Mobile Marketing: A New Advertising Platform = A New Opportunity for Growth?

By embracing mobile marketing you can expect 80% more clicks to your site, as 4.2m UK consumers visit company sites via mobile phones every month! Needless to say, only 4/20 of the most frequently visited retailer websites are optimised for mobile (including tablets) so make sure you avoid this pitfall asap!

What are my options content-wise?

As well as a standard text message, why not up your interactivity? Engage with customers; give them a reason to open your message. Text options include:

• Games – either a mini game via an App or a link to the game on your site
• Interactive voice response – then they will really take note!
• Viral – is your message so current and fun that it just needs to be shared? Include a video if possible, as well as a link to ‘share’ to Facebook walls, email addresses, etc.
• Location marketing – if you’re customers come within 100m of your shop – Bluetooth them an incentive to visit, e.g. 10% off drinks at your bar
• Applications – lets you communicate more about your brand than a single line of text
• Compliment your other campaigns – it can support and email campaign you’ve launched or an advert you’ve created
• Creating the image – particularly if your target audience are young, appearing in-the-know with technology will earn you brownie points with your customers

Benefits

• More responses compared to traditional methods – it’s the new Direct Mail on the block and if they want to act upon your message they can do it immediately
• Personalisation – similarly to email, once your customer data is stored you can add their name and product preferences, purchasing behaviour, etc to any message you send. This can mean sending 4/5 versions of the same message depending on your customer base
• Immediate -for rapid campaign response this is the winner. And you thought email was fast!
• Opportunities for mobile database development – receivers can update their preferences on the go. Think about how many times you’ve got a text/email and thought “I must to that later”, then forgot. Problem solved.
• Opportunities for ‘Location Marketing’ – when H&M opened their newest Newcastle store, they texted all contacts in their database that lived within 20miles of the city centre informing them of a 20% discount on the launch day. Could you do something similar?
• Cost effective delivery – 10p to pretty much guarantee your message reaches your customer? Bargain. There are loads of good business deals at network providers so it pays to shop around for a good deal

Who are you targeting?

Social Connectors – 22% of mobile owners use their phone to bridge them to the social world

Pragmatic Adopters – 22% of mobile owners are learning about the functional capabilities and what they can do with their mobile phone other than say ‘hello’.

Basic Planners – 20% of mobile phone owners use their phone just for the basic communication, e.g. call and text

Mobirati – 19% of mobile phone users are known as the ‘mobile generation’ and cannot imagine life without a phone!

Mobile Professionals – 17% of mobile phone owners who are more likely to own a smart phone and use it for both business and personal use. They see their mobile as an all in one device for communication and information.

One Iota data revealed that mobile phone users said that “adverts that offered bargains, a game or free app were the most popular ways to encourage their response”.