OIR Interactive Blog

Myrtle Beach Dining and txtMB

August 26th, 2010

TxtMB is the area’s only interactive SMS-based marketing campaign, and it works by aggregating promotions and discounts from many area attractions and then broadcasting them directly to visitors’ cell phones. Myrtle Beach area restaurants still have an opportunity to join txtMB before the 2010 tourist season comes to a close.

Summers in Myrtle Beach usually end with a bang, not a whimper, drawing big crowds in August and into September for Labor Day festivities. Myrtle Beach area restaurants that have not yet joined txtMB can still enroll before summer ends, but the sooner the better: joining before the start of September will be crucial for getting the most out of this year’s campaign.

Labor Day Weekend
Labor Day weekend is a huge draw for tourists and locals trying to savor every last drop of summer. While people are enjoying the street parties, retail sales, and golf tournaments that are typically offered during this big holiday weekend, restaurants can help themselves stand out by putting their offerings and promotions directly in consumers’ hands. TxtMB advertises promotions for all kinds of entertainment options in Myrtle Beach, and subscribers who opt in to receive discounts to golf courses and water parks will also enjoy discounts to area restaurants.

txtMB is free to join and is used by visitors and residents alike. With so many unique dining options in the area, and with the development of the area’s new boardwalk, consumers will have much to choose from this year. TxtMB can help direct people to specific restaurants that offer discounts and give smaller, lesser-known restaurants and bars an opportunity to stand out.

Football Season
While Labor Day may signal the end of summer for many travelers, Grand Strand residents will continue to enjoy the benefits of membership to txtMB. Eateries can stay on people’s radar through the occasional SMS reminder of good deals and discounts.

September 2 offers the kickoff of college football, with NFL season beginning soon after. Restaurants with sports-viewing capability can increase the size of their crowds by getting the word out early. Offering drink or appetizer discounts is great enticement for sports fans. TxtMB provides a low-cost way to advertise discounts directly to those people who have expressed interest. Sports fans can be very loyal to the establishment of their choice, so bringing in crowds from the beginning is the key to building season-long customer loyalty. Being part of a well-targeted SMS campaign that advertises through mobile can make a big difference in a restaurant’s or sports bar’s weekend attendance.

The best part about txtMB for participating restaurants and bars is that businesses can choose which time of day their promotion is sent out, enabling food/beverage places to reach people at whatever time of day they are most likely to come in and redeem an offer. If an establishment caters to a dinner or after-dinner crowd, that restaurant can choose to send its promotion later in the day than a business that serves breakfast or lunch. Marketing directly to people wherever they are—and at the time of day they are most likely to enjoy a food or beverage promotion—will increase the rate of redemption.

txtMB offers the least expensive method of direct advertising to interested visitors and residents. Participating businesses are guaranteed that their offer will reach every person who expresses interest, and no unsolicited messages are ever sent. Contact OIR for more information about adding your restaurant’s promotion to the campaign and getting the most out of the last remaining weeks of summer.

Posted in Mobile Marketing, txtMB | No Comments »

New Mobile Campaign Includes Activities for Kids

August 24th, 2010

Thousands of families travel to Myrtle Beach each year, many of them looking for fun activities for children. Most people know that Myrtle Beach is the home to over one hundred top-notch golf courses as well as popular restaurants, resorts, and live-show venues, but it is not always easy to find kid-friendly attractions. After parents have taken their kids swimming in the ocean and hotel pool, they begin to look around for other ideas. Mobile marketing can help child-friendly businesses stand out and give vacationers and residents options for entertaining children.

Young children can be difficult to entertain on vacations because they need consistent supervision and are easily bored. Businesses that cater to children—particularly vacationing children—can optimize their marketing campaigns by including a mobile element. Taking advantage of a text campaign already in place for Myrtle Beach is an inexpensive and low risk way of getting started with mobile.

txtMB, an interactive mobile campaign that broadcasts discounts for local attractions directly to visitors’ cell phones, offers a category specifically for child- and family-friendly activities that lets vacationers know about all the things they can do with their kids. txtMB aggregates coupons, discounts, and alerts for area businesses and sends them out via text message (for free) to users who opt in. txtMB is the only comprehensive mobile campaign in the Grand Strand that gives vacationers and residents exclusive discounts directly on their cell phones so there are no coupons to remember to carry. Kid-friendly attractions can join txtMB and be guaranteed to have their company’s coupon or promotion in the hands of every parent who signs up.

