“AdmitOne™” Overcomes the Pervasive Challenge of Confirming Customer Attendance at Local Events, Activities, and Venues.   

Gravy just announced the launch of AdmitOne™, the first and only attendance verification technology for location-based marketers.

The new solution helps marketers optimize message development and minimize media spend waste with a much higher confidence that they’re reaching customers predisposed to what the brand has to offer.  AdmitOne™ solves a long-standing need for marketers, using mobile location-based behavior gathering, to conclusively distinguish between actual attendances to local events and visits to places versus mobile users walking or driving by.    

Android’s latest campaign slogan “be together. not the same.” highlights the shift in consumer marketing towards individuality. Some call it 1:1 marketing, personalization, or "segment of one" and it’s all being driven by consumer expectations that brands know their unique interests and deliver communications to them that are relevant and personalized.  Brands spend nearly $30 Billion annually on targeted campaigns focused on delivering the right message at the right time to the right consumer – to get them to act and to buy.  With the compounded annual growth in spend of 12.4% on audience segmentation data and marketing technology, why is it so hard for brands to reach that holy grail of personalization to the individual?

In a recent article written for Luxury Hoteliers Magazine, author Dan Phillips and owner of Dare to Imagine, a company specializing in hotel technology, challenged hoteliers to re-think their role as simply providing hospitality and embrace the notion that they are really “lifestyle providers.”  The piece cites studies that support the concept, describing the need to glean knowledge based on guests' local behaviors to deliver personalized, timely messages and increase brand engagement. 

For years TV ratings companies have had to rely on sample panels as a proxy for measuring actual viewership, and we all know their obvious challenges.  Consider that they’ve typically used panels of 20-50,000 households to attribute viewership to over 120,000,000 U.S. households.  Even at the top-end, this means that one panelist has the burden of representing 2,400 households.  

The planning and development of a mobile app for any brand is no small task. While it’s tempting to follow a cookie-cutter approach for app development that just covers your basic needs of reaching new customers, retaining the customers you have, and giving them a user-friendly way to purchase your products while on the go, you may not be giving yourself the opportunity to explore innovative new ways to gain trusted, rich data on your mobile users once your app starts being actively used. Consider utilizing useful and affordable functionality that you can add to your mobile app now that will provide you with big returns in the end (like increased engagement, higher conversion rates, and bigger share of wallet):

In addition to my role as Gravy CEO, I serve on the board of a flu and cold treatment company called Flunada.  I was having a conversation with Flunada's CEO recently and he was telling me that business is going great and their products are now on the shelves in thousands of retail locations, but there was one thing keeping him up at night.    

Part Two of a Two Part Series:

In Part One of this Two Part Series, we discussed the importance of having access to data-driven customer insights and the challenges, despite billions in investment by marketers in Big Data, to effectively obtain and use these insights to personalize relationships, deliver relevant, compelling messaging and offers, and increase the bottom line. We also shared that one of the most conclusive sources for obtaining and acting on individualized customer knowledge may be “locked up” in your enterprise mobile apps.

Funding to Accelerate Deployment of Gravy GOLD Local-Mobile Behavior Analytics and Segmentation Platform

Leesburg, VA – April 9, 2015 – Gravy, the only data analytics and marketing segmentation provider unlocking the true interests and affinities of customers based on their actual local behaviors, today announced the close of its $7.6 million Series A financing.  The round included Gannett Co., Inc., MetTel, and existing investor Mr. Richard Braddock, Chairman of the Board, Gravy, and participation of other existing investors.  Further, Robert Dickey, President of Gannett U.S. Community Publishing, joins the Gravy Board of Directors.  Also joining the Gravy Board of Directors is Steven Tunney, EVP of Planning and Strategy at MetTel.  

For major retailers in any industry, a new digital monetization wave is coming: mobile commerce.  To date, the impact of mobile on commerce has been primarily digital advertising (describing, for example, much of Facebook’s current market value), which will of course continue to be important.  While mobile commerce is still nascent in the U.S., penetration is already dramatically increasing.  One just has to look to China, where Alibaba now generates over 42% of its sales ($4.2 Billion per quarter) via mobile commerce.  All this is driven by, at its core, the fact that marketers would rather sell than advertise.

The 80/20 Rule of Customer Profitability is now Dead
Part One of a Multi-Part Series

We have all heard of the 80/20 rule (Pareto).  While the rule is true, it can also be factored even further relative to customer profitability. Studies have shown that 20% of that 20% provide 80% of that 80% profit.  

Say that again?