Bluetooth advertising tips & tricks
Bluetooth advertising is currently sweeping the country and as purveyors of this technology we owe it to our clients to educate them on proper effective use of bluetooth advertising . We find many clients think that our bluetooth advertising server products are a panacea of advertising . You can pay for any of our ProxiBlaster products just one time and then use bluetooth advertising for free as long as you own the product ! While most clients enjoy great success using our ProxiBlaster bluetooth advertising products, we wanted to present some information that will help you either make a decision for using a bluetooth advertising server or help you use it more effectively .
General Shotgun Bluetooth Advertising :
When you simply turn on one of our BlueCastBox bluetooth advertising servers and broadcast your advertisement to the masses without giving them any prior knowledge via a sign of some type or other announcement via voice , flyer or video, we refer to this as shotgun bluetooth advertising . This particular version of bluetooth broadcasting has the lowest take rate (acceptance rate) of any method of using bluetooth advertising . Simply bluetooth broadcasting advertisements in a public place when the user is not expecting it results in take rates that are in the less than 5% range, not terribly effective . If this is your target you will most likely be very disappointed in the bluetooth advertising campaign results .
Zoned Shotgun Bluetooth Advertising
Another version of shotgun bluetooth advertising is to perform it in a specific place offering something the user might expect . For instance you are walking through a JC Penny store and receive a bluetooth advertisement on your phone like "would you like to accept JCPennyCoupon.gif ? " . The take rate is vastly improved for two major reasons , the user is in an area looking for something to purchase and the file name is descriptive enough that the user wants to know more information . This is where file naming becomes critical to the success of the campaign , however we will talk about that further in another area of this article .
Bluetooth Advertising Hot Spots
This version of bluetooth advertising has the best take rate when properly applied . Bluetooth advertising hot spots are areas where there is sufficient signage to alert the user to turn on their bluetooth so they can receive something from the advertiser . We have seen the best take rates in bluetooth advertising hot spots , take for instance a nightclub, many nightclubs employ video screens to deliver time sensitive information . We have several nightclub clients that are using our bluetooth advertising servers in conjunction with the video screens to offer drink specials . The video screen tells people to turn on their bluetooth to receive the drink special but does not tell the viewers WHAT the drink special is , so they are being teased into accepting the bluetooth advertisement that contains the drink special as well as some information about upcoming events . Delivering the message in this manner greatly improves take rates and also leaves a message on the users phone for later viewing instead of just a fleeting advertisement on the video screen . This scenario is also used at trade shows where large signs at the entrances notify the patrons that the arena is a bluetooth advertising hot spot and that they should turn on bluetooth . Now the client is expecting something via bluetooth and again the take rate climbs considerably .
Mobile Bluetooth Advertising
This type of advertising is when you install a bluetooth advertising server in a vehicle and simply drive around . We at ProxiBlaster and RapidCraft Software Inc. do not support this type of advertising and will not knowingly sell our bluetooth advertising servers for this purpose . The idea of broadcasting advertisements via bluetooth to unsuspecting drivers is a recipe for disaster. As the user fumbles with his phone there is a great opportunity for an accident and the advertiser could be held liable for advertising in this manner .
Bluetooth Advertising File Types
While all of our ProxiBlaster bluetooth advertising products will allow you to send any type of file at nearly any size we do have recommendations for file types . Every phone is somewhat different as some can view videos , others cannot , some can listen to MP3 files but others cannot . Obviously in most cases as an advertiser you want to reach as many customers as possible so you want a file type that accepted by the most phones . There are 3 primary file types that are accepted by nearly all bluetooth phones .
First is the VCARD , the vcard file is a virtual business card you can create using microsoft outlook . These vcards can contain a photo , a website address , email etc . Nearly all bluetooth phones will accept this type of file however there is a drawback . Many phones will ask the user if they want to add this vcard to their contacts and the take rate drops because of this . The second drawback is that if the user says yes to accept the vcard , most phones add the vcard to the contacts but do not display the vcard to the user . Knowing this you can use it to your advantage and name the vcard file with a number as the first letter of the file name . This will cause the vcard contact information to be in the first position when the user looks at their contacts , so your message does get to the user but maybe at a later date than when they actually received the message .
Second in the list is the JPG or JPEG file , almost all phones accept these files as well and you can put a fair amount of information in a jpeg file but you are limited by the screen size of the phone and the text cannot be too small to read . Typically you can use the jpeg format for a coupon or as a teaser to visit your store or website . Most phones will pop up the file after it is downloaded so it is presented to the user immediately , other phones will simply save it to the pictures folder and the user will have to look for it on their phone .
Third in the list is the GIF or Animated GIF , we recommend the latter as nearly every phone can view a gif file , the standard gif file suffers from the same dilemmas as the JPEG file , however the animated gif offers the opportunity for multiple screens so you can display far more information and the animation is substantially more attention grabbing than the static gif or jpeg . All that said , you need to take care when generating animated gif files as many phones have very slow processors and low memory to be able to handle 15 or 20 frames . The delay between frames is also an issue as slow processors will extend the delays considerably . We recommend not more than 10 frames and very short delays between screens but you will have to do some testing to find the happy medium for your bluetooth advertising campaign .
Bluetooth Advertising File Sizes .
Bluetooth advertising is dramatically different than advertising via the web or other mediums. Our bluetooth advertising servers deliver content to cell phones and mobile devices that have some of the least memory and slowest processors of any computerized device . When bluetooth broadcasting advertisements we recommend using the smallest file size possible for several reasons . We can only assume that you are trying to reach as many phones as possible with your bluetooth advertising campaign and many phones you are targeting will have slow processors and low memory overhead , this produces two problems for the bluetooth advertiser. The first is that the slow phone will download the file slowly which will tie up one bluetooth channel for an extended period , which prevents your bluetooth advertising server from using that channel to approach another phone , effectively reducing the number of phones you will contact . The second problem is the slow phone may crash on a large file and that leaves the consumer with a very bad impression which could lead to negative advertising and a confrontation with an angry customer .
Recommended file sizes for Bluetooth Advertising Campaigns
We tell our clients to use file sizes under 10k , yes this is an absolutely tiny file but the benefit is that any phone can handle a file this size and it can be delivered extremely fast so your bluetooth advertising server can move on to the next phone , effectively increasing the number of phones you can contact ! So how do you make files that small ? We recommend using photoshop and a gif animator software from Ulead . When you create the file (animated gif) we suggest using a maximum of 3 colors and use a maximum of 10 frames . This will get your message across and will viewable by nearly every bluetooth enabled phone .
We hope you find these bluetooth advertising tips and tricks helpful and your bluetooth advertising campaigns are more successful as a result . We will be adding to this article from time to time as client information requests deem necessary .
