Mobile Marketing & Advertising 2009 Report Highlights

(BUSINESS WIRE)–Research and Markets (http://www.researchandmarkets.com/research/13bc3e/mobile_marketing) has announced the addition of the “Mobile Marketing & Advertising 2009: Challenges and Opportunities” report to their offering.

When compared to other forms of advertising (print, Internet, TV, radio, direct mail), mobile is likely growing at a much faster rate because it is considered more cost effective, personalized, and results-driven. Mobile Marketing & Advertising 2009: Challenges and Opportunities examines the current mobile marketing and advertising market, evaluating methods companies are using to effectively leverage it as a platform to enhance brand awareness and increase sales effectiveness. The report examines the leading suppliers to the mobile marketing industry and analyzes how their products are impacting the way consumers opt-in to cell phone-delivered marketing messages and increasingly use their phones to search for, and even purchase, products and service.

This report provides forecasts and analysis on the global perspective of mobile advertising and marketing, which includes product placement in games, sponsored video, premium content and branded applications. It also provides a forecast for each different mobile type and opportunity. It not only profiles suppliers but also shows how they compare on technological prowess and customer awareness/satisfaction. Finally, the report shows strategies for the largest revenue opportunities.

Key Report Findings:

-Given the exponential adoption of mobile as a communications and promotion platform, we fully expect that global spending on mobile advertising and marketing initiatives will reach nearly $29 billion in 2009, a 59% increase from 2008

-The greatest opportunity for marketing campaign development is likely the mobile video and downloadable applications sector, which we expect will surpass the $1 billion mark in the U.S. in 2009

-We find that premium content for mobile devices, including streaming video and downloadable applications, is growing at the fastest rate of all mobile marketing types. Not to be ignored, however, is the rising trend of consumers to use their mobile devices for accessing social networks, such as Facebook and MySpace.

-We estimate the world market for mobile marketing and advertising revenues will reach nearly $50 billion by 2014, up from about $29 billion today, growing at a five-year CAGR rate of nearly 12%. Europe and North America will grow at the fastest rates, about 16% through the period, to reach $16.3 billion and $12.4 billion, respectively.

-We expect 2010 to be a decisive year for mobile marketing spending as marketers worldwide move from disillusionment over their expected return from this platform to the realization that they can indeed enhance consumer brand equity via the targeted precision and customized experience that mobile affords over other media placements

Audience:
• Marketing and Advertising Agencies, and Corporate Marketing Departments. Chief Marketing and Advertising Executives are determining how best to allocate their budgets for 2010 and mobile is certainly on their radar.
• Mobile advertising networks. The suppliers enable different types of mobile ads to be broadcast over mobile networks, in videos, and in other mobile premium content.
• Mobile search and content aggregators. Many are chasing Google but the smaller vendors offer localized search capabilities.
• Cellular phone providers. They carry the millions of text messages, some of them sponsored, and are looking at ways to leverage mobile marketing campaign data for their own use.
• Mobile platform developers. These suppliers create videos, games, downloadable applications for mobile that they in turn use to recruit sponsorship opportunities.
• Traditional media outlets. Broadcast television stations and Internet properties are leveraging mobile to stream newscasts and other premium content.
• Smartphone and PDA manufacturers. They provide the hardware that enable next-generation mobile content possible.

Why email marketers must mobile-optimize their messages (Part 2 of 2)

Why email marketers must mobile-optimize their messages

This is a 2 part series. The following is Part 2 of 2. (Part 1 can be found below this article.)

“Now is the time to test integration and explore user-behavior patterns,” Ms. Miller said. “It’s unlikely that all inbox activity will shift to the third screen, but there are some activities that might benefit both subscribers and marketers such as restaurant reviews, shopping lists, recipes, local sales and news for commuters.

“Marketers can encourage, optimize and nurture these opportunities now,” she said.

So what is the current state of mobile email marketing? For one, it is not just a business-to-business challenge any longer.

Consumers have smartphones in increased numbers, especially in Asia and Europe, and adoption is now growing also in North America.

So business-to-consumer email marketers have to assume that some of their subscribers are reading email sent to their personal accounts—a Web-based service like Yahoo Mail, Hotmail or Gmail—on a mobile device.