Water parks, amusement parks, museums, and mini-golf courses are popular choices for parents, but with so many competing businesses—and with no way for parents unfamiliar with the area to discern among them—a mobile campaign that sends alerts directly to parents’ cell phones narrows the choices dramatically. And since new coupons are texted to subscribers’ cell phones each day, businesses are likely to see their offers redeemed the very day they are sent out.

When assessing the kid-friendly aspects of your business, don’t forget teens. Three-quarters of American teenagers have mobile phones, and texting is the fastest, most effective way to reach them. How likely is a teen to conduct his or her own extensive research about area attractions when on vacation? Not very. But businesses that offer entertainment options for teens can market to them and their parents directly through txtMB.

Offers sent to cell phones have a high open/read rate, and with txtMb, offers are guaranteed to go only to those who have expressed explicit interest in kid- and family-friendly activities. txtMB is free to subscribers and offers a simple opt-out option to people when they leave the area; it is also the area’s only mobile marketing campaign that brings together promotions from dozens of area businesses and broadcasts them to consumers directly. With the tourist season in full swing, there is no better time to join.

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Look Who’s Texting Now

August 17th, 2010

As you know, we’ve been preaching that text message is one of the most popular methods of communication around the world. Comparing the cost of a cell phone with a text message plan and a computer with a broadband connection it’s easy to see why texting has become extremely popular in developing countries. With unlimited texting plans carriers have pushed SMS messages the choice medium for teens everywhere.

Mashable has put together a pretty sweet info-graphic illustrating who’s texting the most, where, and how far we’ve come since the advent of SMS.

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Congress Considers Authorizing States to Collect Sales Tax for Online Purchases

August 16th, 2010

Online purchases that were once exempt from sales tax may soon be taxable. The House of Representatives is considering a bill that would close a sales tax loophole that exempts online businesses from collecting the taxes that “bricks-and-mortar” businesses are required to collect. H.R. 5660, the Main Street Fairness Act, would eliminate a tax-collection discrepancy by granting states the authority to require sales-tax collection from online retailers.

Under current law, online retailers are not required to charge sales tax on goods unless the business has a physical plant or location in the same state as the customer. Since online sales tax typically applies only to customers residing in the state(s) in which the online company has a physical presence, it is the out-of-state consumer’s responsibility to remit sales tax on internet purchases to their states of residence (though many people fail to do so). While many states have entered into an interstate compact (The Streamlined Sales and Use Tax Agreement) that creates uniform guidelines for collecting sales tax from remote sellers, the compact requires congressional approval to take effect.

H.R. 5660 was introduced by U. S. Rep. Bill Delahunt, who explained his rationale for the bill on his website. The current system, he notes, “allow[s] many online retailers to avoid collecting sales taxes from out of state consumers, and place[s] retailers on local Main Streets at a competitive disadvantage simply because they collect and remit sales tax revenue.”  According to Delahunt, sales tax constitutes up to one-third of most state budgets and he estimates that over 18 billion dollars of tax revenue is lost annually under the current system. The bill is designed to help close the budget deficits many states are facing without imposing new taxes. Delahunt’s statement claims that no state will be forced to join the agreement, but states who want online retailers to collect sales tax will have authority for enforcement.

“The Main Street Fairness Act provides Congressional authority for th[e] interstate compact to take effect.  This does not compel any state to join, but those that choose to adopt this system would then have the authority to require online retailers to collect and remit sales taxes the same way that businesses on local Main Streets do now.”

The Main Street Fairness Act is supported by National Retail Federation and the International Council of Shopping Centers, as well as many other state-level retail associations.

