Shopping from everywhere becomes the norm: The number of companies who make it easy for customers to buy from nearly anywhere using any connected device, and the number of consumers who expect this option, will surge. This increased consumer appetite for anytime, anywhere shopping will necessitate that brands stop focusing on disparate channels and concentrate on seamless experience ecosystems.

The physical world gets digital overlays: Digital triggers, including Augmented Reality, Quick Response (QR) codes and Image Recognition (IR) will change how people engage with their surroundings. These real-world enhancements will enable a new level of information access that encourages heightened engagement, sampling and interaction.

Retailers will blur the lines between channels: The offline world will embrace digital ever more tightly, as brick-and-mortar stores offer the best of technology-based features. From scanning product tags and paying with smartphones to engaging with interactive signage and ‘trying on’ clothes with augmented reality, stores soon will offer an easily accessible layer of detailed product information.

How and what we spend evolves further: Digital wallets and virtual currency will change how consumers shop for products, buy and share services, watch what and how they spend and track account balances. What’s more, their smartphones will help usher in a new, faster way to complete in-store purchases.

Points and rewards follow customers everywhere: Mobile devices and context-relevant features will give companies a direct line to individual consumers no matter where they are. This ubiquitous connection will enable simplified loyalty programs with real-time tracking and updates based on social, location and gaming elements.

Data changes the way we live and work: The wells of data that companies have collected and consumers have shared will start being harvested regularly. Using the social graph and other data, companies will begin to deliver more relevant experiences that enable deeper connections, impactful messages and enhancements to how people interact with and manage the world around them.

Banner advertising makes a comeback: The ability to utilize data for highly targeted advertising and to gather better metrics will return imedia to a place of prominence. Brand messages will use consumers’ relationships, preferences, favorites and past behaviors to create relevance and enable greater insights when analyzing real-time reports.

These are just a few of the digital trends helping to shape our ever-changing, real-time digital landscape and helping to influence how companies connect with customers. In the weeks ahead, we will explore each in more depth and discuss how forward-thinking businesses can use them to their advantage.

It’s clear that what, when, how, where and why we buy is shifting and fairly dramatically. Does Target know that I bought speakers from Amazon while standing in their store because the price was notably better? Or does Dick’s Sporting Goods know that I launched the Zappos app and purchased sneakers for my son because Dick’s service was just too painfully slow? Or does Nordstrom know that their lack of size availability in TOMS drove me to TOMS.com to purchase the perfect pair for my niece while standing in their abundant shoe department?

It’s clear that channels are disappearing (if they ever existed) in consumers’ minds. The opportunity to buy everything, everywhere is here. It’s what inspired me to coin the phrase Everywhere Commerce over 18 months ago, and it served as the central theme of our iCitizen conference this past fall. This is unprecedented opportunity for retailers and brands to serve customers in more relevant ways, to deliver content on demand, to close the sale when the consumer is receptive—whether it’s in store, at home or on the go. At RI, we believe that the world is on the cusp of a commerce revolution and the exciting thing is, we’re only at the starting gate! That’s why our agency is dedicated to helping our clients navigate, innovate and execute in this consumer-led, technology-powered landscape where all the world’s a store. Literally, figuratively, virtually. If you missed iCitizen, you can get the highlights video here, or if you have more time on your hands, you can listen to each of the presentations here—complimentary!

What’s ahead for 2012 in our agency? Mobility. More innovation, more integration, more acceleration. We’re inspired to help our clients connect with consumers, equip them in new and better ways and give them the power to close the sale—when they’re good and ready.

Thanks to smartphones, consumers can buy, research and browse at home, in store or nearly anywhere else. They can use barcode scanning apps to compare in-store prices to those online and instantly purchase via mobile. They can buy coffee at Starbucks with the company’s mobile payment app, which has seen more than 26 million transactions since January. And they can even “tap to pay,” using services like Google Wallet and ISIS, at select offline stores, public transportation providers and online merchants. Soon, this capability will be everywhere.

But there’s more to mobile shopping than streamlined purchases. Mobile devices are also shifting the way people earn, collect and organize points and rewards. CardStar lets consumers scan their swarm of loyalty cards and organize them all in one convenient app. Yogurt franchise Yumilicious uses SMS, mobile web and a smartphone app to let customers receive and redeem purchase points. And Walgreens uses its app to deliver coupons that customers can scan at more than 7,700 stores.

