2 weeks ago i wrote why Google is moving to mobile business and it seemed so obvious. Today i found an interesting survey that says that the number of worldwide mobile phone users is expected to grow from 2 billion in 2005 to approximately 3.3 billion in 2010. Currently, there are over 2.8 billion mobile phone users. At the end of 2006 there were 233 million subscribers in US, which is over 76 percent of the population. While people are already used to the e-mail and other internet based spam, mobile phones could be a great way to reach the right audience, since mobile marketing has the potential to be the next big thing in interactive marketing.
At the same time managing a mobile marketing campaign can be a challenge since there are many different entities contributing to a successful campaign. We have at least the carriers, advertisers, and consumers. But at the same time we have industry organizations like The Mobile Marketing Association, the CTIA Wireless Association, and the Interactive Advertising Bureau, which provide resources and guidelines for setting the standards to help move the industry forward. Like always we don’t have just perfect things, everything has its own advantages and disadvantages, so has mobile marketing. Marketers just have to think through what is their purpose and whether the selected methods are sustainable.
Positive side:
* Preliminary data shows good response rate for mobile campaigns (5% click rates vs. 1% for conventional web ads).
* New tool for brands and advertisers to reach new customers and target specific audiences.
* Smartphones and iPhone to enhance mobile surfing, promoting mobile marketing success.
* Messages sent to a mobile phone are more likely to be read than email sent to a PC, which can get caught in the spam filter.
* Mobile marketing campaigns are highly targeted and are opt-in, making them more effective than other forms of advertising.
* Mobile marketing can help build a customer database. Once customers opt in to receive an ad, you can use the information for loyalty marketing and customer retention.
* Mobile marketing can help generate buzz about your products/services because your offers will reach consumers while they are actively shopping, socializing, and making buying decisions.
* High penetration of devices with twice as many cell phones as PCs.
* Web searches on mobile devices will eventually exceed searches on PCs.
* Access to many international consumers who can’t afford PCs
* Mobile phones can receive input anywhere-anytime, enabling location-specific and behavioral targeting for local businesses.
* A cell phone is a very personal device that people take with them wherever they go, making it easy for marketers to develop a relationship with customers through this medium.
* Carriers have customer data and location information potentially available for targeting.
* Personalization, immediacy, and interactivity of mobile ads encourage response by consumers on the go.
Negative side:
* Trial and error period required for mobile marketers to learn how to succeed in mobile marketing, which differs from the traditional web marketing.
* Advertisers are wary of consumer privacy issues.
* FCC yet to rule on limiting use and release of customer data, including location information.
* In April, FCC released order requiring mobile marketers to obtain express consent from customers before carriers can release data and to make it easy for customers to opt out.
* Mobile marketing is fragmented and complex because of many different handsets and carriers, different types of functionality, and different preloaded apps (i.e. Google Maps on iPhone).
* Currently, reach is low because consumption of mobile content is small (10% of subscribers), and penetration of 3G devices is still low in most countries.
* Current WAP technology inadequate, discouraging web searching and surfing.
* General intolerance of advertising messages on a personal device.
* Current carrier-imposed “walled garden” approach prevents unfettered mobile web access.
* Adaptation of content and messages to the mobile web results in poor user experience.
* Scarcity of mobile web sites (only 8% of 1,000 top U.S. brands offer a mobile site).
* Current low usage of WAP-based mobile search doesn’t support investment in creating mobile sites because traffic volumes are low, except on search portals and other high-volume sites.
* Establishment of reliable measurement and metrics for advertisers to measure mobile ad effectiveness is needed.
“Web searches on mobile devices will eventually exceed searches on PCs.”
why? how?
how? Since the number of mobile devices is continuously increasing and people use internet on their mobile devices more and more it seem to be inevitable that web searches on mobile devices will eventually exceed searches on PCs.
why? People are comfortable and to be honest they move a lot. So they just surf around and make searches in Internet via cell. Eventually doesn’t mean that it will happen next year or a year after that, but it will after some time… eventually.
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