Feedback from customers and partners alike has been very positive with some good mentions in the press as well.

I believe this is a great example of a combination of listening to the customer and making a leap of imagination in terms of what technology can do. What we’ve done is to use the power and ubiquity of smartphones and other mobile devices, the extensibility and availability of cloud platforms such as Azure and Amazon Web Services and created an easy to deploy and use solution for our customers. Specifically customers that are organizing an event, whether for a few dozen attendees or for thousands can benefit from the EventMobilizer. Using a combination of a simple, easy to consume UI/UX that is platform independent (runs on iPhone, Windows Phone, Android and Blackberry® smartphones), doesn’t require a download or install, and a rich and robust back-end hosted in the cloud, our customers events now do away with paper schedules and feedback forms. Attendees get access to a virtual concierge with all the information they need on demand. Further, organizers get real-time feedback on sessions and booths, understand where the traffic flow is and can reduce costs related to paper and logistical details that can now be handled by the virtual concierge.

Coming soon to an event near you – let us know what you think.

Common wisdom today holds that building an app is the ticket to getting massive adoption of whatever service or solution you’re offering. And there are good reasons for this logic, ranging from user behavior where people are attuned to the idea of installing apps on their devices; where vagaries of bandwidth make it a better experience to have a local app on your device and only ‘call’ on the cloud to pull/push the data to populate the app UI that resides locally. And the ease of starting up an app when you need that particular service.

Let me play the devil’s advocate for a bit here though.

Developing and deploying an app, especially across multiple platforms is a non-trivial effort and can be expensive. Add to it the cost of developing updates across platforms and the requirement for users to repeatedly download updates as changes happen on the app or at the browser/operating system level and you’ve got a certain level of ongoing complexity to deal with. And for what it’s worth, it is an extra step to get users to install the app in the first place.

So what alternative do you have?  With the rapid increase in wireless bandwidth we’re witnessing (the move to 4G, and proliferation of Wi-Fi in public places), using a mobile web app becomes suddenly more interesting. Add to it the ubiquity of tiny URLs, QR codes or Microsoft Tags, and you solve the problem of ‘triggering’ the mobile site on your device more easily. The advantages should be obvious – reduced difference in behavior of a local app vs a web app, reduced requirement from users to find, install and update apps to start with, and the agility to make updates to your web app on the fly and have all users be able to immediately take advantage of it with no latency at all.

I’m not suggesting that apps will go away or that there aren’t enough good use cases for them, but only advocating that there is an alternative especially in the case of businesses or organizations that want to create and sustain a mobile presence at a relatively low cost and with greater agility.

Using a combination of Microsoft Tags, an easy-to-use smartphone-based feedback system with simple thumbs up and down options and a powerful real-time reporting system on the backend, we’re capturing customer feedback on their meals as they are consumed and immediately rendering the results by item, on large monitors in the cafeteria. So as you walk in, you get
a sense for which food stations are getting good reviews today and which ones are not. Yelp on steroids!

How does this help?

Customers are helping each other determine what’s good today and what to avoid. The food stations are now much more accountable than they’ve ever been for the quality of the food they serve and the cafeteria management gets real-time insight into what their consumers are saying or thinking about what’s on offer. Which allows them to make changes to the menu, service or staff as appropriate, while building a greater sense of customer service and accountability all around, therefore leading to greater customers satisfaction and loyalty.

Interestingly, what is not known nearly in any measurable or actionable way is exactly who the unhappy customers are, when do they have the experience that leads them to become unhappy and how does one connect and engage with them in a manner that turns around their perception, reduces risk of loss of business and has a positive impact on the company overall.

Several services have developed to address this issue but none of them offer meaningful, actionable information and data that a marketing or operations manager can use to either address the customer satisfaction issue, or indeed, re-orient and refocus the company’s staff to get ahead the curve on this very business critical issue.

We’d love to hear from our readers on what they’re seeing in their business today and what solutions have worked or not so far.

When they first invited me to speak on the panel, I was a bit surprised given that my firm Nayamode is not necessarily a leader in Cloud Computing. On further reflection though, in a kind of aha moment, I realized that we actually have a fairly unique perspective on cloud computing and how it is changing business. 

Specifically:

• Nayamode works with customers that have strong offerings in the cloud, such as Microsoft Azure and SQL Azure. i.e. we are helping companies market their cloud offerings
• Nayamode also works with customers that want to specifically adopt solutions hosted in the cloud, some of which we’re building for customers such as Fluke Corporation today.
• And finally, Nayamode has been developing and deploying several solutions over the last few years that are repeatedly requested by customers. We are moving these to a SaaS platform that can provide the same benefits to our customers in a low cost, scalable, secure and reliable way.