Opponents of the bill argue that small online businesses cannot afford to navigate the complex tax codes of every state and jurisdiction; such compliance would place too much of a financial burden on online retailers at an already-difficult time, ultimately slowing the growth of the internet economy. Opponents of the bill include Ebay and the Computer and Communications Industry Association as well as online retailers and various advocacy groups.
The full text of the bill can be found at:

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Myrtle Beach Bikers Go Mobile Too

August 16th, 2010

Hundreds of thousands of motorcycle enthusiasts come to the Grand Strand each year in the spring and fall for bike rallies. While vendors compete for biker business in Myrtle Beach and the surrounding areas, a mobile marketing campaign could be the key to putting some vendors ahead of the competition.

Resorts, hotels, restaurants, bars, sporting stores, t-shirt and apparel shops, and every other business that caters to these seasonal guests should look into a text message campaign that addresses bikers’ unique interests and traveling needs. A targeted SMS campaign that invites bikers to join—in return for exclusive discounts and pertinent alerts—has enormous potential to expand a client base and gain interested customers who are guaranteed to bring friends and to return seasonally.

Business owners who want to make the most of the upcoming Grand Strand Fall Rally this September can launch an SMS campaign that sends out one or two texts per day advertising an exclusive discount. Remember that the bikers who come down here for the Fall Rally tend to ride socially, traveling with friends and other enthusiasts. Keeping that in mind, take advantage of the viral nature of a text campaign. Many of the motorcycle enthusiasts come down with a group and meet even more people once here. If your deal is a good one, your subscribers will spread the word; those who redeem your offer are also likely to bring guests to your establishment. All of this can increase your marketing pool exponentially.

An SMS campaign for the Grand Strand bike rallies is particularly manageable for even small businesses new to mobile marketing because the timeline of the campaign is so limited. The local bike rallies tend to last only 5 or 10 days, depending on the season, so even daily or twice-daily messages do not risk overexposing your advertisements. And any biker who does not opt out at the end of his or her stay can be remarketed to next year. If your business decides to offer mobile marketing this fall during the Grand Strand Bike Rally, the numbers collected can be reused again in the spring before and during Bike Week in May.

The Grand Strand’s Fall Rally is set to start soon. Since there will be fewer vendors in the fall than there were in May, now is a good time to get your marketing campaign off the ground and establish yourself as Bike Week’s major mobile marketer. Then, when the larger rally comes in the spring, your business will be that much more ahead. Chances are, people will remember you again and will tell their friends. OIR’s TextBoard offers an inexpensive and very simple platform for organizing a text campaign and sending automatic, regular alerts to all your opt-ins.

Posted in General, Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

Myrtle Beach Mini Golf Can Reap Benefits of Mobile Marketing Campaign

August 16th, 2010

Miniature golf is a fun and popular pastime, and an activity of choice for hundreds of thousands of families who visit the Grand Strand every year. In spite of the fact that there are dozens of miniature golf courses in the Myrtle Beach region, there is, surprisingly, no central place for course owners to advertise their discounts and deals. There are also very few places that tourists, parents, and mini-golf enthusiasts can obtain coupons. Several of the area’s discount-promoting sources require a paid membership; otherwise, you just have to be lucky and stumble upon a useful coupon.

Fortunately, a new marketing co-op has just begun, advertising discounts and promotions exclusively for Myrtle Beach Businesses. With txtMB and its ability to broadcast coupons and alerts directly to visitors’ cell phones, miniature golf courses can get their promotions out to every vacationer who expresses an interest.

The cost of joining the area co-op txtMB is very small because it spreads the costs of a mobile campaign over many businesses. For a small monthly fee, mini-golf course owners can join the campaign and have their chosen coupon or promotion sent to mobile phones of every resident or visitor who expresses an interest. Business owners do not have to gather the names or numbers of interested people, or keep track of new opt-ins and recent opt-outs, or invest in any special technology or equipment to participate in a mobile marketing campaign. TxtMB does all that for you. All you have to do is decide upon the enticing deal you want to send out, and then enjoy the benefits of having all the marketing and advertising done for you.

