WO2013162464A1

WO2013162464A1 - Method and apparatus for the provision of intelligent marketing services

Info

Publication number: WO2013162464A1
Application number: PCT/SG2012/000197
Authority: WO
Inventors: Yeow Chong Larry TAN; Craig Peter SHUTTLEWORTH
Original assignee: Unite Brite Pte Ltd
Priority date: 2012-04-27
Filing date: 2012-06-01
Publication date: 2013-10-31
Also published as: SG194261A1

Abstract

The present invention is designed to manage subscriber's SMS, MMS, email and social media advertisements that consist of video and/or audio link to the clients. This system is designed to maximize revenue and allows the subscribers to know of their potential clients' interests in the shortest possible time. This is a low-cost, high impact and fully automated alternative to traditional, expensive marketing systems. The present invention relates to an Internet and mobile network, and to a method of automating a marketing effort which involves sending video and/or audio link to prospective clients, tracking potential clients' interest in the video and/or audio link and provides a suitable follow-up action to the various possible clients' responses which are collected based on tracking of the video and/or audio link at the server.

Description

METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR THE PROVISION OF INTELLIGENT

MARKETING SERVICES

[001] The present invention relates to an Internet and mobile network, and to a method of sending video and/or audio link to prospective clients and provides ALL follow-up action to the various possible clients' responses which are collected based on tracking of the video and/or audio link at the server.

[002] The traditional technique consists of sending a video and/or audio link to prospective client with limited knowledge on the clients' responses is expensive and not able to provide the most suitable follow-up action to maximize the probability of closing a deal.

[003] Some prior art related to video tracking are described below but they are not identical to the proposed present invention. In US2009/003417 Al, it discloses a method and/or apparatus that monitors and records the times when a user interacts with a network video player and the detailed viewing information is periodically send to a central server for processing. US2009/003417 Al also suggests to record measures such as the duration and repetition of each view. (John Hughes, Tim Wang and Brian Hafer, "Method and apparatus for tracing users of online video web sites," US2009/0083417 Al). However, there are no indications of any follow up actions to the measures taken.

[004] In US 7,260,309 B2, it discloses a method where you can track partially viewed shows. (Srinivas Gutta, "Tracking of partially viewed shows so that they can be marked for deletion when a personal video recorder runs out of space, " US7,260,809 B2).

[005] Some prior art related to SMS notification are described below but they are not identical to the reason for generating SMS notification in our present invention. In US 6,381,465 Bl, it discloses a system and method that monitors if sufficient space is available in a SMS message and if so, it will generate an advertisement and appends it to the SMS alert message. (Vincent Chern and Kevin Thornton, "System and method of attaching an advertisement to an sms message for wireless transmission", US 6,381,465 Bl.)

[006] In US 8,032,161 B2, SMS (short messaging services) notifications are sent to a called mobile terminal about an unsuccessful call attempt made earlier. (David S. Benco, Paresh C. Kanabar, John C. Nguyen and Huixian Song, "Using SMS to explicitly notify called party when called party becomes available", US 8,032,161 B2.)

[007] In this present invention, the system allows subscribers to use the platform to send out advertisements that consist of video and/or audio content and the platform is able to track the potential clients' responses to the advertisements by monitoring if the clients manage to finish viewing the video and/or listening to the audio.

[008] According to the present invention, there is provided a Internet and mobile network comprising:

a plurality of mobile, wireless and/or wireless devices;

a plurality of servers on the Internet providing video/audio streaming with at least some of said mobile, wireless and/or wireless devices, with the server being arranged in operation to monitor the duration of time a prospective client plays a video and/or audio link;

said a plurality of servers are arranged in operation to:

i) allow a video and/or audio content and messages to be uploaded by

subscriber;

ii) play a video and/or audio track that is selected by the prospective client to view or listen;

iii) monitor the duration of each playback of video and/or audio track by each prospective client and updates this information accordingly into a database; iv) perform follow-up actions that are in the form of sending

SMS/MMS/email/social media messages to the prospective client with additional information with or without videos and/or audios; v) notify subscriber via SMS/MMS/email/social media messages on follow-up actions taken, summary of prospective clients' responses and reminders for subscriber to make a phone call to prospective clients who have the higher probability of closing a deal.