There is much hype around Cloud Computing today and we advise our customers to take advantage of this new mode of computing services by doing the following:

• Understand what the options are – from public, private to hybrid cloud offerings. This can be a confusing space and the right solution for you will depend on your business, size and maturity of operations.
• Determine what the cloud can do for you specifically. Besides the obvious benefits of outsourcing your IT or related functions to experts, moving CapEx to OpEx budget items, getting massive scalability ‘on tap’ when required and in general, getting the ability to focus more of your IT budgets to true innovations rather than keeping the lights on, businesses can accrue less obvious benefits in terms of being able to change how they deliver their services and out-compete their rivals. A good example is Netflix, a company of significant size, strength and resources that choose to build their streaming video service on top of Amazon Web Services (AWS) after finding that even their considerable in-house IT staff was unable to prevent outages at their datacenter. And as if to provide vindication of their decision, Netflix’s service didn’t suffer during the recent AWS outage which impacted other ‘tenants’ that hadn’t quite followed best practices when building their system on top of AWS.
• Once you know what to do and where to go for it, go ahead and try it out. Most businesses have been using cloud services forever. E.g. email or web hosting and more recently, payroll, CRM and HR services in the cloud offered by various providers. It’s time to determine what other non-core value adding services can be moved to the cloud. Or even for core and value adding services (as in the video streaming for Netflix), find out if there’s a better third party option that offers value, scale and reliability.

And if you ever need a suite of marketing services, Nayamode can help!

But I digress.

I was in a corporate cafeteria this morning and ordered my usual at a Starbucks stand – except that knowing how things are done there, I asked them to make it ‘extra dry’ just to be sure there was no ambiguity.
Sure enough, when I got my coffee, it was far from dry. Actually it was wet enough to be classified as a small latte in some parts. Now this is not completely surprising since as mentioned earlier, this is an art and not a science. Normally it’s a matter of requesting the barista to just make it drier, which is usually complied with a smile.

Not here, not today. The barista got into an argument with me debating what dry and extra dry is and should be. At one point, it degenerated into her mocking me sarcastically and wondering if I was in the habit of making my own special cappuccinos every afternoon. And this was not in jest, and there was neither contrition nor acknowledgment that a customer could 1) have a preference and 2) sometimes be right especially when there is no ‘right’ answer.

Fortunately, the café manager happened to be nearby and helped to smooth things over by offering me free coffee which I didn’t accept to make a point (though I’m quite fond of free in general). The barista had quickly and seriously harmed the reputation of that particular coffee stand and turned someone that could have been a loyal customer into someone that ended up writing this blog.

We are reminded of the importance of great customer service everyday – but what a shame that companies seem to invest less time and money in training employees enough in that regard. This is truly an investment, and not an expense.

Just last week, I was talking with a friend that runs an online survey company about how Microsoft Tags and QR codes can revolutionize real-time, location based surveys and data gathering. An hour later, I see a QR code being used by REI in their store to gather feedback!

There is some adoption of this idea happening already and it behooves any company or organization that deals with a large number of end customers to seriously evaluate how they can use this now. Think about it – especially by using Microsoft Tag, you can get feedback ranging from the simple (up/down vote) to complex (invite them to share more details on a mobile webpage). Wherever, whenever. While waiting at the bus stop, riding the bus, reading a magazine at the salon or dentist, at retail, banks, airports….you get the idea. You may finally have the ability to hear from your customers right when they’re experiencing your product or service, and know exactly where they are when they respond and connect that back to your specific branch, outlet or service center.

And do something about it in real-time. Connect with specific customers one on one, provide incentives, or compensation for a poor experience.

We’re only limited by our imagination on how far we can take this.

Exciting times in the world of digital marketing, where mobile needs to be a key component of any serious campaign. The possibilities will explode going forward but we’re already seeing tremendous opportunities being enabled by adjunct technologies such as Microsoft Tag and QR Codes. While both are meant to allow mobile users to connect to specific online experiences by scanning a 2D bar code, we at Nayamode are seeing more interesting experiences powered by Microsoft Tag.

We helped Conde-Nast generate the largest ever 2D bar code scanning campaign in Allure magazine using Microsoft Tags printed inside. Readers scanned the Tags to win prizes, or sign up for an SMS alert to come back later and scan again for a chance to win. Nayamode helped to create the campaign, built the entire backend including integrating with the SMS gateway provider, the SQL based database to track opt-ins and opt-outs. The campaign has been a huge success, significantly increasing reader participation overall compared with prior years.