“Unfortunately, there is no ‘sniffer’ that tells the marketer that a subscriber is reading an email on a mobile device,” Ms. Miller said. “So marketers have to assume that their HTML version is being displayed, and this has a number of consequences.”

Best Practices
Open rates will most likely go up as mobile usage goes up.

“Since opens are tracked by image downloads, and there is no image suppression, some marketers may see a small pop in opens,” Ms. Miller said.

“Since images download, and the mobile browser renders to the ratios built for a PC-based client, the use of large masthead banners or logos at the top may contort the content or push the actual headline and call to action way below the fold,” she said.

As all good marketers know, user experience matters. Scrolling on a smartphone is not the same as scrolling on a PC-based email client.

Making sure emails render well across a wide range of mobile devices is still a challenge.

“While the Apple iPhone and BlackBerry clients render HTML quite well, there are many mobile devices that are very poor at handling HTML email,” Ms. Miller said. “Marketers can use a pre-header link to a mobile version in order to provide a better mobile experience—for example ‘Reading on a mobile device? Click here.’

“Optimizing for one or the other—PCs versus mobile devices—may result in a design that is sub-optimal for the other, or both,” she said.

User behavior is still unclear, and most retailers find that mobile commerce is still nascent, according to Return Path.

While an Exact Target study released in July suggests that many subscribers—88 percent—say they actually do go back to their PC to respond to email messages later, marketers may not be able to count on this behavior for the heavy mobile users on their file.

“We also don’t know how consumers’ larger Web habits will change if they move some activities from the PC to a mobile device,” Ms. Miller said. “Will email become more or less important?”

“Will the inbox become a repository for saved offers?” she said. “Will complaints (clicks on the Report Spam button) go down since there is no Report Spam button on mobile clients (yet)?”

Marketers beware: The laws on emailing to a mobile device, which is different than viewing the inbox of an actual email account on a smartphone, are more stringent than the FTC’s Can Spam rules.

“You must have permission to send commercial messages,” Ms. Miller said. “A safe way to avoid this is to just auto-remove any mobile email addresses such as 9173654455@verizon.net from your file (I am not a lawyer, please check with counsel).”

Return Path provided the following list of best practices for email marketers:

1. Try to quantify the impact to your business. Survey your subscribers. Provide a “Mobile Format” option at sign up, along with Text or HTML. Track clicks on the link to your mobile version in your header.

2. Know how you render in the top mobile devices. Use a rendering service to track various environments like Return Path’s Campaign Preview or Email Reach for small business, or get access it from your email broadcast vendor.

3. Since there is no standard for mobile rendering, be sure the first few lines clearly display the sender/brand, offer and a link for call to action. Consider adding a phone number here, as well.

4. Be recognized. Use a consistent From: name and emphasize the brand.

Why email marketers must mobile-optimize their messages (Part 1 of 2)

Why email marketers must mobile-optimize their messages…

This will be a 2 part series. The following is Part 1 of 2.

Whether marketers can track it or not, they can safely assume that a significant portion of their emails are being read on mobile phones.

One in 10 consumers are triaging their primary personal email accounts on handheld devices, according to Forrester Research, and that percentage is poised for continued growth. For that reason, optimizing emails for cross-platform performance is the No. 1 challenge for email marketers—emails have to render well on a wide spectrum of mobile devices.

“It is very important that email marketers begin to format their messages to correctly render on mobile devices and ensure that the subscriber can perform the desired call-to-action,” said David Daniels, Spring Lake, NJ-based vice president/principal analyst at Forrester Research Inc.

“That is, marketers must also consider the landing page that email links direct subscribers to, and may want to consider building WAP versions of those pages,” he said. “There are many email service providers that offer this functionality.

“Additionally marketers should also work with vendors such as Pivotal Veracity, which provides tools to ensure that their messages render correctly on a variety of devices.”