Mobile is becoming the hub of the entire customer journey, from offers and browsing through buying and points redemption—online, offline and everywhere in between. It gives companies an opportunity to connect with consumers before, during and after the sale. And, for the first time, mobile can pool real-time data inputs such as location, social graph, past purchases and motivators to help create truly meaningful one-to-one experiences.

Whether it’s as advanced as Near Field Communication (NFC) readers at every checkout or as basic as mobile-optimized websites, it’s critical that companies enable and simplify mobile shopping. When done correctly, the results are increased purchases, stronger connections and, most importantly, the potential for deeper loyalty.

All of that said, imagine the power of a message sent at just the right moment with content powerful enough to drive consumers into stores. There are native apps that can do this, but not all of our customers are on the same platform to make a wide reach. An SMS sent at just the right place and time is the solution. Here are a few scenarios to demonstrate.

An avid sports fan with a smartphone is walking into a stadium and receives a text for a free Brand-A hot dog at the game and a coupon for Brand A the next time they go grocery shopping.

After leaving work, a mother of three kids with a flip phone wonders what to make for dinner. She exits off the highway and gets a text from a pizza joint up the road offering immediate pick-up and a free 2-liter.

A weekend warrior with a feature phone is driving to her next shopping destination when a nearby clothing store sends a text announcing a new sale going on today only.

All of these scenarios (and countless others!) are possible with geo-targeted SMS. Resource can help set up geo-fences (that is, virtual fences that correspond to physical geographic locations) around stores, parks, or any other points of interest. The technology then implements an action if a subscriber’s phone happens to be within a geo-fence. Depending on the information submitted when a subscriber opts in to the program, the message can be hyper-personal too. In other words, a male gets a different message than a female, or a Cleveland Browns fan gets a different message than a Pittsburgh Steelers fan.

The benefits of this technology include brand recall, immediate engagement, and increased store visits, encouraging high conversion. There’s an intimate interaction that happens between a brand and its customer when these messages occur. Of course, there are implications relating to privacy with this technology. The value offered by the brand must be perceived to be higher than the consumer’s perception of compromise when it comes to sharing their location. Privacy concerns are top of mind for Resource to ensure a great experience that both surprises and delights. We form a strategy around this basic principle.

This goes without saying, but there is a growing importance placed on more targeted mobile marketing tactics as mobile usage increases. Geo-targeted SMS gives a personal connection with your brand and blends in with an activity that is already being utilized by a vast majority of mobile customers. Find them at the right time, with the right message, and they will reward you with loyalty.

In the case of a direct response campaign driving to an online purchase, getting to a hard ROI is practical (and is the basis for performance marketing). Typically, though, those calculations still undercount the impact of the investment by not taking into account the “brand” value and impact of the campaign, and those calculations will also overcount the results of the investment because they take full credit for revenue that was triggered or influenced by activity in other marketing channels (for instance, the revenue we garnered from our retargeting campaign was influenced by the volume of traffic to the website in the first place, which was influenced by paid search investments, which was influenced by consumer interest generated through TV and print).

When it comes to Everywhere Commerce, there is a similar nuance. Measuring actual purchases from an off-site (social or mobile) experience is fairly straightforward. But measuring the support of an off-site purchase can be almost impossible to directly capture, and measuring the downstream impact of enabling off-site search/discovery of a product, immersion and exploration of the product, post-purchase advocacy, and the sharing of any of those experiences with the consumer’s social graph makes things messy indeed!

This isn’t to say that digital and social media aren’t measurable. They absolutely are, but they require accepting that measurement is not a black-and-white quantitative formula—it requires science and numbers operating in tandem with the “art” of consumer insight, marketing experience and strategic thought. The key to appropriately blending the art and science of measurement to drive meaningful results and effective optimization is to answer what we’ve termed “two magic questions” at the very outset of any new initiative:

1.    What is it that this investment is supposed to do?
2.    How will I know if it did that?

The questions are simple, but answering them isn’t necessarily easy. Yet, reaching agreement and document on the answers to these questions at the very outset of any new initiative is imperative.

