Mobile Marketing

In order to have an effective mobile marketing campaign, as with any other marketing campaign, you need to start with a good plan and have a solid execution.

You have to be very careful in your mobile marketing efforts. Mobile marketing, especially sms marketing, can get very annoying if executed poorly. However if your prospects have opted in and you continue to send them useful information, mobile marketing, especially sms marketing, can yield great ROI, significantly more than email marketing.

It is important however to consider costs and to have a simple opt-in or opt-out clause where prospects can simply sms the words “In” or “Out” depending on their desired involvement. So many sms marketing campaigns have extremely complicated opt-out clauses which simply lead to resentment and brand failure for that prospect.

The only real pitfall to mobile marketing, as opposed to email marketing, is that sometimes users are charged for it where as email marketing is free. It is for this very reason that your mobile marketing campaign needs to be relevant and useful to your users.

Mobile marketing is only just beginning to get the credit it deserves. Here’s one good reason why you should get into mobile marketing – you have the possibility of being the first in a growing market.

Remember that venturing into a new media format involves extensive research. There are different rules, regulations and processes, as well as a lack of standardization, specifically in mobile marketing.

It does not take very long for many of the email addresses in your campaign list to become redundant. Cell phone numbers have a far lower turnover rate, and most people keep their cell phone number for life.

Mobile marketing is a good way to get information to the people who rely on you to communicate effectively. It is therefore important to provide them with a user friendly experience with functional clicks. Be sure to include weblinks that redirect your clients to mobile ready websites only, a forward-to-friends click, bookmarks and clickable phone numbers.

There are a few guidelines when developing your mobile marketing campaign:

• Offer something that your prospects can only take advantage of via the mobile campaign.
• The incentive should be good and more importantly relative to your prospects
• Make sure when you are opting people into your database, you not only get them to respond “YES” to join, but you manage their expectations with the types of messages they will get, how often they will get them, and how they can opt out.

As an indication of how mobile South Africa is getting, 16% of South Africans use the internet for banking whereas 28% use their cellphones.

So what works best for mobile marketing? The introduction of new brands, brand awareness and brand reinforcement is where the majority of mobile marketing success stories gained credibility.

In developing your mobile marketing campaign you will need to consider things such as your demographic target market, how they are using their mobile devices and what their mobile habits are. You will also need to align the various areas of mobile marketing: mobile channels and messages, mobile web, text and picture messages and mobile PPC (Pay per Click) and banner ads. It is also vital that you test your mobile marketing campaign on a variety of mobile devices.

The successful execution of all of this will lead to a fantastic ROI and long term brand awareness.