David Daniels is vice president and principal analyst at Forrester Research

‘Mobile email campaign’ is a misnomer
“The first and foremost concept emailers need to embrace is that there is really no such thing as a ‘mobile email campaign,’” said Deirdre Baird, president/CEO of Pivotal Veracity, Phoenix, AZ. “Unlike SMS/MMS, which is directed to a phone number for a particular mobile device, emails are sent to an email address and it is the customer—not the mailer—who decides whether to read that email on their mobile phone.

“On any given day at any given time, I can read an email sent to my Gmail address on my laptop in Google’s Web email client, or I can download it into my Outlook 2007 on my desktop, or I can read it on my Palm Pre, or, as I’ve done many times before, I can access it in a hotel room via a Set Top Box on my TV,” she said. “Who decides what’s read where?

“Me—the recipient, not the mailer, and my preference can and will change based on what I’m doing and what technologies I have at my disposal at that moment in time.” David Daniels, Spring Lake, NJ-based vice president

Stephanie Miller is vice president of market development at Return Path

The bottom line? Mobile email is happening now, whether or not marketers are aware of it, and whether or not they like it.

A second related concept is that customers are reading emails on mobile devices now, even if the mailer doesn’t know it or plan for it.

Ms. Baird estimates that 98 percent of mailers have no idea whether their emails are being read on mobile devices and, as a result, are missing the unique opportunity to communicate with their customers with emails that are both content- and design-appropriate for on-the-go customers.

This month, Pivotal Veracity reviewed email-client usage statistics for more than 75 million ‘regular’ emails from a half dozen of its clients, including American Express, Nestle, Progressive and Oracle.

“What surprised us and our clients: iPhone usage alone ranged from 2 to 12 percent of a campaign and ranked universally in the top 15 email clients used by their customers,” Ms. Baird said. “While impressive enough, these figures understate the likely mobile audience because the method of tracking favored the iPhone, which displays emails with images on.

“When you consider the iPhone ranked third, with just over 10 percent market share in the smartphone market in the first quarter of this year, you can extrapolate from there to estimate that mobile recipients could very easily have represented double this amount on any given campaign.”

The implication for marketers is an easy one: Whether it can be tracked or not, it is safe to assume some portion of marketing emails are being read on mobile phones.

Hence, optimizing emails for cross-platform performance is the No. 1 challenge for email marketers. Emails have to render well on a wide spectrum of mobile devices.

“It is only in the last year or so that mailers and their ESPs have really begun embracing the realization that an email that looks good and functions correctly in Yahoo may be an unmitigated disaster in Outlook or Hotmail,” Ms. Baird said.

“Now add to that the incredible proliferation of mobile phones for all socio-economic groups and their growth as a preferred method of multichannel communication and you soon realize that marketers must embrace not only the unique rendering and functionality aspects of the mobile platform but must also get a heck of a lot smarter in terms of understanding the unique platform preferences and habits of their customers in order to remain relevant,” she said.

As with all media, mobile email marketers benefit from knowing the behavior patterns of their target demographics.

“The smart marketer will need to know that I’m at my desk Monday through Friday from 8 a.m. to 6 p.m., I’m using Outlook 2007 with all its many rendering idiosyncrasies and am disposed to read longer news-related emails during this period,” Ms. Baird said.

“On the weekends, my husband and I have three little kids in toe and an iPhone (him) and BlackBerry (me) in hand and if you want to get my attention during this time, your email better be short, to the point and relevant to my place and time,” she said.

“Giving me ways to entertain three kids under five will certainly grab my attention and as for those long trade pub newsletters…well, how fast can you say ‘delete’?”

Two important take aways for mailers: Develop emails for cross-platform performance.

That is the world consumers operate in and emails need to be minimally designed to function and render properly across platforms.

Email marketers also need to track and understand the unique preferences and habits of customers as it relates to time, place and platform preferences.

By so doing, marketers dramatically improve their ability to target and engage customers with relevant information in an increasingly cluttered world.

“Mobile email is not only here to stay but will continue to grow,” Ms. Baird said. “All the challenges inherent in traditional email such as spam filtering/deliverability, mailbox clutter, rendering, tracking and targeting apply.

“The only difference is that you can now multiply their complexity by a factor of 10,” she said. “In other words, the challenges are the same but the strategies and solutions you’ll need to apply just got a heck of a lot tougher.”

