Mobile Marketing Trends
The wide application of wireless communication technologies, active work on their improvement and accessibility to many consumers have created extremely beneficial conditions for the development of mobile marketing and effective promotion of various products and services through it.
Information technology and the use of mobile devices, through which it is possible to establish direct contacts at a distance, are now firmly merged with the everyday life of modern people. All these factors contribute to the development of mobile marketing, a new and promising direction of activity, the feature of which is the establishment of interactive contact with the target audience outside of spatial limitations for any brand. Availability of a feedback significantly increases the effectiveness of sales promotion.
Mobile Marketing in Theory
To implement the interaction with the audience in mobile marketing, various technical means are used. With the widespread use of microcomputers, mobile phones and the Internet, the information technology industry is rapidly changing. Information technology can significantly improve the effectiveness of SMS marketing, because they allow organizations to establish closer (and win-win) relationships with the consumers, better study their needs and respond to their expectations via instant messages faster.
The use of wireless communication can significantly increase the effectiveness of marketing activities. This is the only channel of personal influence, providing spontaneous, direct, interactive and / or targeted communication in any place and at any time. This marketing channel can be used for mobile devices, including phones, PDAs and laptops. The methods of communication include a short message service (SMS), a multimedia messaging service (MMS) capable of combining text with simple graphics and sounds, a mobile Internet using a wireless access protocol (WAP), WAP Push services and full multimedia services in third generation networks (3G). Communication of this kind is highly personalized, interactive and, importantly, affects the recipient of information immediately. As the practical experience shows, the use of mobile marketing together with other forms of sales promotion significantly increases the level of sales. For example, as a result of the mobile campaign, the content from Nike was downloaded 84 000 times, and from Steers — 52 000. Potentially, mobile advertising exceeds the coverage of television twice, and three times — the coverage of the Internet, and it has unique opportunities for targeting the message.
Mobile Marketing in Practice
In practice, mobile marketing is implemented through the application of a multiple technique. The most actively used at the moment is SMS marketing. Many organizations that sell products and provide services, resort to SMS-messages as a means of informing potential customers about ongoing promotions, one-time discounts, special offers, etc. Currently, SMS marketing is the most frequently used, but by no means the only means of mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is also carried out through the use of MMS marketing, the marketing of goods and services through banners, pop ups, mobile games, advertising on the mobile Internet, the transfer of data via instant messengers like WhatsApp and Viber, through media advertising, etc. To organize the consumer provocation, to call for action by means of interactive activities and the sales boost as an ultimate result, are the key mobile marketing initialization reasons, but it’s not a limit. Many men, many minds. There are as many reasons for using SMS marketing as many companies there are on the globe. Each gets what it wants/needs.
Wireless technologies should be considered as an addition to the already existing wired data transmission structure. The use of a single, open, and integrated infrastructure will significantly reduce the complexity of implementation and management and will allow growth taking into account the future needs of the company.
Implementing a wireless solution through existing, rather than completely new infrastructures, companies will, as a result, receive much more convenient management networks with less expenses. The Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is an open specification that allows mobile phone users to access and interact with information and services. WAP works in much the same way as the Internet: users can browse WAP sites of many different companies or individual pages with very different content. Much of what is available on websites is also available on WAP sites. One can not forget, however, that in comparison with a PC, the physical size and memory capacity of mobile phones is much smaller, and the performance is lower, so WAP technology was created specifically to ensure that the user gets the most from working with Internet applications, given the limited mobile phone capabilities.
Mobile Marketing Advantages
Mobile marketing has a number of advantages that significantly differ from other types of marketing activities. It could easily be integrated into traditional, previously developed and already implemented advertising campaigns. This allows you to model the most effective and large-scale marketing complex, make an advertising campaign as effective and targeted, actively use the information acquired from contacts with the end users, showing real or potential interest in the brand.
In addition, mobile marketing can significantly expand the advertising and media capabilities of traditional means of promotion. It is important that the use of mobile marketing techniques and its interactivity provide organizations with a unique opportunity to compile and analyze objective ratings of media advertising and information channels, etc.
The merits of mobile marketing can also be attributed to the technical features of mobile devices used as a means of communication with the customers. Phones, PDAs, communicators and other similar mobile devices have such characteristics as ubiquitous availability, availability for operation at any time and in any place, the majority of potential customers already own them because they are relatively cheap and easy to handle, etc. In addition, such devices are permanently in the closest proximity to their owners. Some users cannot possibly live without them.
In addition to obvious advantages, mobile marketing may also have a sort of negative tendencies like targeting at the younger audience categories mostly, at those with the income higher than average, mobile operators’ inflexibility, etc.
