  After all, innovation is how business wars are won, captains of industry are crowned, companies are reinvented—and entire industries are rebooted.  Far from an option, innovation is an imperative, as it drives real business growth while providing the only real insurance a company has against obsolescence.

And with mobile, opportunities for innovation abound... more so than with all other media. Because no other medium in the history of all media has so drastically changed market behavior; and no other medium has become so core to all business and consumer activities, or so pervasive across every populace, in all pockets of the world.

A powerhouse pairing of sophisticated capabilities and robust marketing tools, mobile is the only medium that serves as a catalyst for innovation across the entire marketing ecosystem. Because, through mobile, marketers have the power to transform the totality of that ecosystem, spanning how their brands are positioned, the channels through which they are sold, the ways in which their audiences are engaged, the new products that they develop, and the customer experiences they create.

Make no mistake, mobile is your innovation moment, marketers. And through the course of this series, I will illuminate a framework of five mobile innovation strategies supported by a host of brand examples across a wide swath of industries and mobile tools—ranging from SMS alerts, QR codes and mobile websites to apps, augmented reality, and mobile sensors. 

Spanning the marketing ecosystem, strategies I will explore through each segment entail:

• Part 1: Welcome To Your Innovation Moment, Marketers (airing 04/02/13)
• Part 2: Mobile Innovation Strategy #1: Bolstering brand engagement through mobile (airing 04/09/13)
• Part 3: Mobile Innovation Strategy #2: Initiating new sales channels through mobile (airing 04/16/13)
• Part 4: Mobile Innovation Strategy #3: Energizing product offerings through mobile (airing 04/23/13)
• Part 5: Mobile Innovation Strategy #4: Improving customer experiences through mobile (airing 04/30/13)
• Part 6: Mobile Innovation Strategy #5: Emboldening value propositions through mobile (airing 05/07/13)

Welcome to your innovation moment, marketers—a rare and precious opportunity to rethink, reimagine and reinvent your brands through the most defining media of your lifetime.  This 6-Part Series on Mobile Innovation will help you make the most of it.

• For Part 1 of the 6-Part Series, go here. 
• To download my eBook, Innovation through Mobile, go here. 
• For information on my Mobile Innovation Series & Innovation Clinics, go here.

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CK's NEW Mobile-Marketing eBook: Innovation Through Mobile

Innovation Through Mobile

The goal is Innovation. The strategy is mobile. The moment is yours.
How will you wield mobile to make the most of your innovation moment?

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Mobile marketing expert and speaker Christina “CK” Kerley follows up her seminal eBook onThe Mobile Revolution with a power-packed eBook focused on the most important part, product and process of business:INNOVATION.

CK’s insightful, inventive premise is that marketers must wield mobile to innovate their entire marketing ecosystem so as to leapfrog the competition—rather than merely integrate mobile in an effort to keep pace with the status quo.

Featuring 5 Innovation Strategies and 10+ brand examples, through “Innovation through Mobile,” B2C and B2B executives alike will learn innovation strategies across the entire marketing ecosystem, spanning: bolstering brand engagement; initiating new sales channels; energizing product offerings; improving customer experience; and emboldening value propositions.

According to CK, “A mobile revolution is afoot, but marketers must be this era’s revolutionaries. Because mobile, while remarkable and transformative, is still just the technology… the innovation lies in how companies wield this incredible media to break new ground, build new profit centers, develop enriching experiences, solve problems on scales both large and small and better serve their target markets.”

Mobile is your innovation moment, marketers—a rare and precious opportunity to rethink, reimagine and reinvent your brands through the most defining media of your lifetime. CK teaches you how to make the most of it.

Stop Integrating. Start Innovating. Get the eBook Here.

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New, Improved and Innovative: CK's new sites, services & eBooks!

I am so pleased to introduce my new websites (destktop & mobile), new eBooks and new services. So, what all is new?

In a word: EVERYTHING!

For a short overview of everything new, please go here. For a longer overview, just keep reading...

#1: New website: AllThingsCK.com = All Things Marketing Innovation. All things new services, videos, eBooks and more await you here.