The state of mobile email marketing
In the case of mobile email, marketers need to catch up to consumer behavior, especially given the hockey-stick adoption curve of smartphones.

“Email marketers are lethargic when it comes to synergizing mobile with email,” said Stephanie Miller, vice president of market development at Return Path Inc., New York. “Many have added a link to the pre-header, and some have created mobile Web sites, but very little actual mobile email marketing is taking place.”

In the U.S. and abroad, the smartphone audience is growing fast and starting to become interesting for email marketers.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of 2…

Why mobile should be a key element to your holiday marketing this season…

Mobile will make this a happy holiday season

As the holiday season quickly approaches, marketers need to start their campaign planning. This year may be different than any other in terms of the role that mobile will play.

Marketers have quickly come to embrace mobile and all that it offers in terms of a one-to-one communication vehicle. There is no doubt that we will start seeing a shift in how major brands and retailers market for the holidays.

“Mobile marketing is no longer playing second fiddle to traditional media channels,” said Shira Simmonds, president of Ping Mobile, Englewood Cliffs, NJ. “In fact, the ROI results and metrics have illustrated that mobile is more powerful, more engaging and more valuable than these other channels.

“In addition, most major brands and retailers have decreased their advertising budgets, and managers will be looking for a more cost-effective and trackable solution in order to justify each dollar spent,” she said.

“In this regard, mobile is the most powerful marketing tool for these brands – it will allow them to place information directly into the hands of consumers, and quickly drive an increase in foot traffic at the point of sale.”

Advertisers have already begun their holiday marketing planning. As with other times of the year and all other campaigns, the key is to know one’s audience.

Consumers are increasingly mobile, or on the go, and therefore the best way to reach out to them is on the device that they never leave home without – the mobile phone.

With the amount of campaigns we’ve been seeing this year and all the databases of opted-in consumers that have been built for future marketing, there’s no doubt that marketers will turn to mobile for this year’s holiday marketing.

“Advertisers are planning for this year’s holiday season now and by consistently leveraging mobile throughout the summer months and into the fall, they are reaching their consumer early,” said Marcus Startzel, senior vice president of sales at Millennial Media, Baltimore.

“Consistent advertising, in a highly effective and efficient channel, will enable these brands to creatively retarget these consumers via mobile to impact purchase intent closer to the holidays,” he said.

Like Ms. Simmonds, Mr. Startzel attributes the economic downturn as one of the main factors that will drive the use of mobile in this year’s holiday marketing.

With the economic problems, marketers are looking for ways to save a buck or two, and because mobile is still a fairly new marketing medium the prices are still pretty low.

The volume of holiday marketing campaigns makes mobile very attractive to marketers looking to break through the clutter. Marketers that leverage the channel will have a great vehicle to get through to and reach their target audience.

“This year, even in a challenging economic environment, we expect retailers to be bullish on mobile advertising,” Mr. Startzel said. “Recent studies from Universal McCann have shown that 80 percent of mobile Internet users browse the mobile Web while shopping.

“Marketers will leverage this user behavior to impact these consumers while they are in stores,” he said. “By increasing campaign targeting on those days when consumers are more likely to be shopping, advertisers will get an even stronger return.

“When you combine this strategy with engaging ad units including expanding trailers, product displays and other viral components to register and forward to a friend, advertisers can reach and engage more than 61 million mobile consumers while they are in a place to make a physical purchase.”

Last year’s holiday marketing campaigns really only made use of SMS and although marketers are more advanced in their usage of mobile marketing, text-message communications will play a big role this year as well.

Last year, department store chain J. C. Penney Company Inc. launched an integrated marketing campaign and mobile just happened to be one of the components.

The campaign highlighted JCPenney’s affordable gift assortment and invited customers to celebrate in the joy of giving during the holiday season.

Consistent with its “Every Day Matters” approach, JCPenney’s marketing campaign communicated to customers that JCPenney understands their financial pressures and is designed to showcase the great value in shopping with the retailer.

Starting the week of Thanksgiving JCPenney let visitors sign up to get SMS alerts to their handsets.

