The direct marketing arsenal has grown by leaps and bounds over the last 15 years to include: a slew of offline vehicles, direct response television, database marketing, and customer relationship marketing. Now direct marketers have a new channel to play with, mobile! According to M:Metrics as of January, 2008 there are 219 million mobile subscribers aged 13+ in the U.S., and a total of 2.4 billion worldwide.
Personalization
The mobile channel has the potential to provide the ultimate in 1 to 1 marketing since mobile devices like smartphones, PDAs and feature phones have become extensions of consumer personalities, and employee tools. “Never leave home without it” has become a reality. When was the last time you left your home without your mobile phone, or left your mobile phone in your car? We love our phones, treat them with care and respond to calls, text messages, IMs and emails almost immediately. If we receive a message, we know it is meant for us! By the way, the number 1 & 2 mobile phones of choice, the Motorola KRZR K1c and the Motorla RAZR V3, according to admob.
Growing Quickly
The mobile channel like the Internet in its infancy is growing along technology lines. For example, desktop email was the precursor to PC Internet access. Text messaging (SMS) has reached a saturation point in certain demographics, and if you believe history it is a precursor to the explosion of consumers using applications like browsers on a mobile device. Downloads are beginning to gain traction but typically they are small files like ring tones, music and games. As connection speeds become faster and as the cost to connect at higher speeds begins to drop, the mobile channel will see a saturation of mobile browsing and customized application usage as well. Today, 84% of mobile phones support WAP push messages, and 58% are able to download video clips. Watch out for the iPhone, with a 3.5 inch diagonal screen it is proving to be the right size to support mobile browsing with 85% of owners accessing news and information.
Variability
Mobile devices will open the door for direct marketers to reach their consumers of choice through multiple mobile tactics like, SMS, MMS, keywords/shortcodes, banners, interstitials, video billboards, mobile sites and proprietary applications. And the list will grow as device manufacturers and carriers build and enable more features!
Add to this the fact that mobile phones have multiple input and output capabilities that can produce an almost unlimited configuration of marketing creativity. Output interfaces include: the screen, speaker, infrared, Bluetooth, local wireless (Wi-Fi), cellular wireless and unique terminal identification. Input interfaces include: the keypad, touchscreen, microphone, camera, RFID chip reader, GPS, infrared, Bluetooth, local wireless (Wi-Fi) and cellular wireless. For example, a bluecast is sent to a customer walking a casino floor, the customer responds to the bluecast by entering information on their touchscreen, a video is sent streaming to their screen and music is played through the device speaker. The user calls the casino host to buy concert tickets.
Measurement
The mobile channel has been going through checks and balances by different industry groups to ensure measurement is consistent and accurate. The mobile channel though will provide vast amounts of data to feed the analytic cravings for ROI based direct marketing campaigns. Data access is largely controlled by the carriers who will continue to open their data stores to help marketers justify spending dollars on mobile campaigns.
Today marketers can target advertising by handset, carrier, area code, zip code, demographic, income level, gender and in some instances location. Measurements include click-thru rate, cost per click, post click data, location & demographic behavior. New metrics like Click to Call and Click to Download will be incorporated into modeling.
Are You Ready for Mobile
Direct marketers should begin to understand the mobile channel now, since unlike the PC Internet growth rate, mobile acceptance by consumers and businesses will be much quicker. The mobile channel will evolve from technology driven execution like SMS into fully integrated campaigns using multiple tactics and device input/output capabilities. Direct marketers should begin to test the waters and invest dollars into building their presence in the mobile channel now. http://www.ruready4mobile.com/
Scott M. Alexander
President – Marketing Enablement
scott.alexander@marketingenable.com
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