Online Dating is a $1.33 billion industry in the USA

Major findings by Marketdata in its January 2012 study of the dating services market in the USA.

Size of Dating Market

• Market Value = $2.1 billion in 2011
• Growth Rate = 4.7% annually through 2015 to $2.54 billion

Market Providers

• 1,800 matchmakers and dating coaches
• 250 retail dating offices
• 350 radio station datelines
• print personals (editor’s note — mostly alternative free weeklies today)
• 1,500 dating websites
• singles phone chat lines

Dating Websites

• $1.33 billion in 2011 — 63% of dating market
• Growth rate = 6% annually through 2015

Despite the recession and economic turmoil, the study said that the poor economy is actually helping the dating market much as it did after 9-11-2001, as more people seek a partner during trying times.

Advanced Telecom Services and its associated Spark Network Services are the largest suppliers of online dating solutions for radio stations in the United States.

The latest smartphone penetration statistics are out and nearly half of all Americans now own a smartphone.

As of January, 2012, according to the latest Nielsen data, 48% of American adults own smartphones.  That is up from 43% just four months earlier.

The Nielsen study was conducted by a survey of 20,000 mobile users.  While Nielsen tabs the number at 48%, comScore’s December, 2011 study, for example, had the number at just 42%.

Here is the smartphone penetration by age and income.

And, the smartphone penetration just by age.

Time spent on mobile phones per day increased by 30% in 2011.  That makes total mobile time 1:05 and greater than the 44 minutes per day devoted to the combined use of newspapers and magazines, according to a new eMarkter study.  Last year, both mobile time and print read time was at 50 minutes per day.

Mobile means business all over the world.

http://www.advancedtele.com/blog/2011/12/extra-extra-read-all-about-it/

U.S. adults spend 10.1% of their total media consumption time with mobile, but only .9% of total ad spend is dedicated to mobile. Contrast with TV time spent vs. ad spend, at 42.5% and 42.2%, respectively. eMarketer

Half of smartphone owners have scanned QR codes and 18 percent of them made a purchase after scanning. Consumer Pulse

Eight trillion text messages will be sent this year – Portio Research

“The most powerful advertising medium ever invented.”  — New York Times

Mobile all started here:

Wireless engineer Brennan Hayden sent what many consider to be the first commercial text message on June 7, 1993.  The profound text said: “burp.” (http://www.Text Message Blog.mobi )

AT & T wins big at the Super Bowl while fans send over 700,000 text messages…

For the mobile marketer, coupons are the key to growth:

http://www.textmessageblog.mobi/2011/11/06/coupons-mobile/

College Students are Generation Mobile, here is some insightful statistics on their behavior:

http://www.textmessageblog.mobi/2011/11/01/college-students-text-message-habits/

According to The Neilsen Company, teen users are still text crazy:

http://www.textmessageblog.mobi/2011/01/09/text-message-use-age-2011/

Top Ten Reasons The Human Race is Mobile Dependant…..

1 of the many mobile users in the world.

(No, these are not taken from the David Letterman Show)

#10… It takes 26 hours for the average person to report a lost wallet. It takes 68 minutes for them to report a lost phone. (Source: Unisys)

#9… 70 million mobile phones are lost every year.  (Answerbag.com)

#8…  In June 2011, the number of U.S. wireless subscriber connections surpassed the U.S. population. CTIA

#7… It takes 90 minutes for the average person to respond to an email. It takes 90 seconds for the average person to respond to a text message. (Source: CTIA.org)

#6… 70% of all mobile searches result in action within 1 hour. (Source: Mobile Marketer)
#5… There are more mobile phones on the planet than there are TVs. (Source: Jupiter)
#4… 91% of all U.S. citizens have their mobile device within reach 24/7.

#3… 94% of all text messages are read immediately upon receipt.  (Been using this one so long, we don’t recall the source but it is true)

#2… 85% of children own a mobile phone, while only 73% own books at home.  (National Literacy Trust)

And The #1 Reason Humans Are Mobile Dependant……

#1… There are 6.8 billion people on the planet. 5.1 billion of them own a cell phone, but only 4.2 billion own a toothbrush. (Source: Mobile Marketing Association Asia)

1. Google has a separate index for mobile content so it’s easier for your website to be found on mobile devices.
   

   Mobile microsites cost 1/5 of the price of an app with much of the same functionality.

