Most informed South Africans will agree that doom and gloom certainly has been in abundance of late. And the naysayers really upped the ante around the end of last year while the rest of us were attempting to enjoy the well-deserved break that is the annual December and January holiday season. We heard all sorts of predictions about South Africa’s imminent demise that centered on economic growth, the rand, the presidency and all the usual suspects.
Thankfully, Minister Pravin Gordhan stepped in and his well-received budget speech helped pull us back to reality. It reminded us that South Africa is, in fact, an upper middle income country of close to 60 million citizens with a significant amount of reserves it can tap into when things start looking a little hairy. We’re no basket case.
Far from slipping into recession in 2016, we’re set to grow at about a percent this year and increase that to a percent and just over a half next year. That’s not too bad considering the dire state of the world. Still, it’s not exactly the roaring 90s when it comes to things economic, so we’d be wise to tighten our belts and make the pennies count. This brings us to mobile marketing.
The knee-jerk reaction when times are tough is for organisations to trim all marketing budgets, mobile included. The simple answer from InTarget – after almost two decades experience – is DON’T. That there is a case for mobile marketing in times of recession or modest economic growth is borne out by an interview that the CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) gave to a popular marketing blog a couple years ago.
On the question of how does one dissuade brands from canning their mobile marketing budgets in the face of recession, he referred to mobile offering marketers the best on their investment compared to other marketing communication channels. “Sending relevant, tailored and timely messages to a consumer’s mobile phone delivers far higher conversion rates from communication to sales,” said the MMA CEO.
Finally, mobile is the only channel that allows a brand to reach target customers for the 18 hours a day it is in their pockets. People stop what they are doing to deal with incoming mobile messages and alerts – how many other channels can you say the same about? It’s a one-word answer: none.
Leave a comment