Little Caesar’s, Redbox and Toms Shoes are partnering with Signal, formerly Interactive Mediums, to drive traffic to their locations.

Signal has a cross-channel marketing platform that enables retailers and marketing professionals to promote their companies, products or offers across mobile, email and social media, all from a single application connected to a common customer database.

“We had the opportunity to beta test Signal and quickly became impressed with the solution’s ability to take a lot of the complexity out of the setup and tracking of cross-channel mobile marketing campaigns via a well-thought-out workflow,” said Brett Leary, vice president of mobile marketing at Digitas, Boston.

“For agencies such as ours, solutions that help our teams and clients save time is a major benefit,” he said. “Rapid time from idea to execution makes this ideal for novice and experienced digital marketers alike.”

Signal is a provider of software-as-a-service (SaaS) cross-channel marketing tools and interactive campaign consultative services.

Mobile Signal
Consumer brands, retailers and broadcasters need to integrate their mobile, email and social media marketing into true cross-channel campaigns, rather than silo data in separate applications.

Signal’s platform ties channels together, unifies the customer record and provides tools and workflows that enable digital marketers to create cross-channel campaigns optimized targeting on-the-go consumers.

Based on its online system for mobile marketing, which has processed more than 160,000 client campaigns since 2006, the company created its new cross-channel marketing platform, Signal.

It provides a single interface from which marketers and retailers can plan, execute and analyze campaigns that include the mobile, email and social media channels.

Signal unifies customer records so that information gathered through one channel can affect interactions in other channels.

At the heart of the new platform is the Unified Customer Profile, a database containing customer permission and preferences data across all channels.

It includes a unique customer-maintained Preference Center – a Web console that lets customers specify how, when and where they wish to hear from marketers.

Signal helps marketers segment its common customer database by those preferences as well as any number of other customer attributes gathered from all customer interactions.

The same platform also provides tools to send coordinated promotional messages through any and/or all channels, based on customer preferences, segmentation and type of message, for example, rich content versus a short call-to-action.

Built-in reporting and analytics provide marketers with real-time monitoring of cross-channel campaigns so they can analyze and share results and then re-target customers accordingly.

Redbox
Coinstar Inc.’s movie rental provider redbox has debuted the “Location Finder” text service, powered by Signal.

The service is designed to make renting and returning DVD and Blu-ray Discs easier for consumers nationwide.

Now movie lovers can text the keyword “redbox” to the short code 50101 from a mobile device, reply to an incoming message with a ZIP code and receive a list of redbox locations in the area.

The new service is the latest mobile feature offered by redbox and complements the successful debut of its free iPhone application, which launched in November 2009.

Consumers simply use a touch screen to select their favorite movies and swipe a valid credit or debit card to check out.

“With more than 24,000 locations and counting, finding the nearest redbox location has never been easier,” said Gary Cohen, senior vice president of marketing and customer experience at redbox, Oakbrook Terrace, IL. “Our mobile programs continue to enhance the redbox experience and make finding the latest film or the closest redbox simple for consumers.”