[0Q9] Referring to Figure 1 , there is shown (i) a subscriber 1 with a mobile device or computer being connected to a server via Internet and/or mobile network, (ii) a plurality of servers 2 which stores video/audio database, subscriber database, client list database in the memory and provides a mechanism to track video/audio viewed by subscriber's prospective client and provides follow-up actions to different prospective client's response accordingly, and (iii) prospective client 3 interacts with the server via Internet and/or mobile network to access a link.

[010] There now follows, by way of example, a description of specific embodiments of the present invention, with reference to and as illustrated in the accompanying drawings in which:

Figure 1 shows system layout;

Figure 2 shows flowchart of the operation;

Figure 3 shows subscriber customizes information;

Figure 4 is a format of client's response to a video/audio link;

Figure 5 is a table showing client's responses and possible follow-up action taken; Figure 6 is a format of client's response to each promotional video/audio link;

Figure 7 is a table of users' responses monitored;

Figure 8 is the server functionalities.

[011] Figure 2 shows the flowchart of the operation used in the present embodiment. This includes: i) The subscriber logs into the system 4; ii) The subscriber customizes his/her information by updating the subscriber's profile 5, uploading promotional video/audio and updates settings 6 and updating client's profile 7; > - iii) The, system or the subscriber can send a video/audio link to the prospective client 8 by taking the relevant video/audio 6 and the relevant client details 7; iv) The system can monitor client's response 9 by tracking if the video/audio link has been viewed and a) the client's response is considered to be positive if the video/audio has been viewed for the entire duration of the clip or for 50% or more of the duration of the clip 10 and b) the client's response is deemed to be negative if the video/audio has been viewed for less than 50% of the duration of the clip 1 1 ; v) The system will send SMS/MMS/Email/Social Media notification to Subscriber 10 to remind him/her to make an appointment with the prospective client if the client's response is positive, and the system will proceed with other follow-up actions that are preprogrammed by the subscriber. vi) If the client's response is not positive, the system can do other actions listed by the Subscriber and/or stop pursuing the client. vii) The responses of each client and the actions taken to follow-up on the client's responses will be updated on the client's response table 12. viii) Based on the client's response table 12, the system is able to present a summary of the client's responses and the number of positive leads generated from this promotional video/audio advertisement.

[012] In Figure 3, the subscriber 13 uploads details of potential client information 14 in the following format <FIRST NAME, LAST NAME, MOBILE NO, CLIENT EMAIL, CLIENT NUMBER> onto the server 17.

[013] In Figure 3 , the subscriber 13 uploads the video/audio clip 15 onto the server in the following format <CLIP NAME, CLIP DURATION, MESSAGE, SUBSCRIBER

EMAIL, SUBSCRIBER MOBILE> and the system using will determine the duration of the video/audio clip using YOUTUBE API and update this information accordingly. [014] In Figure 3, the subscriber 13 customizes response messages 16 for different types of responses to the video/audio link as shown in Figure 2 and this includes follow-up actions to each of the client's response as shown in Figure 3.

[015] In Figure 4, the client receives a message with a video/audio link 18, and there exist 4 types of client responses: (a) video/audio link is visited and the entire video/audio is viewed and/or heard 19, (b) video/audio link is not visited 20, (c) video/audio link is viewed/heard partially (greater than x% of the content but less than 100% of duration of the content) 21, and (d) video/audio is viewed/heard partially (less than 50% of the duration of the content) 22.

[016] Based on the prospective client's response as shown in Figure 4, the subscriber has already pre-programmed follow-up actions to each of them as shown in Figure 5.