We also worked with Compass Group (multi billion dollar hospitality services company) to create a highly successful series of promotions and contests targeting cafeteria visitors on a large corporate campus. Here again, general audience involvement has been significantly enhanced, actual transaction volumes increased and immediate ROI delivered. The program required a comprehensive CMS for the mobile site to be built out, with enough flexibility to allow the Compass administrators to tweak the promotion details by the minute if required.

We are working with several other customers today who want to use these technologies to power ever more interesting and creative campaigns. When asked by our clients what we can do for them, I answer quite truthfully that we are only limited by our collective imagination. Imagine what can we done:

• At stadiums and convention centers, by using Tags to provide location based information and drive traffic to specific concessions stands
• For real estate companies – provide much richer information on location not just on the specific property but about other properties in the neighborhood
• For consumer product companies – at point of sale, on the packaging
• For entertainment – convert offline advertising opportunities with minimal real estate into rich online experiences for mobile users

We’re excited to work with our clients to help power their ideas and vision and reach their customers whenever, wherever and on any device.

Interestingly, at the end of three days it became very clear that things are not very clear.

Multiple definitions of what digital marketing is, who cares about it, how to participate in it as a client/marketer or agency and how best to profit from it.

What is abundantly clear is the opportunity – for customers and agencies alike to change how they view their existing marketing efforts, reconfigure their marketing mix, rethink expectations of how we connect with customers, engage them, create a community and stickiness and in general, engender loyalty. This is clearly not blinding insight but I do believe there is a need and opportunity to help provide a framework to guide the efforts of various participants.

A well-defined framework would need to encompass several aspects ranging from:

• What media do I use to target customers
• What kind of digital ‘platform’ do I need to support my efforts
• What is the user experience on my website and how do I enhance it?
• How do I measure success and what tools are available for the same
• Now that everyone has a Facebook, YouTube and Twitter presence, how do I differentiate myself and cut through the clutter
• What is my mix of paid, owned and earned media? What should it be?
• How do I leverage the explosion of mobile users and create engaging experiences on the phone?

There is a strong role for technology in driving the discussion and providing the right solutions. After all, this is about ‘digital’ marketing and it’s important you evaluate not just your choice of technologies carefully but also your technology provider – i.e. the agency you work with to execute the plan. However, there are some aspects that are just plain old marketing common sense. From understanding your customer, knowing what influences them, where to find them and how to talk with them. Defining clearly what behavior you wish to drive and what levers you have available. This has not changed – our options to achieve these have grown, splintered and potentially made our jobs just that little bit harder, or more interesting, depending on your perspective.

It’s critical that customers internalize this, create their strategic and marketing plans accordingly and work with partners that really get this space. Choose wisely – the old rules don’t always apply and you may need to prioritize agility over size just given the sheer speed at which things change.

It’s fifteen years later and the pace of innovation isn’t letting up – so what are the trends in marketing and related services that will be defined over the coming years and how will they impact what we do today?

One obvious trend that is already here is created and powered by the flattening of our world. What the nineties and early two thousands did for software development and business process outsourcing, this decade will do to marketing – i.e. increasing globalization of where marketing ideas and campaigns are conceptualized, created and delivered. In a 24×7 world where more and more of our message will reach consumers digitally this seems quite obvious.

However, there are some inherent challenges that need to be overcome first before the other aspects of marketing can take full advantage of what a flat world offers. To state the obvious, marketing elements are often a mixed bag of the very subjective to well-defined, data driven quantifiable pieces. The latter are understandably the first to have got offshored – take for example the several market research and data analysis outfits based out of India and other parts of Asia.

For the more subjective pieces that include marketing strategy, campaign development and tactical pieces such as graphic design and copy writing, I believe a hybrid model works best. At Nayamode we’ve been practicing that for the last several years and it’s clear that there is an optimal mix of resources locally in the US and offshore. Marketing is as much about data driven analysis and decisions as it is about nuanced messaging applicable to a specific audience – the kind of messaging that is best developed and delivered with a deep local understanding. This manifests itself in how you talk about your product/service to how you design the artifacts surrounding it, both of which benefit hugely from a local understanding.

Interestingly, Adobe which is one of the premier software companies in the world has established complete marketing teams for a product line in India. This is not just a back-room or support team – these are the core product managers working on everything from product planning to product management and marketing for a global audience. This is an interesting attempt at leveraging a developing country’s brainpower not just in support roles but as the leaders on a product line.

This can only bode well for more such initiatives by other companies.