Often, it’s easy to answer the first question with one of the Big Three Business Goals: increase revenue, increase profitability, or improve customer satisfaction. But when getting to the second question, it becomes readily apparent that the first question was answered at too high of a level. When that occurs, we find that a useful tool is to build a quick causal model diagram as a group exercise that starts by articulating what sort of outputs can be expected from the initiative:

“We’re going to step up our presence on Twitter because that will be a way for us to foster dialogue with our consumers.”

Then, we logically work through how those outputs will drive to that higher-level business goal:

“Increasing our dialogue with consumers will increase their affinity for our brand, which will both move us higher in their consideration set when it comes to their next purchase while also turning some consumers into advocates, which will increase the awareness of our brand through their social graph.”

Document this causal model. Does it make sense? When you show it to your peers, your manager, and your manager’s manager, do they nod their head and agree? Or is the logical link to a meaningful business outcome convoluted? If it’s the latter, STOP! Or, at least, pause and ask yourself if the initiative is the right one or if the outputs you identified were the right ones.  It’s much, much, MUCH easier to adjust the strategy and approach at this point than it is to wait until after the initiative has launched and realize that it’s not delivering something of value.

If you’re interested in diving into what sorts of outputs social media shines at—it’s not a light read, but it’s got fantastic content—consider picking up a copy of Social Media Metrics Secrets by John Lovett (or you can hear him talk about the book on the Beyond Web Analytics podcast where he was interviewed).

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In the latest Resource Interactive weThink podcast, the RI:Lab expert panel discussed Kindle Fire, Google+ brand pages, the supposed death of Flash and more.

Adobe Abandons Flash for Mobile Browsers
Recently, Adobe announced that it was abandoning work on a Flash Player for mobile and focusing its efforts on HTML5. The weThink panel discussed how the proliferation of iOS devices may have forced Adobe’s hand, why Flash isn’t completely dead, ways rich experiences can be delivered via mobile and other matters related to an announcement some in the industry have long expected.

Kindle Fire Concentrates on Content
While most tablet manufacturers tried to win the tablet war with hardware, the success of the iPad and popularity of the Kindle Fire and Nook Tablet are proving consumers care more about content. The RI:Lab experts talked about Amazon.com’s new tablet, including its price point, form factor, content delivery system and potential to become many households’ secondary tablet.

Google+ Brand Pages: Too Little, Too Late?
Less than a week ago, Google+ finally began allowing brands to have pages. The panel dug into the effects of taking so long after the network launched to give brands a place to live. They also discussed why brands might want to wait before putting a great deal of effort into another social network, the lack of a true differentiators for Google+ and the need for the network to offer significant usage data.

Picks of the Week

Kris: With his first Pick of the Week, Kris selected two envisioned future videos. Corning’s “A Day Made of Glass” and Microsoft’s “Productivity Future Vision 2011” videos imagine a world where every flat surface is an interaction point. To counter those videos, Kris also offered an article entitled “A Brief Rant on the Future of Interaction Design”, which suggested many visions of the future aren’t visionary enough.

Dan: This week, Dan’s Pick was Amazon Flow. Using augmented reality features, this iPhone app lets consumers scan items—from book covers to standard UPC codes—to get information. When it recognizes a product, the app displays Amazon.com product details, as well as options to view multimedia content or customer reviews.

Barce: The Jawbone UP wristband made it to the top of Barce’s list this week. Built around a motion sensor, the wristband tracks users’ daily activities, including sleep, steps and exercise. It works with an iPhone app that lets the wearer review his or her sleep cycle, challenge progress and more.

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In this edition of the weThink podcast, the panel fills your ears with their previous Google+ predictions, a native app versus mobile web discussion, talk about Facebook mobile experiences, a look at the iPhone 4S and more.

Revisiting Google+
Three weeks into the Google+ public launch, the podcast panel decided to reassess their initial questions about and predictions for the social networking site. While three of the four panelists originally overestimated the number of people that would be Google+ members by now (approximately 43 million), none were surprised at the numbers. In fact, the panel members wondered if the overwhelming number of people already on Facebook and the lack of a differentiator between the two social networks could mean an end to Google+.