The best part of txtMB is its targeting ability. Your deals will be sent primarily to people who express an interest in playing miniature golf within the next 15 days. Of course, subscribers can remain in the campaign to receive discounts for as long as they like, but many people who sign up for txtMB offers are vacationers looking for daily activities, so they are most likely to take advantage of area offers very soon after receiving them. With txtMB, you do not waste your budget advertising to indifferent people; the only consumers txtMB sends to are those who have specifically requested information and discounts to area golfing.

TxtMBalready offers deals to over a dozen local golf courses that golf enthusiasts can enjoy, but mini golf—which is also very popular and particularly kid-friendly for vacationers—is underrepresented and would benefit from a targeted, interactive marketing campaign that puts discounts directly in customers’ hands. And while txtMB will appeal most heavily to vacationers now, consider the longer-term advantages of a mobile campaign on the mini-golf slow season. Even after the tourist season slows down, txtMB will continue to broadcast mini golf deals to the local subscribers and give the participating courses an edge on the competition.

Posted in Golf, Interactive Marketing, Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

Stores Go Mobile Before Students Go Back to School

August 16th, 2010

The Back-to-School season is already here. This is the best time of year for retail businesses to draw in parents, teens, and college students who will be spending a lot of money on clothes, shoes, backpacks, lunch boxes, dorm essentials, and school supplies. If you’ve never tried mobile marketing before, back-to-school season is a great time to start.

You have three large demographics to consider: parents, teens, and college kids. Your mobile campaign should take into account your products, and from that, the mobile usage of your targeted demographic. If you sell items for younger children (clothing, lunch boxes, elementary school supplies), you are obviously attracting parents, and a successful mobile campaign will consider the deals most valued to this group. Research continues to show that adults in their 30’s rely heavily on texting; an SMS campaign for this group is a great way to promote your deals. You may develop a campaign in which parents opt in to receive announcements about sales and deals, or you may invite people to text keywords to receive a discount coupon on their back-to-school shopping. In doing so, you not only help your business stand out from the many school-supply competitors, but you gain their permission to remarket to them in the future.

If your target audience is teens who may or may not shop with their parents, consider the kinds of deals that will appeal to them and how you can use SMS to reach them. Unsurprisingly, 75% of teens aged 12-17 own a mobile device, while 50% of teens send at least 50 texts per day.1 Teens are most likely to opt in to an SMS campaign if something comes with it.

An incentive like a free item is especially helpful in attracting teens, as are contests and polls, which are very popular and
go viral quickly. Remember that teens tend to stay in frequent contact with friends, so a great incentive or contest will get passed around quickly and can reach a lot of people for a small investment.

College-aged students have unique back-to-school needs, which often include not only study materials but also living and traveling essentials. Most college-aged students continue their “back to school” shopping long after school has started because new needs come up with the changing semesters and because their living arrangements are more frequently adjusted. Consider SMS and email campaigns that reward loyalty. Encourage mobile clubs in which membership grants continuing discounts and incentives, making consumers more likely to remain on your business’s marketing list even after school begins. Since 95% of people aged 18-29 use text messaging, and 65% access the internet from their mobile device, develop a mobile marketing strategy that can reach college-aged shoppers directly on their devices.2

No matter what your marketing strategy, a mobile component can and should be incorporated for the back-to-school season. Updating your website is crucial, and it is particularly helpful if your site is customized for mobile so that the many smartphone owners—teens and young adults in particular—can access your site and promotions as they shop in your store. You can even use your store to advertise your mobile campaign just by hanging signs that invite people to text a keyword for an instant discount. This is totally free advertising for you, and it guarantees that you will grow your contact list with the mobile numbers of interested shoppers for future remarketing. Develop a mobile marketing strategy to build or expand your contact list and create a loyal base of customers who will return year after year for their school shopping.

Posted in Interactive Marketing, Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

Mobile Gift Cards for the Busy Shopper

July 28th, 2010

Mobile gift cards are the next step in gift-shopping for Americans. Already a growing number of businesses offer shoppers the opportunity to purchase mobile gift cards, which greatly simplifies the gift-card transaction and eliminates postage, shipping/handling fees, and time delays associated with traditional gift cards.