The mobile alerts consisted of shopping tips, gift ideas and some included a link to a WAP site built especially for the campaign (see story).

“SMS should really have a profile this holiday season, especially among the forward thinking chains,” said Dave Everett, president of Kaooga, Newton, MA. “Text is going to be bigger and better than ever before and holiday advertisers will be more creative than last year with their offers.

“As the economy struggles to stay afloat and consumer shopping habits adjust with the times, retailers become desperate to move products, and they will have to take advantage of a marketing tool that simply works,” he said.

Not only does text work, it is cost-effective and measurable.

“First of all, you can be sure the retailers are going to be blasting coupons and incentives to their mobile database, and customized messages to the extent they have some demographic breakouts,” Mr. Everett said.

But a new idea Mr. Everett is hearing about is tied into retailers overriding objective to get the customers into their stores first, before they’ve spent most of their holiday gift budgets.

That is why the big chains have Thanksgiving newspaper inserts touting their “DOORBUSTER” promotions saying “doors will open at 5am or 6am” on Black Friday. Sometimes they open as early as midnight on Thursday.

They may offer $800 PCs for just $250 to the first 50 customers, for example.

“What we’re hearing is that some marketers are considering a second chance promotion where they could now use SMS to inform their database of shoppers that they have a midday price break, say between 11 a.m. and 3 p.m., and note some of the bargains on offer,” Mr. Everett said.

“The idea is essentially a mid-day, real-time shout-out to their customer database to get them to abandon their current shopping destination and head over to the SMS store’s side of the mall,” he said. “So if they can’t get them in the morning, they can still try for half a loaf in the afternoon.”

An up to date look at who is actually reading/using mobile marketing…(They should charge for this data!)

Minorities Lead Mobile Content Adoption / Blacks and Hispanics come out ahead

Based on data from the Pew Internet & American Life Project, consumption of mobile content shows significant variation among ethnic groups.
According to Pew’s “Wireless Internet Use” report, 32% of all US consumers ages 18 and older have accessed the mobile Internet. Penetration was up 8 percentage points over 2007.

eMarketer estimates 26.3% of mobile phone subscribers will log on to the mobile Web at least once per month in 2009, for a total of 73.7 million mobile Internet users.
The digital divide may still exist when it comes to traditional Internet access—Pew found white consumers were more likely to go online via a PC on a typical day than blacks, at 59% versus 45%—but the opposite pattern exists for mobile Internet usage.
Nearly one-half of black and Hispanic consumers reported having ever used the Internet via a handheld device in 2009, compared with only 28% of whites. Usage by all three groups grew since 2007, but usage by minorities climbed more quickly. By 2009, 29% of both blacks and Hispanics went online with a handheld device “on a typical day,” versus only 17% of whites.

“Black and Hispanic households are more likely to use a mobile phone as their primary phone, and have a lower penetration rate of PCs and broadband than white households,” said Lisa E. Phillips, eMarketer senior analyst. “It makes sense that these groups access the Internet via a mobile device more often than whites.”
High mobile usage among minorities is not limited to online content. Black and Hispanic mobile users were more likely than whites to participate in every mobile activity studied by Pew, including sending and receiving text messages, taking pictures, playing games and accessing e-mail.

One-half of white mobile users reported consuming at least one type of mobile content on a typical day, compared with 58% of black mobile users and fully 70% of Hispanics.

New Study Shows Brand Awareness Greatly Impacted By “Voice” in Mobile Marketing.

Campaign measurement firm Dynamic Logic has released the results of a new study to explore the impact In-Call Media, the insertion of audio ads directly into the call stream of a targeted consumer.

The study shows that both brand awareness and purchase intent can greatly increased through in-call advertising, with brand awareness rising almost 12% for some groups.

The study was run using the advertising platform from Disney-backed VoodooVox. Their In-Call Advertising Network serves over 100 million in-call ads a month across dozens of call sources, working with brands like Bank of America, Burger King, ABC TV, FOX and Western Union.

The study campaign was targeted to mobile phone users and ran throughout the month of December 2008, delivering 900,000 audio ad impressions during this time.

