IMPORTANT ARTICLES

MOBILE - MARKETING TOOL

Recent trend in marketing is to market/promote product or services to consumers through mobile devices. Mobile as a marketing tool can be used in two ways. 

• First, add mobile communications channel to the existing marketing communications mix of TV, radio, newspaper, outdoor, Internet and direct mail marketing. 

• Second, use it as both a personal and professional channel for understanding, acquiring and retaining customers for customer relationship management.

Marketing via mobile devices in a special manner is becoming commonplace throughout Asia. M-surveys, M-coupons, Call-to-Action, Brand Awareness, Entertainment trivia, Advertising sponsored calls, Quiz games, Impulse buying offers etc are some of its forms. In an m-coupon service the discount coupons issued to customers by merchants and retailers are sent electronically to mobile wireless devices and the redemption rate of these coupons is 300% better than traditional paper coupons.
Rich multi-media messages sent to mobile phones with very little expense threaten to take major share of revenue from the conventional channels of advertising and marketing. As a huge amount of money is spent for advertising on traditional methods such as Print, television, radio and direct mailing. SMS marketing has already proved to be a cost effective, direct, personal, interactive and memorable experience for advertisers and customers alike. By utilizing the benefits of sound, images, text and, the personal closeness advertising on mobile offers marketers saving of an impressive chunk of advertising spend.


Four P’s fundamentally drive marketing: Product, Promotion, Price and Place. While such marketing basics would apply to most situations, two things that marketing via mobile have over the other forms of marketing is mobility and adherence with users. With these two things, mobile marketing takes on a new meaning for the 4 Ps: 

• Personalized

• Permission-based

• Proposition

• Proximity

Personalized User carry mobile device and rely on it to communicate most of the time. This makes mobile channel extremely "direct and personal". The disadvantage can be the potential user frustration when the marketing message is not relevant to them at all. To eliminate this one-to-one marketing based on data-mining and personalization techniques can be designed to match the advertisers targeting needs and the user preferences. 

Permission-based: This should apply to all direct marketing media to avoid the invasion of one's privacy. For both user and political reasons, the regulators and industry players in most countries are learning the importance to prevent user intrusion. Most of the countries have passed a rule to ban the use of mobile numbers and emails for marketing purposes without the prior permission of the users. 

Proposition: "value" precedes "price" in today's educated society. And in many case, presentation and packaging of "value" would determine the marketing success. Given choice, an MMS-based short audio-visual movie-clip is much more attractive than a simple text-based SMS promotion. With the advent of colored screen, multi-tasked, 3G data rate supported, mobile device is becoming the best vehicle to showcase the advertisers' value proposition anytime, anywhere. Advertisers are using mobile barcode coupon i.e. barcode displayed on mobile phone, for the user redemption of discount. Mobile coupon is a color map with audio-visual description and will largely increase the effectiveness of the campaign.

Proximity: Proximity or location-based services is one of the most unique features of mobile communications. 

Types of Multi Media Message Services

1. Sponsored Messages: These are entertainment or information messages which are requested by the consumer as a free promotion. The message contains the brand image , a promotional offer or relevant information to drive consumers to their stores. These messages are created by brands or their agencies.

2. Marketing Campaigns: These are interactions with the consumer initiated from one of two ways. Push based messages sent to a database of mobile phone numbers or a pull based campaign where the consumer responds to a competition, quiz or voting and is then sent various MMS messages depending upon their answers. 

3. Timed Alerts: These are multi media messages which are created by any content owner, media group or network, stored on the servers and then offered to consumers as a timed entertainment or information product. Examples include music or movie reviews, celebrity pictures, horoscopes jokes, etc. 

4. Event Alerts: Event Multi Media Message Alerts are similar to Timed Alerts. The key difference is that rather than being sent out at a set time each day or week, an event inspires the Multi Media Message Alert to be sent. Examples of Event Multi Media Message Alerts are football goal alerts, cricket alerts, and breaking news. 

Advertisers like Cadbury and Pepsi have gone heavily into Mobile marketing in a sales promotion contest (e.g. Cadburys' exceptionally successful ‘Tex N Win’ campaign). Marketing via mobile is governed by the same principles that guide direct marketing and direct response advertisement, courting consumers for their attention and entering into a respectful, relevant and engaging interaction.

Important factors to be considered for running a Mobile Marketing campaign

1) Ascertain whether mobile is a relevant channel of communication for your product or service and your audience. 
2) Ensure that SMS/MMS supplier you chose can support both the creative and technical aspects of wireless marketing campaigns in-house and that they have the capabilities to design, implement and track campaigns. Having these elements under the same roof will guarantee the smooth implementation of time sensitive and targeted campaigns.
3) Permission is key and consumers have to feel that they are in control of the dialogue at any point in time. Mobile phones are very personal devices and a mobile phone number can either be a long-term asset or a quick route to a potentially angry customer.
4) If you are looking to buy a 3rd party database, ensure that the users are not just opted-in, but properly managed members. Important questions to ask the database owner include, what have users opted in to? How easily can they opt out? How often do they get information? How relevant is it for them?
5) When embarking on the design of your campaign ensure that you take advantage of the strengths of the medium. And, whatever you are proposing to consumers should be fun, engaging and relevant.
6) Interactivity is also one of the key challenges. If you choose to open this channel of communication to your customers, it is not something that can be then closed. What you discover from receiving feedback and questions from your customers might be quite revealing, and you certainly have to be ready to continue the dialogue on one-to-one basis.
7) It’s a very effective tool for building relationship. The end of the campaign is just the beginning of a long-term relationship. So, grab this opportunity and attune it to your advantage. 
8) Give your campaign participants a reason to be your ambassadors. If your content is relevant and exclusive, your customers will share messages with friends and family, creating a viral effect. Encourage by rewarding the best ambassadors.

CONCLUSION For marketers it's the birth of a new communications tool, marketing medium, distribution channel, and research tool. Marketing via mobile offers key advantages for marketers. In addition to providing information in greater amounts and depth to help the customer make a purchasing decision, it helps in building and maintaining a solid, positive relationship with the customer through specialized information services, individualized messages, and personalized selling. 


SHILPA BHASKAR
FACULTY MANAGEMENT
ITFT, CHANDIGARH