If your digital marketing plans don’t include expanding beyond the Net to the mobile phone space, you’re missing a huge opportunity. Mobile is the next frontier and smart organizations are already establishing a foothold.
A terrific example comes from The Mayo Clinic, whose brand is front-and-center in a mobile phone application launched last week by Digital Cyclone, a subsidiary of GPS leader Garmin Ltd. Dubbed The Mayo Clinic InTouch, the applet is available for download to mobile phones through services Sprint, Verizon, Cingular and Alltel; the service runs a meager $2.99 per month but your organization could offer a similar utility free, banking on the branding to fuel ROI.
Using the program, cell phone users get access to a wealth of information from The Mayo Clinic, the cornerstone of which is a list of the closest emergency rooms. GPS-enabled phones simply pull up the information based on the user’s current location. Others can enter a Zip Code to get retrieve the list (shown below).
Other features include a first aid resource that tells you what to do right now when dealing with an injury or illness (not to mention what not to do). Both of these features make perfect sense for a cell phone — how often are you at your computer when a medical emergency occurs?
There’s also a symptom checker, health alerts, and even a storehouse of video featurettes.
The Mayo Clinic, along with the Joint Commission on Accreditation of Healthcare Organizations — have liensed content to Digital Cyclone, which owns the product. However, the Mayo branding appears whenever anybody pulls up the content, creating an experience that locks in a perception about the Clinic’s expertise and capabilities. Talk about smart…
Here’s a video demo that Mayo has uploaded to YouTube.
I use another application on my cell. I have a Priority Pass membership that gets me into airport lounges in airports all over the world. When I’m stuck at an airport because of a flight delay, I simply pull out my phone, open the Priority Pass app, and find the closest lounge my Priority Pass card will get me into. That’s a lot faster and easier than opening my laptop, booting up, and running an application. I appreciate the simplicity, which is one of the reasons I keep re-upping my membership year after year.
So think about the kind of content your organization has available that would be valuable or useful to people when they are away from their desks. Can it be turned into a cell phone application? If so, don’t let the opportunity to get your content and your brand onto users’ phones pass you by.
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