[017] In Figure 5, the pre-programmed follow-up actions of the subscriber are as follows: i) If client's response is option A: Video/ Audio is 100% viewed/heard 23, the system could send a 2^nd video to follow-up with the client and a SMS/MMS alert could be send to the subscriber to flag that this client has a higher probability of interest in the

product/services and the subscriber could make an appointment with the potential client to discuss further; ii) If client's response is option B: Video/Audio is not clicked 24, the system will send a reminder out after x number of days and the subscriber can predetermine the number of days for this context; iii) If client's response is option C, Video/ Audio is viewed/heard greater or equal to 50% of the video/audio length 25, this possibly indicates client's interest, a 2^nd video/audio could be sent to the client and a SMS/MMS alert is sent to the subscriber to remind him/her to make an appointment with the potential client to discuss further. iv) If client's response is option D, Video/ Audio is viewed/heard less than 50% of the video/audio length 26, this possibly indicates client's limited or no interest in such product/services, the system will stop pursuing the client at this point. [018] The system will update the each client's response 15 into a table adhering to the format specified in Figure 4.

[019] The system monitors the users' responses and update into a table as shown in Figure 6 and based on these information collected, the system will produce a set of statistics 29 as shown in Figure 7 for the subscriber to better understand the number of positive leads the promotional video/audio link generated.

[020] The subscriber will be sent an update periodically with the set of statistics 29 as shown in Figure 7 that has information comprising, but not limited to:

i) Number of 1^st messages sent;

ii) Number of 1^st messages watched;

iii) Number of 1^st messages with less than 50% watched;

iv) Number of 1^st messages with more than 50% watched;

v) Number of 1 ^st messages not clicked;

vi) Percentage of positive lead generated;

vii) Number of appointments made.

[021] In Figure 8, the server 31 has key features comprising:

i) sending SMS;

ii) receiving SMS;

iii) serving/streaming video/audio;

iv) video/audio sharing link generator;

v) video/audio tracking;

vi) time release follow up;

vii) conditional triggers;

viii) response reporting. [022] For the above embodiment, a simplified scenario is presented here. A subscriber (Peter), a car salesman, is keen to advertise a new car model that is scheduled to be out in 4 weeks, and his target is to sell 10 cars within that month. The database provides a suspect list of 500. The subscriber uploads the client details onto the server. The server sends to each prospective client the following pre-programmed message: "Dear

<FIRST_NAME LAST_ NAME>, you said to let us know as soon as I knew about the new car being launched. Here's a video of it <append the video/audio link in the message>". If the video link has not been clicked for 2 days, the server will send out another reminder saying, "Hi <FIRST_NAME LAST_NAME>, this is Peter here, if you have not watched the video, please do so ... ". All customers who watched the video till the end, then triggered another message that says "hi <First_NAME LAST_NAME>, I hope you have enjoyed the video, this new car is really amazing. Here is another video on its performance". Once that second video is watched, the system will trigger a note for Peter to call all the people who watched both the video to fix an appointment with them if they are interested to proceed further. With this automated marketing system, the subscriber (in this case Peter) does not have to do all the follow-ups individually and manually. In the earlier stages of this form of marketing, all the follow ups are done by the server automatically and the subscriber only needs to step in when the possibility of a prospective client 's interest is deemed to be high and the subscriber can then proceed to phone the client to make an appointment.

[023] The advantages of the present invention include: i) the system can handle hundreds of thousands of simultaneous messages per server for millions of subscribers and this capability can be easily expanded by adding additional servers; ii) the ease of employment and readiness for expandability; iii) the system requires minimal support and no in-house staff; the servers are load-balanced to provide complete redundancy and 100% availability; iv) the modeled server cloud can be expanded or contracted according to user demand, thus ensuring that the overheads are always automatically kept in line with cash flow; v) the server cloud can be deployed and distributed across many countries, removing the risk of disruption by natural disasters, civil disorder, war or other causes of instability. [024] In broad embodiment, the invention is an automated system that allows subscriber of the system to send promotional video/audio content to prospective clients, track if the video/audio is viewed entirely to determine if this prospective client has a high interest in the products/services offered and send the most appropriate follow-up actions with minimal time and cost wastage to each client's response.