Developing a strategy for mobile gift cards does not have to involve expensive equipment or complex application development. The technology can be simple, and the more straightforward and convenient for the average mobile user, the more popular it will be.

One way to reach out to consumers with mobile gift cards is by having a website customized for mobile. Not every cell phone user is a smartphone owner—only about a quarter—but those who do use their smartphones use them a lot. If they can access an easy-to-navigate mobile site that allows them to purchase a gift card and have it directly sent to a friend’s cell phone number, they are far more likely to shop with you than your competitor.

But even for non-smartphone-owning customers, mobile gift cards can be a huge draw. When a customer purchases a gift card from a business, whether online or in person, he or she can be given the option of having the gift card sent as a text to a recipient’s cell phone. The gift card contains a code, and can be used exactly the same way a physical gift card is used, with purchases deducted from the amount and unused balances saved automatically.

When considering whether or not mobile gift cards are right for your business, ask yourself: What are the biggest reasons people choose not to purchase gift cards?

Shoppers do not always know what stores are local for a long-distance friend or relative. People don’t want to guess and hope that a certain retail or dining establishment is in the recipient’s neighborhood. Customized mobile sites and location-based applications tell shoppers right away what shops are convenient to the recipient. Have store-locating information prominent on your mobile website.
Mailing physical cards is a pain. When a shopper purchases a gift card from a physical establishment, she or he must consider the postage and process for mailing the card. While many stores will ship the card to the recipient, the shipping/handling fees are annoying—especially when a customer is charged $4.99 to ship a $10 or $20 gift card. A mobile gift card sent by text incurs only the messaging fee (if there is one), which is far less than a shipping fee.

Shoppers do not want to wait in long and inconvenient customer service lines. This applies primarily to large shopping malls and outlets, where the gift-card purchasing process is time-consuming and out of the way of a customer’s normal shopping routine. Particularly during the holiday season, when the lines look endless, a mobile gift-card buying process would appeal to many time-limited shoppers.

Shoppers are not sure that the card will be used. Even if you know that the store is in the recipient’s region, can you be sure that he or she will remember to carry the card around? But you never wonder if your friends and relatives will remember to carry their cell phones. Mobile gift cards can be stored for as long as the user owns the phone number, ensuring the gift card is with that person any time he or she shops.

A knowledgeable developer can customize your website for mobile and work with you to create mobile gift cards that are sent via text message. Like mobile coupons, they reach interested shoppers instantly and cheaply. Using the automated gift card technology you already have in place, mobile technology can expand your market reach, make you more convenient and tech-savvy than your competitors, and ultimately give you a huge edge with mobile shoppers.

Posted in Interactive Marketing, Mobile Marketing | No Comments »

Search Engines Boost Your Business’s Online Visibility

July 28th, 2010

A common mistake many businesses make is assuming that simply building a website will result in a high volume of traffic overnight. In fact, creating a site and attracting users to it are two different projects. Before hiring a web developer, make sure he or she is experienced with formatting and coding to suit standards for search engine optimization (SEO). Even the most aesthetic and informative of site is useless if no one can find it. Internet users have notoriously short attention spans and are inundated with information every time they conduct a search. Most users searching for businesses in your category will choose someone from the first or second “results” page and will not look much further. With so many competitors all vying for the attention of the same group of consumers, your developer needs to ensure that your site is optimized to be crawled by Google, Yahoo!, and other popular search engines.

OIR sees SEO as a vital part of marketing and we will design and code your site to be as visible as possible in search engine results. OIR Interactive will ensure your site is getting the most effective and accurate indexing. Some of the SEO services in which we specialize include:

  • Keyword research and analysis
  • Optimization of web page Titles, Meta Keyword & Description, body text, headlines, image Alt tags and internal link structure
  • Configure URL rewrite (SEO and user friendly)
  • Blog optimization (if any)
  • Site Map setup and configuration
  • Monthly SEO reporting
  • Maintenance of site code for best possible crawls
  • Continue keyword research to spot trends and changes
  • Optimize site content to maximize keywords
  • Inbound link development
  • Recommendation and consultation of successful landing pages, paid directory and paid linking
  • Maintenance and optimization of local search
  • Hand submission to major search engines and top directories

Pay Per Click

By optimizing your site to be crawled by search engines, you ensure that your website comes up organically in each user’s search. Paid advertising is a more direct way to guarantee that your business is at the top of a search page. Pay-per-click advertising is a popular and effective means of having your site listed on the top or along the margins of keyword-based searches, and you only pay for the number of hits generated.