According to the press release, for this study “callers who were on hold for a popular toll-free movie ticket line heard a variety of 10-second messages about redbox (a DVD retailer) in an effort to build awareness and encourage trial of their movie kiosks. Interested callers could engage further to hear more or get a text message coupon.”

Selected callers were then surveyed to determine the overall impact on respondents who heard the redbox advertising.

Some of the key findings from the study include:

* Exposure to the redbox messages increased Aided Brand Awareness by over 9 percentage points among overall respondents — a significant increase for the brand and higher than typically seen with Dynamic Logic’s mobile display norms. Among “Frequent DVD Renters,” Aided Brand Awareness increased 11.9%.
* Among respondents whom occasionally rent DVDs, the campaign increased those saying they were very likely to rent from a redbox kiosk by almost 11 percentage points, to 10.7%.
* Awareness of the redbox brand significantly increased after just one exposure to the advertising, whereas for a normal online campaign it takes 10 times that exposure for a similar increase to occur.

What does it mean when Google optimizes their AdSense for Mobile Marketing?

It means they are preparing for a Digital Paradigm Shift, the next Digital Revolution, the Mobile Renaissance, you can call it what you want, if Google is preparing now, so should your business.

Search engine Google has announced a number of new changes that will have an effect on mobile marketing via smartphone technology.

AdSense mobile publishers will be able to serve text and image ads on their respective websites – specifically on mobiles like the iPhone and Android-powered devices.

Danielle Van Dyke, software engineer at Google, wrote on the company’s official blog that this move will help mobile publishers earn money and fund more web content and mobile-specific sites.

“We hope to make advertising on high-end mobile devices as intuitive, effective and user-friendly as our existing AdWords tools,” she explained.

Read The Whole Story:

Who says mobile can’t build your brand?

One resounding question remains that many mobile marketers still face: Can mobile actually build my brand imagery?
And from there, which mobile marketing tactics will work the best for my needs—and how can I make sure I am making the right choices?

Building an iPhone application just is not the best solution for everyone.

The best approach is to take a step back and compare mobile mechanisms regarding their capabilities, reach and potential to produce brand-specific results.

Let us break down the mobile marketing space by tactic, and take a look at cross-industry success stories for building brand imagery in each.
Text messaging, or SMS

The mobile channel is unique in its ability to accommodate industries across the board.

The ubiquity of texting in today’s market gives all brands an opportunity to reach their consumers through mobile. Even gambling establishments and the spirits category are taking a sip.

Guinness implemented an interactive program asking consumers to rate its Guinness pints via mobile phones. Consumers were asked to text their age, the bar they were in at the time, and their Guinness ratings on a scale of 1 to 10.

The campaign ran from Nov. 1 through the end of December 2008, and saw 1.46 pints rated every single minute during open bar hours over the campaign’s running time.

Between Happy Hour and closing time, Guinness received an average of 2.27 ratings per minute.

In late 2008, MGM Grand Hotel & Casino declared its mobile marketing goal: To acquire data through in-house groups in effort to build a large opt-in mobile database.

At the Prepaid Legal Conference in September 2008, approximately 300 attendees were staying at MGM Grand. MGM deployed a mobile pilot to this group of hotel guests, and ran voice messages with mobile calls to action via in-room phones.

MGM also ran mobile messaging on video screens, showing exclusive cocktail offers for some of the hotel’s main bars.
The hospitality chain was rewarded with a 69 percent opt-in rate, and saw a total of 551 redemptions – a curious statistic considering the campaign’s yield of just 208 opt-ins subscribers.

And therein lies the unparalleled viral power that mobile provokes.

Not only did these MGM guests opt themselves into the mobile program, but a sizeable number also voluntarily forwarded the text offer to others.

Try getting consumers to forward on a piece of direct mail, or even a newspaper ad. It just doesn’t happen.
Mobile Web, or WAP

For many brands, mobile Web advertising has proven to be an ROI-driven springboard into the mobile marketing space.

Hewlett Packard turned to mobile to increase Compaq sales and to boost a free Wi-Fi music receiver deal with the use of banner ads that directed traffic to a mobile Web site.

The campaign lasted 19 days and resulted in a 4.34 percent click-through rate and 5,920 leads.