Claims

A method for the provision of automated marketing of products/services with the use of video and audio content, comprising:

updating, via a software user interface of the subscriber's profile and client information;

uploading, via a software user interface of the subscriber's videos and/or audio advertisement;

creating, via a software user interface of the promotional video/audio messages and video/ audio link specific information;

writing, via a software user interface the intended series of response messages for different client responses;

monitoring, via tracking video link of subscriber's prospective or current

clients, with the clients accessing the video using wired and/or wireless link and the video link is sent via SMS, MMS, email and/or social media platform;

responding, with a series of pre-programmed follow-up actions depending upon the response of the prospective or current client to the video/audio link received;

notifying, via SMS/MMS/email/social network message to the subscriber with the list of clients who have probability of high interest in the video/audio link;

presenting, via SMS/MMS/email social network message on the statistics of users' responses to the promotional video/audio in various format.

The method according to claim 1, wherein updating the subscriber's client information consists of the client's first name, last name, contact numbers, email addresses and social media platforms' user name and other items as requested and required as this list is not definitive.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein updating the subscriber's profile information consists of the subscriber's name, contact numbers, email addresses and social media platforms' user name and passwords.

4. The method according to claim 1 , wherein uploading of content which can be video, audio, images and or document via wired, wireless and/or mobile links including smartphones, User Equipment, Tablets and all such devices.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein creating video/audio link messages by typing in the messages to be appended with the links, selecting how many follow- up actions to take, and/or updating the duration of the video/audio link into the video/audio profile.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein writing a series of follow-up actions to each of the client's possible responses is created.

7. The method according to claim 1, wherein monitoring of the link consists of a measurement of the duration of a video/audio is viewed/heard by the client.

8. The method according to claim 1, wherein monitoring of the video and/or audio link consists of a measurement of the number of times a video/audio is viewed/heard by the client.

9. The method according to claim 1, wherein monitoring of the video/audio link consists of a measurement of video/audio advertisement link not clicked by the client.

10. The method according to claim 1, wherein responding of the video/audio link consists of a link that is not clicked, a video/audio link that is viewed for less than 50% of the duration of the video/audio, a video/audio link that is viewed for greater than 50% of the duration of the video/audio and a video/audio link that is viewed completely.

The method according to claim 1, wherein notifying the subscriber consists of sending the subscriber with the list of prospective clients who have high interest based on the amount of time they spent viewing the video/audio and parameter such as repeat views of the same link can be included in determining the level of interest from the prospective client.

The method according to claim 1, wherein presenting the statistics of the clients' response to the video/audio in various format such as in wordings and/or graphical format, not limited to pie charts, bar charts and line charts.

13. An apparatus for the provision of automated marketing of products/services with the use of video and audio content, comprising:

at least a database storing subscriber's information, client information and the promotional video and/or audio related information;

at least a module monitoring, via tracking video link of subscriber's prospective or current clients, with the clients accessing the video using wired and/or wireless link and the video link is sent via SMS, MMS, email and/or social media platform;

at least a module responding, with a series of pre-programmed follow-up

actions depending upon the response of the prospective or current client to the video/audio link received;

at least a module notifying, via SMS/MMS/email/social network message to the subscriber with the list of clients who have probability of high interest in the video/audio link;

at least a module presenting, via SMS/MMS/email social network message on the statistics of users' responses to the promotional video/audio in various format.

14. An apparatus as defined in claim 13, wherein the database is also configured to store the database subscriber's profile and client information, subscriber's videos and/or audio and settings, promotional yideo/audio messages and video/ audio link specific information, intended series of response messages for different client responses, statistics of users' responses to the promotional video/audio link.