From Native Apps to Web Apps
The panel took on a recently written article that used the controversial headline: “Mobile Apps Must Die”. Though the team had strong opinions about the presentation and tone of the article, it agreed that the movement from native apps to web apps was a subject worthy of deep consideration. The discussion included dialogue about changing web standards, the future of ubiquitous connection opportunities and the need for a progressive shift.

Facebook’s Mobile Updates
Earlier this week, Facebook released its first iPad app, as well as updates to its smartphone app and mobile web site. The team talked about the changes and how they will help improve the user experience.

Apple iPhone 4S vs. iPhone 5
With the iPhone 4S being delivered, the team wanted to discuss why this newest version is special and why any consumer indignation was misplaced. The team talked about the one-million iPhone 4S devices pre-sold in the first 24 hours of availability and the features that drove consumers to speak with their wallets. From the improved camera to the artificial intelligence of Siri, the panel thought the world-record of “Fastest-selling Consumer Electronics Device”—held by Kinect for selling 8 million units in 60 days—could be in reach for the iPhone 4S.

Picks of the Week

Barce: For his Pick of the Week, Barce selected foursquare Radar, which helps users find places near them that they may not have know were there. Using new iOS 5 features, the foursquare app will encourage users to try new places, check in more frequently and use lists more actively.

Dan: This week, Dan’s favorite bit of technology was Tweet Speaker, which will read your list of tweets out loud. Not only does it let you focus on walking or driving while still hearing your latest tweets, it also looks at links and reads the title of said link instead of just telling you the URL.

Matthew: This time, Matt’s Pick of the Week was Disney AppMates, which uses miniature Cars 2 vehicles and an iPad to bring playtime to life digitally. When kids, or adults, place a car on an iPad, the car’s sensors let the person explore the world of Radiator Springs.

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Download and subscribe to the weThink podcast for all the insightful opinions and interesting banter.

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Consumers are using mobile devices to dock with their PC, to control traditional computer applications and to act as secondary monitor displays. We’re even seeing environments that allow users to run virtual versions of their mobile apps on a desktop.

So what does this mean to you?
These changes are signaling the need for brands to begin considering how they will build a single experience and port it to multiple devices. Soon, mobile gadgets will be the hub that allows users to access a single, consistent experience, whether it’s with a brand website or a piece of software in the cloud. The key is creating relevant, consistent experiences that can be easily ported, without rebuilding, to laptops, tablets and smartphones.

Read more
The Mobile and Desktop Merger
iPad and Mac Sales Up 250%
PC Sales Down

Google recently made NFC the backbone of its reported initiative with Citigroup and MasterCard, is testing NFC-enabled window decals in Portland and Madison, and has joined the NFC Forum. Plus, Wells Fargo rolled out an NFC pilot program in San Francisco, Amazon may be throwing its hat into the NFC ring, and a variety of other companies are running their own tests.

So what does this mean to you?
The move to the virtual wallet is picking up speed. We will soon be at a point where NFC technology allows consumers to check in to a location automatically, earn rewards, get detailed product information, access electronic coupons and make purchases, all with their mobile device. Brands must begin to test and understand the impact of NFC technology on simplifying loyalty, CRM, checkout and more.

Read more
Google Ditches QR Codes
MasterCard Leading Mobile Payment Pack
Amazon Exploring NFC Arena

More than 3 million people have used Starbucks’ mobile payment system to buy coffee and treats. The number of people using mobile devices to access bank or brokerage accounts jumped 54 percent in the fourth quarter of 2010 compared to the same period in ‘09. And 48 percent of consumers use mobile devices to research or browse products and services, up from just 37 percent in mid-2010.

So what does this mean to you?
Clearly consumers are willing to use their mobile devices as both a path to purchase and a virtual wallet. And the numbers will continue to grow. Particularly when you consider that the first widely adopted tablet was released barely more than a year ago. Whether a brand has already adopted mobile as the core of their marketing strategy or they’re just establishing their mobile goals and objectives, the time is now to ensure that mobile is more than a digital component. Consumers want to connect, engage and purchase wherever and whenever. Fully integrated mobile strategies that create connected experiences give them that power.

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Mobile Commerce Growing Dramatically
Starbucks Mobile Payment a Hit
Mobile Banking Surges 54 Percent