OIR Interactive has extensive experience setting up pay-per-click advertising campaigns and can work with your business to determine the most productive and relevant keywords so that you do not generate (and pay for) frivolous hits. OIR Interactive will research and determine any possible niche markets and build the most relevant keyword phrase(s) for your site. We will:

  • Create and fully set up your pay per click accounts with Google AdWords, Yahoo! SM and Bing
  • Research the most relevant keyword phrases that best describe your websites and identify keywords with the highest Keyword
  • Effectiveness Index for testing
  • Determine any possible niche markets that you may be able to tap into
  • Create targeted keyword-rich ad copy for your campaigns
  • Set up tracking and conversion events

A consistent level of online visibility is the key to generating new leads. Take advantage of OIR Interactive’s extensive experience in all aspects of internet marketing and analysis, and increase your website traffic.

Posted in General, Interactive Marketing | No Comments »

Mobile Marketing for Myrtle Beach Hotels: Three Ideas

July 21st, 2010

Another tourist season is here and the millions of vacationers coming to Myrtle Beach from all over the U.S. will need accommodations. There are many beautiful hotels and resorts on the Grand Strand, but most are not nationally-known brands that out-of-towners will immediately know to search. Hoteliers trying to gain more visibility can consider a few ideas.

Improve Your SEO

It is 2010. So, of course, you have a website. (Right?) A well-designed website is a must. With the growing ubiquity of mobile devices and public WiFi hotspots, today’s travelers do online research not only before their trip, but during it as well, so an online presence for your business is essential to staying competitive. For hotels and resorts, a website creates the opportunity to make a visual argument about your services. Your site should feature a photo gallery with pictures of rooms, amenities, and your particular view of the beautiful Atlantic.

But what good is all that visual bragging if no one can find your site on Google? Search Engine Optimization (SEO) is a service that makes your site visible to popular search engines; the better your SEO, the higher your website will appear on a search engine’s “results” page. Thus, your SEO is directly related to your number of hits. It is imperative that your site is designed and coded properly with strategies for maximum SEO in mind.

Get Mobile

Many hotels and resorts in Myrtle Beach have some kind of website, but how many are customized for mobile? The sale of smartphones is on the continual rise, enabling Americans to do just about everything from their mobile devices: email, research, shopping, etc. Travelers in particular depend on their mobile devices to provide them with location-based services, so customizing your website for mobile is another must.

But here, again, the right web developer is vital. Just as you need a qualified developer who can format and code your website to suit SEO, you also need one who understands the purpose of a mobile website. The best mobile websites are not merely shrunken versions of the original desktop sites, but they are sites that understand the consumer habits most prevalent in mobile usage. Mobile users, and tourists especially, are people on the go; they are less likely to be browsing and more likely to be goal-oriented in their searches: they want directions, availability, contact info, and real-time rates. A mobile website should be as easy to navigate as possible, and if consumers can book their room right from their mobile device, you are several steps ahead of your competitors.

Go Viral

Take advantage of social media and the viral nature of email by encouraging your promotions to be passed around. Have a great deal to offer? Make it as unique and appealing as possible and advertise it on your website encouraging people to link to it. If you have an email campaign in place, include your special promotion in an email message, inviting people to forward it to friends and family members. This not only creates rapid, viral advertising for your hotel, but it will boost your search engine ranking while expanding your market reach.

In the era of mobile marketing, the only limit is your own creativity. Designing a marketing strategy that intersects web, email, and mobile campaigns is a guaranteed way to increase your visibility and stand out from the many Myrtle Beach hotels and resorts. The more people can learn about your services before they arrive, the better the business interaction—for them and for your brand.

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