by anton | Nov 10, 2015 |
Most of us understand mobile marketing to mean, simply, marketing conducted on a mobile device. If we wanted to delve a little deeper, we could look at how marketing professor Andreas Kaplan defines mobile marketing. According to him, mobile marketing is as “any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device”. The key here is ‘ubiquitous’ and ‘constantly-connected’. One cannot run an effective mobile marketing campaign when consumers are experiencing patchy connectivity, or deliberately limiting their mobile voice and data connectivity because they find it expensive. Connectivity needs to be fast and always-on for mobile consumers to be able to interact with USSD menus, respond quickly to coupons, and more. This brings me to Wi-Fi connectivity and the mobile consumer. In South Africa, many of us have come to view Wi-Fi as a secondary type of mobile connection option that’s used mostly when it’s offered for free at restaurants, conferences and a few other limited public places. In many places in the rest of the world, Wi-Fi is in fact the consumer’s first choice of mobile connection. This is why, for example, Wi-Fi-enabled tablets are more popular in the US than the 3G and Wi-Fi-enabled tablets South African consumers have to buy. Today, there’s a renewed push for greater roll-out of Wi-Fi hotspots in South Africa and it’s being led by the Wi-Fi Forum of SA. In particular, the Forum is trying to get South Africans to buy into the concept of the ‘heterogenous network’ which is simply a nationwide mobile network using small cell networks such as Wi-Fi overlaid with 3G, LTE, etc. So various types of mobile connectivity will complement and switch between each other and deliver a seamless...
by anton | Oct 30, 2015 |
We’ve looked at quite a bit of mobile marketing theory over the past several weeks. Perhaps today, as we close off another mobile month, is a good time to rewind somewhat and to revisit the entral premise – and promise! – of mobile marketing. As the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) succinctly puts it: “Mobile is the closest you can get to your customers”. The simple reason this is so is because every moment is mobile in the world today. The cellular phone is so central to our daily lives that the MMA states that “consumers check their mobile device 150 to 200 times per day”. Imagine switching on the television 200 times a day or opening the post box even just 20 times a day – that’d be serious OCD behaviour! Mobile consumers aren’t obsessive compulsive, they’re just interacting in a sensible way with a device that we depend on for socialising, transacting and more. Mobile isn’t just a boon for consumers because it enables them to conduct their daily lives more efficiently, it boosts brands. The MMA’s research indicates that 61% of people have a better opinion of brands when they offer a good mobile experience. Through mobile, brands have the ability to be present at the exact moment a consumer is seeking a solution. Nothing could be more basic – and powerful – than brands being where the consumers...
by anton | Oct 27, 2015 |
We’ve looked at the mobile marketing value chain and mobile marketing drivers, amongst other key concepts, during this series of blog posts. What I now plan to do is to change gear a little and go back to basics. With this in mind, what really underpins mobile marketing theory, and what could be seen as the foundation pillars of the art? From InTarget’s substantial experience over the past decade or so, we’ve identified four non-negotiable pillars that should always serve as the foundation of the mobile marketing vision. Simply put, no successful mobile marketing campaign exists without these. Firstly, consumer preference is a sovereign right and mobile users should be able to engage and disengage from campaigns at will. Secondly, great marketing should be viewed as a service as mobile marketing can provide valuable discounts to consumers, for example text messages alerting customers to special offers. Thirdly, personalisation is critical to achieve consistent results and requires specific profiling of the message which in turn leads to increased customer transactions. Finally, as in all commercial areas, relationships drive transactions. In contrast to marketing via other media, mobile campaigns may not generate immediate transaction spikes. Rather, developing engaging relationships with customers leads to a greater number of transactions over...
by anton | Oct 23, 2015 |
Just as there are the four key elements of the traditional marketing mix, namely product, price, promotion and place, there are similarly five key areas within the mobile marketing mix. They are content, cross-media marketing, campaign management, customer database and carrier cooperation. Successful mobile marketing campaigns run by specialist firms such as InTarget will include all of these key elements. Let’s take a brief look at each of them in turn. Content is a key factor in creating a mobile service that attracts the users and keeps them engaged. The maxim ‘content is king’ is equally relevant in mobile marketing. This is a particularly- challenging one, however, because the personal nature of the mobile phone makes appealing content selection especially tricky. Cross-media marketing refers to the idea that mobile marketing is not a lonely island in a sea of different media. Mobile media needs traditional media in order to thrive and to push home the point of sale call to action that is the goal of most mobile campaigns. Campaign management refers to the fact that mobile marketing technology that enables campaign execution and analysing is one of the major success factors and is a crucial element of the marketing mix. Customer database refers to mobile marketing being mandated by law to be permission-based. This simply means InTarget will always adopt an opt-in approach. Finally, carrier cooperation means that the network operators have expertise and knowledge of mobile service delivery. They control the distribution channel and location-based services by allowing for message delivery and receipt. For mobile advertising and marketing initiatives to work more effectively, partnering with a network-agnostic...