2. Your regular website is hard to view on a cell phone.
3. 93% of U.S. adults own a cell phone.
4. 20% of Americans access the mobile web each day.
5. Mobile web will overtake the desktop within 5 years.
6. Google predicts 50% searches from mobile phones in 2012.
7. 5% of the top 500 online retailers have a mobile website/iPhone app.
8. Mobile advertising spending will surpass $6.5 billion in 2012.
9. Users average 13 hours online per week, up from 7 in 2002.
10. Smart phone sales have grown 96% in one year.

The great thing about a mobile website is that it can be created for about 1/5 of the price of an app with much of the same functionality.  While you may lose out on the pass-by traffic offered by the iPhone store, the savings and less time commitment to develop a mobile microsite makes it easier to complete.

It is a big election year and many political candidates will be using our voice broadcast, or “robocalls,” to reach voters.  The question came up as to how the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991 fits in with political candidates.  You probably know that political candidates are given more leeway when it comes to outbound telemarketing without a bonafied opt-in.

Under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act of 1991, politicians and campaign volunteers may call voters on their landline or wireless phones. But when a campaign uses an auto dialer to leave a “robocall” (precorded message), calls to wireless phones are prohibited.  In short, it is:

• legal for a campaign to call voters on their landline phones using an auto dialer to leave a robocall without the “prior express consent of the called party.”
• illegal for a campaign to contact voters using to use auto dialers and robocalls to their cellphones without prior express consent.

The same rules apply to text messages.  It is:

• legal for campaign workers to send texts to voters’ cellphones.  For this service, political candidates can use text message marketing services such as 84444.com.

To learn more about TCPA, please visit the FCC’s websites on telemarketing and SPAM texts.

Please do not consider this legal advice.  You should consult your own attorneys to get your own legal opinion.

The use of qr codes in magazines increased by 5 times in 2011.  The qr code enhancement seems ideally suited to the medium of magazines.

Magazines embrace QR Codes

Why have magazines kept pace while the newspaper industry seems doomed?  One of the factors that could be driving the feature-oriented magazines is that they don’t need to be as timely as the breaking news of the newspaper.  And, there’s simply no way that a print newspaper can keep up with the other more timely mediums of today.

Magazines became an increasingly important part of the growth of QR Codes last year.  It simply makes sense.  By adding a QR Code to a weekly or monthly print publication, the magazine can remain timely.  That’s because all you need to do is to change the content on the back end of the QR Code and you are now just as timely as the internet.

A survey of the top 100 circulation magazines in the United States found that mobile bar codes use by magazines climbed from 352 in the first quarter issues to 1,899 in the fourth quarter during 2011.

Bob Bentz's business card contains a custom qr code.

Business cards are getting a bit old fashioned. In fact, the day may come in the not too distant future when business cards are obsolete. For now, however, business cards remain a vital part of doing business. If you’ve ever attended a trade show, you know what I mean. I keep waiting for somebody to say that they don’t have a business card, but so far that has never occurred to me.

It is important, however, that you maximize the value of your business card. There is limited space on the business card so maybe it’s time to get rid of your fax number and other things that are truly no longer relevant in the business world.

Replace that space with an interactive QR Code. A QR Code shows that you are an up-to-date businessperson that knows that most savvy people today know how to scan a QR Code with their smartphone.

We recommend creating a Custom QR Code. A Custom QR Code on a business card can show your personality and makes your card stand out from the rest of the pack. Our apples-to-apples study shows that Custom QR Codes get 2.3 times greater scan rates than ordinary black & white QR Codes. In fact, after my recent trip to the CTIA Show, I noticed that my QR Code on my business card had been scanned a whopping 56 times!

Of course, if you’ve been reading about QR Codes, you know that there are numerous problems in the execution of this relatively new mobile marketing tool. Most important is that marketers are using them to simply send a scanner to a website that isn’t even optimized for mobile; this is truly a poor user experience and gives the user limited value. It is best to send the scanner to some unique and creative content. Video is a great choice.

Other people using QR Codes on business cards are using them to share contact details. There are numerous kinds of software on the web that enable you to download your contact details onto the scanner’s cell phone. This isn’t a bad idea, but I want to get the scanner’s information too. Moreover, I’ve included a text message marketing tool (Text BOB to 84444) if all they want is my contact details in digital format. That’s why my Custom QR Code sends them to my LinkedIn page. Once they LinkIn with me, I’ll have them in marketing database forever.

