Four Click Freedom

http://bit.ly/173fzI

SmartKiosk Media will deliver Digital-Out-Of-Home (DOOH) advertising via interactive “SmartKiosks,” smartphones, internet social networking sites, and a unique format of direct mail print advertising to consumer households.

Now this is pretty amazing and along the same line as my idea.  My idea again is to use the web, print and outdoor advertising to collect coupons via a coupon code that can be collected using your phone number, on the web or by texting.  On the web these ads can be on social networking sites or use of local targeting software agencies.

The kiosks in my theory was for pre-shopping and collecting of additional deals of the day at your grocer or mall outlet.  When these coupons are then validated at the point of purchase using your phone, and it doesn’t have to be a smart phone, then the retailer is sent the validation as well, eliminating cheating coupons.

The final step is the print media sent to the users house.  Now I am pretty sure that the material this company is sending is just Direct Mail full of ads, even if they are targeted or not.  My idea is to link your magazines and newspapers to your shopping history, something you can also tailor online.  Then when the magazines and newspapers of your choice come to your house they are full of relevant advertising that make a difference to you.

With all the screaming and hollering about the print industry dying it is any wonder why they haven’t tried to absorb this idea.  But the good thing is, if I can get the numbers, I now have something to pull from to allocate risk analyses and profit margins. So, go Smart Kiosks!

Actually it was a pretty productive meeting.  Starting out he liked the Clickboard.  He thinks its a great new media and has more applications than just coupons.  I see his point and we both agreed that it could be copied by anyone.  That was not a qualm.

We also talked about the difference between SMS and MMS.  It seemed common that this idea worked better through MMS and that most phones are capable of receiving MMS.  We did argue about the potential plagiarism rights an SMS creates.  He was saying that people can simply send themselves coupons, thereby creating cause for theft.  He was saying that waiters can simply send themselves a bunch of messages, or even in the first place not tell that the SMS was used and pocket the money.  This led me to the validation step.  Currently his process does not have a validation system.  I suggested that once the coupons have been sent to the user, that they would be required to validate the coupon in front of the waitstaff thereby expiring the coupon from use by that user.  The total validated coupons received for that client could then by submitted at the end of the week or month for their records, eliminating theft from waitstaff.  But he saw that people would not pay the extra money to send one more message to validate their coupons.  This led me back to the fact that I wanted to change his model to be free to the user.

Regardless each message is locked in to costing RMB1 under his model so this would not work or change.  However he said I could have my own number to use for RMB3000 a month.  So the Clickboards on his site or others around the Internet could be accessed through my number.

He kept explaining that the mobile coupon market is still very young and has not taken off.  He has seen little success with this type of business model.  Something that can not support itself.  And charging the client for giving away the coupons is very difficult.  Alvin sees the light that the Clickboard has but not necessarily through coupons and believes charging clients RMB12 per acquisition of coupon will be difficult.  Getting any money out of them would be hard.  So he sees value in the Clickboard but not for this.  This is a conundrum.

He followed up his argument with a colleague he helped try to take print coupons to the mobile media for use.  He said there was little success.  However I am going to follow up with this person Andrew Collins of MailMan.com to see if he sees the light in what I’m doing.

We concluded by saying that I need to do my own stand alone website that would act as the hub for Clickboards and that I could on a trial basis use his website as an extended portal.  And again use my free number in which these discounts would be accesses through MMS.   This he said he would do on the basis of a friend.  However to build this standalone website with full Java applications could take three months with ten people working solely on the project for a grand total of RMB300,000.  This is currently what his mGuanxi.com website is worth.

I then asked what he is doing with mGuanxi.com and he said it was simple the social tool of his service.  I began to understand that not too many people are that involved with this site as their choice for a social media.  We then went into behavioral advertising and that kind of tailspinned as he did not see people interacting heavily enough with the site to truly allow it to work for the clients.  I see that and asked why there was no advertising on the site now and he said he did not want it to be overbearing to the user at this point but that is in the plans.

Currently Alvin is working more in Search Mobile Advertising which I agree is where most people see the potential for the mobile devices in the future.  He is working with some big names and I think that is where his aim is.  Maybe he will apply the Clickboard to this service in the future.  He liked the idea and I’m sure he is thinking of ways to utilize it.  One day I hope I still get credit.

He left me feeling encouraged that the idea has potential but told me the more you do the more pitfalls you will discover.  He is reluctant to change, that is one of the number one pitfalls that occurred during this meeting.  However if I was to start he would go with the flow and help me out.  So as he said keep talking to investors and get their advice.  So keep talking about it!

WujWuj will assuredly fail like everything else similar because they require so much interaction for a product, too much hunting, and everyone always wants the lower price.

Solution, offer the rebate later.  Go ahead and shop buy anything you want and share what you bought, brag about it, get others interested, but don’t wait for the savings.

With your online account tracking your history, anyone in your network, according to your setting of filters and privacy, can review some of the favorite items you’ve saved on or bought lately.  If they are interested too, they can go get it.  Say one hundred people in your network bought Super Bowl memorabilia for full price, well according to WujWuj, if they had bought it through their group buying, they would have all saved 20% if they waited and bought together.  Well you are still a group and you all still bought the same stuff, so why not still get the savings.  This is possible if you offer the savings later after the purchases have been made.

You can still promote the things you buy and attract more people to your purchases, thus still taking action, and therefore still applicable towards recieving savings.

This is really where the ‘social’ part comes into the social shopping networking utility.  As much as you would like to use all the coupons that come to you via Clickboards.net and all the ones you save to your account using Clickboards, you are probably going to get more than you need.  They do expire, but why not make the most of them?  In this format you can forward on coupons to friends and people in your network, earning you points.  You can also get points from using the Clickboards around the Internet, and even each time you use the Clickcard when you purchase items.

So what do these points do for you and why should you take the time to manage them and share them?  Well you can use these points for special discounts.  It is like a store where you purchase coupons using your points.  The more points you hand over, the bigger and more special the discounts you can select.

Advertisers can give you points for using the Clickcard on their site and basically the more you get involved with Clickboards.net the more points you get.  So the more you control your account and the better the targeting and more sophisticated your filters and the more you open your privacy settings, the more benefit there is for you.

For instance if you sign up your phone with the account you could earn a designated number of points each month.  Imagine going grocery shopping and paying for half your items with preferred customer points.  With more people in your network and the more integrated you become with them, the more potential there is to acquire shared savings.

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