Nevertheless, mobile marketing has a wide range of applied tools, since specialized information can be transmitted in various forms. Variants of data transfer can be: audio (voicemail, ring-tones, missed calls alerts, etc), text messages, multimedia files, mobile Internet, wireless goods and services payment tools and so on.
A mobile phone, for example, can be used in various ways. It can be used as a media channel for the data transfer, which is of an advertising nature, or as a device through which a specific bonus can be received by the target user. A mobile phone can be used even as a club card, which allows to identify a participant in the loyalty program or even more.
The use of mobile devices allow the maximum audience reach. Actually, it allows the limitless opportunities under condition of an appropriate apply. While resorting to transactions with any information means, referring to a client largely depends on the place and time. Thus, mobile marketing minimizes losses when distributing personalized information.
Mobility allows the marketers to make a breakdown of sites, phone models, demographic and other data — all these factors can be very useful for advertisers in future trends. Age, personal interests, consumer preferences, in addition to the information obtained with the help of mobile marketing tools can help in the evaluation and selection of one or more market segments for the access and distribution of certain goods and services.
The truth is that a mobile phone is closely connected to its owner’s personal character. That is why mobile phones are much more effective in terms of recognizability and sales promotion. This is due to the fact that the messages are intended only for one user. They are addressed directly to him\her, which creates the friendliest atmosphere and the best conditions for meeting the consumer’s demands, and as a result, the process of sales is boosting.
Current Trends
Currently, there is a tendency among the users: they pay more attention to the mobile ads, rather than advertisements received via personal computers. In addition, mobile marketing allows you to get a quick response from the client, if any, to calculate accurate statistics on the results of shares, to create an effective personalized, targeted appeal to the user and remotely provoke him to make a purchasing decision. All this gives companies the opportunity to constantly keep users in zone of their marketing impact, to form a certain information area, to spread the information which is necessary for the market interaction.
Thanks to the development of digital communication, a whole new range of communication opportunities open up. Since users are now already sick and tired of traditional advertising, they are paying great attention to the new interactive media. For the time being, an average efficiency of individual mobile marketing campaigns is much higher than similar banner campaigns on the Internet. In many ways, this is due to the fact that consumers have already developed a so-called “banner blindness.” Indeed, pop ups are often getting on the user’s nerves rather than convey needful information to them via web browsers. So, the information, received from the mobile devices, are better perceived and processed by the users.
This is another reason why mobile marketing has become a brand new technology platform to ensure the companies with the new customers. SMS messaging now is not just another budget communication channel, it remains a powerful tool, stimulating sales, and forms brand loyalty best of all. It should be specially noted that in SMS marketing, the consumer acts as the initiator. The interest in new information about the current companies trends makes him\her an ally in the promotional process. In turn, this allows the company to advertise exactly what the potential client needs. SMS messaging which is not approved by the users is spam and has no relation to mobile marketing, which is always a pitfall when it comes to legality.
SMS Marketing Potentials & Future Trends
Mobile marketing has a huge development potential. It concerns both the improvement of wireless networks and the use of mobile devices. In the near future, an increase and a significant improvement in the quality of screens is expected. Sensory technologies are being introduced. Work is extensively done to increase the battery life span, the storage capacity of mobile devices, etc.
All the above mentioned and future trends and innovations will allow the use of various multimedia content for the widest mobile or SMS marketing purposes. In addition, the cellular systems of the third generation 3G are being actively introduced, the systems of the fourth generation 4G are being developed. The software of mobile devices is being improved, the quality of the provided content is improving, as well. Active development of information technologies will make the Internet even more accessible, cheaper and faster, but it won’t cancel or minimize the meaning of SMS for communication, sales boost or increasing the brand awareness.
In fact, all these technological tendencies will lead to the fact that even more effective tools of mobile marketing and newer channels will be added, like video on already existing mobile TV channels or something else. The growth of the market will definitely be boosted by the fact that the interest in mobile marketing is observed by both consumers and sellers simultaneously.
So, it’s possible to say that at present, the mobile market has already begun to reveal its potential, and mobile marketing with the help of SMS has become an effective and popular means of sales stimulation. More and more advertising and marketing companies are moving to the use of a variety of modern technologies, working to attract potential consumers with the help of mobile marketing tools, create and optimize mobile or WAP versions of their information resources, etc. The use of convenient and affordable mobile technologies, including bulk SMS messaging in marketing significantly helps to inform the mobile phone users of fresh ideas and new projects from this or that company.
In such way, mobile marketing opens up quite new opportunities for entrepreneurial activity and gives a way to the new startups due to the fact that with its help it is possible to introduce an element of interactivity into the marketing of the organization, to translate the marketing strategy of the enterprise into a new dimension, to help the companies in their development and achieving their ultimate goals to the fullest.