On Tuesday, Apple – the operator of the world’s most lucrative mobile application storefront – directed a communication at its entire developer community. The message? Apple has no patience or tolerance for the manipulation of app rankings in the App Store.

Apple moves to stop app rankings scams.

“When you promote your app, you should avoid using services that advertise or guarantee top placement in App Store charts. Even if you are not personally engaged in manipulating App Store chart rankings or user reviews, employing services that do so on your behalf may result in the loss of your Apple Developer Program membership,” the warning from Apple reads.

The warning came in response to a growing number of claims that shady marketing practices and purpose-driven technologies are falsely inflating app store rankings via erroneous, repetitive download schemes.

In order to maintain the integrity of the App Store and its ranking system, Apple says it will clean house and not hesitate to remove anyone who tinkers with the legitimate established processes that determine an app’s rightful ranking in the App Store.

While Apple did not specifically release how it intends to accomplish this goal, there is no doubt that it has the know-how to make it happen.

If you were watching Super Bowl 46 (I refuse to use Roman numerals that nobody understands), you know that all of the action was not on the field.  That includes the riveting halftime performance by Madonna who showed that at age 53 she’s still smoking hot and a great athlete. Just in case you were one of the 157 people that missed the Madonna halftime show during Super Bowl 46, here it is.

Best Buy’s advertisement was interesting and showed that it was carrier agnostic and that Best Buy was a great place to shop for the best mobile phone plan for your particular needs.

There also was an enormous amount of action, mobile marketing action that is, during the commercials, proving that mobile marketing has now made it to television’s biggest event and in a big way.

One of the biggest advertisers this year was Chevy, which has a big television ad campaign and advertisements across other mediums. It is also running a competition through its special Super Bowl iPhone and Android apps, where users who take the trivia quiz in the app can win up to 20 vehicles.  But, Chevy wasn’t the only one to jump on the mobile bandwagon.  A range of companies, including Subway, Coke and Pepsi have either sponsored apps, created apps or tied in with existing apps to extend their Super Bowl campaigns to the palm of viewers’ hands.

If you were able to take your eyes off of Danica Patrick and the painted model for a moment, your eyes may have raced over to the QR Code that Go Daddy used in the lower left side of the screen.  You may wonder why a QR Code would be included in a visual medium like television.  Some have likened television’s use of QR Codes to be as silly as putting a QR on the side of a speeding bus.  Not so, in the 2010′s, however, when the viewer can stop the action on the screen or easily go backwards to scan the QR Code.  While it was great to see a QR Code during the Super Bowl, we would have rather seen Go Daddy use a Custom QR Code which has proven to get 2.3 times more scans than an ordinary black and white QR Code.

Of course, Papa John’s got a lot of pre-game publicity on this, the biggest pizza buying day of the year.  It’s pregame coin flip of heads means that every member of Papa John’s club will receive an email today on how to redeem the outcome of the coin flip into a free pizza and two liter Pepsi.  You can also check it out here and get your free pizza.  While this was a great promotion, wouldn’t it have been especially cool for winners to immediately get a text message mobile coupon after the coin flip to announce their winning a free pizza.  Talk about chatter at the Super Bowl party!

The NFL itself didn’t miss out on the mobile marketing party either.  It promoted its new NFL fantasy football game.  If you text NFL to 69635, fans could win $1 million in the new fantasy football game.  Now, it’s interesting to be promoting a fantasy football game a full 8 months before most fantasy football leagues will be holding their drafts.  No doubt, the NFL intends to reach out to its text message opt-ins in late summer 2012 to encourage them to use the new fantasy football website.  Obviously, the NFL recognizes that 19 million Americans play fantasy sports and it can’t afford to miss out on this burgeoning market.

According to the Mobile Consumption Survey nearly 40% of respondents used mobile devices in response to TV ads.  This included discussing commercials, getting more information about an advertised product, or watching TV ads again. 45% estimated that they would spend 30 minutes or more on their mobile devices during the game.  Interestingly, more used their mobiles during the first half than the second half, either exhausted from Madonna’s riveting halftime show, the effects of too many beers, or simply a great and exciting conclusion to the game.