The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) today published updated best practices and guidelines related to mobile coupons and so-called “mobile price promotions.”
Created by the MMA’s “Mobile Couponing Task Force,” the document is designed to provide marketers, merchants, wireless carriers and other mobile marketing ecosystem members with an industry-standard for using mobile coupons and rebates to increase sales and promote consumer loyalty.
Though mobile coupons are the focus of the new guidelines, the MMA sees them as only one piece of the puzzle in relation to mobile price promotions — which the MMA defines as “electronic coupons or rebates that traverse the full redemption process without the requirement for conversion into a paper or other hard-copy format.”
Mobile Price Promotions are distributed, discovered and redeemed through a variety of mobile technologies, including SMS, MMS, Mobile Apps, Mobile Web, Bluetooth, NFC and 1D/2D barcode scanning. The new guidelines provide a “concise overview of these channels, as well as the key considerations for developing and executing these types of campaigns:”
- The five stages of mobile price promotions, such as the ways that consumers can discover and redeem coupons and rebates.
- General best practices and principles, including transparency, good taste, privacy, opt-in/opt-out and government laws, rules and regulations.
- Campaign-specific best practices and principles, such as those involving contests, food, pharmaceuticals and alcohol.
- Tips for designing coupons, using the word “free” and creating notices such as terms and conditions.
“Our research shows that consumer interest in mobile coupons continues to grow, giving brands, merchants and marketers a powerful new opportunity to establish and maintain relationships with consumers,” said Greg Stuart, CEO of MMA. “The MMA created ‘Guidelines and Best Practices in Mobile Price Promotions’ to give the ecosystem an industry-standard framework for capitalizing on that opportunity while protecting the consumer experience.”
