Constant Contact Makes a Mobile Move

Email marketing provider Constant Contact is dipping into the mobile arena with its newest acquisition of CardStar, which is a mobile loyalty application for smartphones.

The free mobile loyalty app puts membership and rewards cards on smarphones, which allows consumers to use a single application instead of pulling out a wallet full of cards. Currently, the app has more than 2 million active users on mobile platforms like the iPhone, Android and Blackberry.

The CardStar application works with large retailers and small businesses, but Constant Contact's focus will be on the small businesses.

"CardStar and Constant Contact will do for loyalty systems what we have done for email marketing, social media marketing, and event marketing - make it easy, effective, and affordable," says Gail Goodman on the company's blog. "And we will enable your customers to use the same mobile app where they store their national loyalty cards. Over time, our solution will allow you to tailor mobile deals and information to your customers, and to track engagement so you can reward those customers' loyalty."

Cardstar will provide small businesses with an opportunity to incorporate mobile into their marketing campaigns, especially since a recent Constant Contact survey revealed that 72 percent of small businesses don't already do this.