Advice for Mobile Start-Ups: Find Your Market Aggregation Points

Mobile start-ups often struggle with how to get their message, product and company brand in front of their target markets. They quickly realize that the expense of marketing their solutions directly to each end user is cost prohibitive. How then can they effectively market their solutions in a cost effective manner?

Mobile start-ups need to first identify their target market, and second identify the "market aggregation" points. In the image above, look at the red dots. Those are the market aggregation points. Those are the points where the mobile start-up needs to be marketing. Why? That is where their audience can be found. The eyes and ears of their target market are tuned to that location.

Mobile start-ups should focus all of their efforts and financial resources on the red dot - market aggregation points. Often it costs no more to invest resources in the red dots, than it does to target each end user - end point.

If you are targeting SAP Mobility, then you will want to look for locations that aggregate that market. Where can you find the eyes and ears of the SAP market? If you are focused on field service automation, where is that market aggregated? If your solutions are exclusively for SAP ERP for iPhones, then where is your market aggregated?

Where are the red dot market aggregation points for your market?

If you would like to discuss this topic in more detail please contact me.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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$21 Million Raised by Pressing the Keys on a Mobile Device

The Red Cross was "texted" $21 million dollars in donations for Haiti disaster relief efforts according to this article. This is an incredible development, and it happened on mobile devices.

The Haiti relief campaign has been promoted by both traditional media sources and online social media. However, it really took off in the first couple of days through its promotion on Facebook and Twitter. The report said these donations were texted, so these donations were submitted on mobile devices.

It works like this:

1. You get notified of the campaign through a mobile Facebook or twitter application
2. You send a text to a given number and a $10 dollar charge (donation) appears on your mobile phone bill.
3. You pay your mobile phone bill and the money is transferred from your carrier to the Red Cross

I am amazed at this example of the power represented by mobile communications, social media and mobile devices. I am also intrigued by the e-commerce processes represented by using the mobile phone billing system to collect these donations.

By simply pushing a few buttons on a handheld mobile device you can (collectively) be saving lives on the other side of the planet.

Let's all take a moment to be amazed together, and celebrate the good in these times of pain.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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Advice to Mobile Start-Ups: You are a Publishing Company Like it or Not!

I am a consultant to mobile start-up companies and an expert in the area of Web 2.0 marketing. I have successfully built mobile software companies from the ground up. I have made just about every mistake one could make, and learned how to overcome and avoid them in the future. I now work with mobile start-ups to help them implement the right Web 2.0 marketing strategies to build their sales pipelines in their targeted markets.

I advise my clients that like it or not they must become an Internet publishing company. Why? Unless they have millions of dollars or euros to burn on expensive pay-per-click campaigns, conferences, call centers, flights, hotels and rental cars, they are going to need to leverage the Internet and all of the free Internet tools available to build their sales pipeline, reseller channels, brand and partner communities.

Using the Internet requires the consistent production and publication of rich and valuable content that is useful and desired by your target audience. It needs to be updated daily or weekly and it needs to be found by your audience. You must first find and attract an audience that values your content, and then motivate them to return over and over and to provide you with their contact information. You must first become a trusted and dependable information asset to them, and then they will become fans, prospects and finally customers.

How do you become a valuable asset to your target audience? You must provide them with information that will improve their business by fixing their problems, reducing costs and/or increasing their sales. Here is the challenge. Mobile start-ups are busy places. They often have engineering geniuses, but few have the time or interest to write expert content to share with the public. Writing is hard work and time consuming. As a result, few start-ups consistently publish and expand their footprint on the web by utilizing Web 2.0 marketing strategies.

Mobile start-ups, however, must recognize that publishing prized and valued content that is read by their target audience is not a luxury, but a requirement now days. Setting up the processes, resources and systems to write, publish, promote and syndicate rich content on a daily basis must be part of every mobile start-up's business and marketing plan.

If you would like to discuss this subject in more detail please contact me.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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iPhone Mobile Audio Guides Created on the Street

Last week I was sitting in a soft leather chair in the corner of the Eagle, Idaho Starbucks Coffee Shop. Not so unusual, but this time I was recording the event on my iPhone using a free application called Woices.com. This application is the result of an entrepreneurial project out of Barcelona, Spain.

This application enabled me to record an audio guides using the "Memo" function of the iPhone, associate a digital photo, capture the GPS coordinates and add a description and title. All of these individual functions exist already on the iPhone, but Woices brings them all together in one clever application and enables you to upload them to a centralized service so others can search and find your audio guide.

When I first opened Woices, it searched on my GPS coordinates for any pre-existing audio guides that were within a certain distance of my location. If they exist, it lists them. In my case, I was the first user in Eagle, Idaho. Woices can turn any storyteller, traveller or history buff into a mobile reporter. I love it!!

The next steps I would like to see are the following:

1) Democratize history - let every person with an experience in a specific location, record it using text, digital photography and audio formats with a GPS coordinate, date and time stamp. It can be first romances, first driving ticket, childhood home or something big like a forest fire you witnessed as a child.
2) Set up a function that will revolutionize newspaper reporting. Let every person be a reporter. They can review the recorded history, experience or event and report on it. These can be picked up by local newspapers and reported under the title of "citizen" reporters.

These features would be intended to merge personal experiences, personal history, social networking and geospatial data together to form a democratic form of history, perhaps a wiki-history and/or wiki-reporting.

Think about it for a moment. How many of us have known people that had volumes of history in their memory, but it was lost with their passing? I would love to walk through a historic neighborhood, and have stories, history and experiences popping up on my iPhone application list as I walked from block to block listening.

What are your thoughts? Where can you see these kinds of features and services being useful in business?

I can see the benefit in big construction projects where experts can share thoughts, recommendations, warnings and insight as they tour the project. These captured thoughts would be associated with audio files, text files, GPS coordinates and digital photos. These recordings could then be accessed by others on the project.

I look forward to your comments!

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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SAP ERP on iPhones

I met with a team of mobile software developers this week that have developed a fascinating mobile technology that enables the user to access ALL of SAP's ERP and other SAP components on an iPhone. I am particularly intrigued because I have never seen a mobile application that can quickly enable an entire ERP with only a 25 MB download and a 15 minute set-up.

The use case would be any SAP user or expert that needs to access any page or component of SAP while out of the office. It is all there on the iPhone. I was very impressed. Most often only traveling sales or service people are prioritized for enterprise mobile applications, but this technology will enable anyone in the company that needs access to the SAP system to simply login with their iPhone and go to work.

This company will be releasing the iPhone version first, and then versions for Android, Blackberry and Windows Mobile over the next few months.

Let me know if you want more information and I will point you in the right direction.

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Author Kevin Benedict
Independent Mobility Consultant, Wireless Industry Analyst and Marketing Consultant
www.linkedin.com/in/kevinbenedict
twitter: @krbenedict
http://kevinbenedict.ulitzer.com/
http://mobileenterprisestrategies.blogspot.com/
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