 

#2: New Services: Innovation Clinics, Corp. Retreats & More.

Clients are asking for more than speeches and, in return, I've developed a full suite of new services—spanning Training Intensives, Innovation Clinics and Executive Retreats.

 

#3: New mobile site: Every screen deserves its own experience.

With a new desktop site, comes a whole new mobile site. Just grab your smartphone, fire up your browswer and type in allthingsCK.com and you'll receive the mobile optimized experience.

Or, simply scan the QR code to the right with your smartphone and easily get to my mobile site that way, too (note: QR reader app is needed).

 

#4: New eBook: Innovation through Mobile. Marketers, make the most of your innovation moment—my eBook shows you how.

This power-packed eBook focused on the most important part, product & process of business: Innovation. Featuring 5 Innovation Strategies and 10+ brand examples, my premise is that marketers must wield mobile to innovate their entire marketing ecosystem so as to leapfrog the competition—rather than merely integrate mobile in an effort to keep pace with the status quo. 

Go here to get it. And, see below for my next eBook!

 

#5: New Focus Area: Mobile's New Frontier: The Internet of Things

I am over the moon to launch my newest practice area... and the newest frontier in mobile computing. Welcome to "The Internet of Things" or, as I like to coin it, "The INNOVATION of Things." To learn more about my new focus area go here. And to sign-up to get a copy of my eBook on this practice area (launching in Q4 of this year), please go here.

Thank you for letting me share all of this "new" with you... as always, I hope it brings you newfound value in return.

Introducing CK's New Mobile-Marketing Video Series!

In 2011, in fact right at this time of year, I launched my B2B mobile-marketing guide—and it was an important piece for me to publish as it was the first solid piece of thought leadership to focus on mobile imperatives for B2B marketers.

Though with that said, the paper's imperatives and insights are just as relevant to B2C. Why? Because it hits home how mobile’s real revolution isn’t one of devices but a revolution in behavior across the way our markets now live, work, communicate, and buy. Or, as I explain in the paper, "Mobile's true story is not that we're changing our technology to mobile, but how mobile technology is changing us."

And that brings me to 2012.  After all, a new year is a new reason for a new program.

When I began planning my new program, I knew the “what” (mobile!), I knew the "who" (marketers!) and I certainly knew the “why” (mobile = most sweeping media of all time!). But I wasn’t sure of the “how.” So, I turned to my goals...

I had 3 goals that guided me:

1. Audience Experience: First and foremost, it had to be an engaging experience for my audience—audience always comes first—and it needed to be something unique.
2. Insights for B2B and B2C: It had to arm both B2B and B2C marketers with strategic advice on why and how mobile can move the needle for their businesses, increase brand engagement with their audiences, and strengthen the customer relationships that are critical to their ROI. After all, that's the true magic of mobile.
3. Anywhere. Anytime. Any Device.: The program needed to be easily and effectively consumed on Web-enabled devices of any size: be they large laptops, small smartphones, or the in-between category of tablets. Remember, mobile screens are quickly becoming the "first-screen" for Web content. (How many times do you look at your smartphone everyday?)

And my goals led to my new mobile-marketing video series:

My new mobile-marketing series enables me to hit my 3-goal mark as (#1) I’m connecting with my audience in a more engaging environment (video) and in a "different" way, (#2) my lessons are laser-focused on B2B and B2C strategies to succeed in this anytime-anywhere, always-on world, and, (#3) the format accommodates all viewing screens—be they be small smartphones, large laptops, or mid-sized tablets (my videos are available at both my desktop/tablet and mobile sites).  

I do so very much hope you find the videos valuable in your mobile journeys. Depending upon each segment's featured topic, video segments range 6-9 minutes each. 

Just to re-cap, here are many ways to get CK's mobile-marketing goodies:

• CK's NEW mobile-marketing video series: My new mobile-marketing video series is here.
• Video clips of CK's speaking engagements: My speaking clips (from speaking engagements) are archived here, and I add to these frequently.
• CK's mobile-marketing eBooks: My mobile-marketing eBooks are here

Thanks, marketers. As I say at the end of each video, keep gaining ideas, getting inspired, and going mobile!

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