There’s no doubt that mobile marketing is hot right now, and one of the hottest segments is mobile coupons. While there are multiple services providing the design and delivery of those coupons, Kwingo‘s Lisa Foote and her partners saw a need for a “do-it-yourself” option for businesses. Enter their new sister company, MixMobi.
Minnov8 got a look at the new service, which currently is in private beta testing, with a public launch scheduled before the holidays. In an effort to develop a product that answers a need first and foremost, Foote explained that MixMobi was born out of feedback from Kwingo customers who were looking for easy production and distribution of a coupon campaign.
She noted that MixMobi delivers three important benefits:
• “Immediacy: the ability to design and deploy a coupon without the need of a graphic designer or agency.
• Ease: Anyone can design a coupon. There are no programming skills needed. If you can send an email, you can design and launch a coupon.
• Reporting: Once the coupon is launched, tracking can begin in a matter of minutes via an easy to read dashboard.”
The MixMobi program allows for the user to log onto an account and create campaigns with the use of simple text fields, drop-down menus, and templates that can include user artwork and colors. Once the coupon and campaign are created, a link to the coupon is generated. That link can be immediately deployed via Twitter, or by simply cutting and pasting the link into an SMS message, email, websites, etc. “We started with Twitter because of the ease of deployment,” noted Foote. “More services are on the way.” The coupon is viewable on any web-enabled device … and with the multitude of platforms out there right now, you know this is not always the easiest of feats. (See the demo video below.)
The principals at MixMobi, including Foote, Brad Roberts and Kelly Heikilla, are looking to monetize their service in two ways.
First, by targeting small to mid-size businesses who can purchase and design campaigns at varying levels of service. For example, $19.95 will allow a business to launch two offers per month with up to 2,500 page views each. “We feel this is a very competitive price point in this space,” noted Foote. Of course, what’s a web start-up without a free-use level. MixMobi offers such a beast with one offer per month and 1,000 page views.
The second road to profit for MixMobi is the targeting of large agencies or retailers who wish to purchase a software license that allows them to launch multiple campaigns across multiple brands and time frames.
The shakedown of MixMobi is privately under way with three clients and will be in progress for at least 30 days. So far, “Feedback has been positive,” according to Foote. She hopes to see it live in time for the holidays … which, in retail terms, could mean as soon as Halloween.
