by Marius du Plessis | Apr 15, 2016 |
VentureBeat.com reports an unfortunate fact that many mobile marketing industry professionals already know: mobile marketing is tacked on at the end of marketing campaigns and it is completely siloed. Even though the customer is now completely mobile (weren’t we at over 130 percent mobile penetration about two years ago?), marketing to these highly-accessible potential clients still seems to be an afterthought. InTarget often encounters situations where internal talent to take advantage of the world’s fastest growing marketing channel is either woefully inadequate, or horribly underfunded. This reminds me of the days when the IT department was relegated to the basement and had to contend with overhead pipes and underfoot obstacles while wrestling with their daily tasks. That mobile is often tacked onto the end of marketing plans without much thought, is clear from that fact that the internal mobile marketing team usually receives completely different creative elements. We’ve seen real disconnects in how the people managing the organisation’s email marketing efforts and website are expected to work when compared to the mobile marketing team – and then we still have the traditional media guys on top of that who tend to gobble up most of the time, resources and attention. With so many cellular users who are also your current and potential customers, it really should be the other way around. It will be – partner with a dedicated external mobile marketing consultancy like InTarget and we’ll make mobile work for you, and give it the proper attention it...
by anton | Mar 31, 2016 |
According to MTN Business, in a world where more and more of our daily critical activities are increasingly done on the go, mobile devices have emerged the next viable platform which today’s marketing professionals interested in delivering effective integrated marketing communications campaigns can no longer afford to ignore or leave out. This was the key message that came across at the recently held Mobile Media Advertising Opportunities Forum, organised in Lagos by MTN Business, the business-to-business unit of MTN Nigeria, in collaboration with InTarget Africa. The forum further highlighted the value of the MTN Mobile Ads service, which offers advertisers and brands an opportunity to connect directly with mobile phone users. The service includes an array of channels that can be mixed and matched to create different levels of engagement. Speaking at the forum, Mr. Tsola Barrow, acting Chief Enterprise Solutions Officer, MTN Nigeria, described mobile advertising as a targeted and effective engagement platform, adding that the MTN Mobile Ads service offered a world of opportunities, in addition to the benefits associated with other traditional means of advertising. “This service leverages the combined potential of the mobile phone, the world’s most personal device, and the largest family of mobile subscribers in Nigeria to provide new ways for businesses to engage customers. MTN Nigeria is committed to adding value to lives and helping to drive the growth of Nigerian businesses by delivering tailor-made, productivity-enhancing solutions to every part of this vast country,” Mr. Barrow stated. In his presentation, Mr. Lazarus Muchenje, CEO, InTarget Africa, highlighted the business imperative for brands and marketers to adopt mobile advertising as a cost-effective means...
by anton | Feb 26, 2016 |
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)...
by anton | Feb 23, 2016 |
A Bank of America vice-president describes the mobile phone, and by extension the marketing that it enables, as “the most personal, most relevant communications device in the history of mankind.” It is strange then, that although marketers are prioritising mobile marketing and increasing their budgets, they are failing to establish good connections with consumers. This was a conversation topic during a morning panel discussion at the recent Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. According to panel participants, the idea that brands need to win consumers’ trust stems from the fact that mobile is a very personal experience. What came through in Barcelona is that the industry needs to do a better job explaining and illustrating the value exchange, basically, what’s in mobile marketing for the consumer. All of this is no surprise really and it simply speaks to the relative newness of the discipline. It could be argued that the traditional broadsheet newspaper – we’re talking here Business Day or the New York Times, not the Daily Sun – is the most trusted form of media today. That’s not surprising as quality newspapers have had several hundred years to establish their credentials. And when it comes to individual consumers of newspapers, one paper might have had as many as several decades to build a relationship with a reader. So the trust challenge has been set and now it’s up to brands and their trusted mobile marketing advisors like InTarget to rise to...
by Marius du Plessis | Feb 18, 2016 |
According to mobile marketing commentator Craig Hagopian writing in the Luxury Mail, “the traditional mobile advertising ecosystem misunderstands the needs of small and medium-sized businesses.” That may be true in the United States where big conglomerates dominate commerce and industry and employ the majority of workers. South African SMEs, on the other hand, contribute almost two-thirds to the country’s total employment statistics (according to the Journal of the Global Accounting Alliance). The important SME market segment is well-served by South Africa’s corporate entities. Banks, for example, have designed transactional products and services perfectly suited to the smaller business (think of such innovations as the Payment Pebble from ABSA), SA’s telcos have introduced mobile data options that make connecting a small business using 3G viable, and so on. InTarget, for its part, offers SMEs flexibility and a ‘can do’ attitude that says we’re willing to design something just for you. Our range of mobile marketing solutions are easily-tailored towards the needs of small and medium-sized firms. Indeed, the fact that mobile marketing enables the minimum of spending wastage means it is well-suited to the smaller start-up on a tight budget. Here’s three quick reasons for the small businessperson to approach talk to us about mobile marketing: InTarget can provide you with a branding framework that uses mobile marketing to tie it all together, we can help you leverage existing assets to save time and money (eg: existing client databases), and finally, we can provide highly-granular analysis tools that you can access yourself at anytime using the...