In November 2008, Cricket Nirvana also incorporated WAP and banner ads in a campaign to popularize its mobile site among WAP users.

Cricket’s interactive mobile banner ads changed every 60 seconds, updating sports scores and promoting contests and polls.

Within a week, the site averaged an incremental 72 percent page views per day and within three months of the launch, it was generating 8 million page views per month.

The campaign recorded an average click-through rate of 1.58 percent, with a peak click-through rate of 3.58 percent.
Multimedia messaging, or MMS

Banner ads and WAP sites are not the only effective way to incorporate mobile marketing.

MMS is currently an under-utilized method for delivering rich, relevant messaging to open-armed consumers, whether through picture and video messaging or wallpaper and ringtone downloads.

PlayPhone partnered with RH Brands to promote the free download of Sony Pictures’ “Walk Hard” ringtones.

The offer was synthesized in RH’s “Call to Santa” Hotline, where callers were instructed to “press star” to activate ringtone downloads.

Approximately 77,073 people heard the offer, and 13.6 percent of callers opted in to receive the ringtone.

NBC’s Bravo has taken an unprecedented plunge into MMS to promote its “Real Housewives” television series.

Opt-in keywords are advertised during promotional TV spots for the reality show, and mobile subscribers receive video clips on their phones containing un-aired footage of the “wives” in action.

Although it is true that not all phones in consumers’ pockets today have the capability to receive this video content via MMS, Bravo’s decision to be an early adopter has earned the network innovation points with mobile consumers.

IPhone applications
The iPhone and its App Store have definitely made a splash in the mobile marketplace, with 30 million iPhone handsets sold since its introduction in July 2007—and more than 1 billion downloads of 65,000 apps to date.

Hundreds of savvy U.S. companies have recognized this as a great opportunity to get their brand names tied to interactive game and tool apps, and can now smell the sweet aroma of positive results.

To support 2009 Mother’s Day sales, 1-800-Flowers.com launched a revolutionary, multi-tiered campaign to drive traffic to its mobile commerce WAP site.
The brand advertised its 20 percent-off promotion via text coupon codes to its mobile opt-in database, included mentions in newspaper and TV ads, and also in its catalog.

In addition, 1-800 Flowers.com promoted its Mother’s Day campaign via mobile banner ads, directing shoppers to the iTunes App Store where they could download an interactive mobile commerce app.

In another strategic move, the brand also embedded ad placements for the 1-800 Flowers.com mobile app within other apps.
The end results: 42 percent text program opt-in rate, 173 percent mobile sales increase over last year’s Mother’s Day period, and a 46 percent increase in app downloads.

IPhone apps are unique in their abilities to provide platforms that allow for strategic brand integration.
Target Corp. took advantage of this with its launch of the “Target Gift Finder” application, designed to make shopping even more convenient for its customers.

The app allows users to access Target.com merchandise, after conducting user-generated gift searches.

A user can enter specific gift criteria including information describing the intended recipient’s personality, gender, and age. The decisioning app also provides price parameters to better revise the search.

With this app, convenience is the name of the game.

MANY companies still believe that TV, radio and other traditional channels are more beneficial and cost-effective than mobile marketing in building brand imagery.

The fact is, today’s recession has turned the marketing world on its head—and now there are all new numbers to report.

In first-quarter 2009, total online advertising revenues dropped 10 percent from the previous quarter. National advertising spend for network radio dropped 12.6 percent, syndicated TV 18.8 percent, local magazines 23.6 percent and national newspapers 27.7 percent. All of this marketing pulls back even more as mobile expands.

Consumers are warming up to the thought of using mobile phones for more than just talking, according to a poll conducted by Harris Interactive.
In fact, people are embracing mobile even beyond basic SMS, MMS and WAP.

A shocking 71 percent of adults reported feeling that it is safe to buy items via their mobile phones.

In March 2008, 23 percent of all mobile subscribers said they had been exposed to advertising on their phones in the previous 30 days. About 51 percent of those subscribers responded to one in some way.

There is no doubt that mobile is gaining traction nationwide. Now it is up to your brand to make intelligent choices when it comes to determining which mobile mechanisms apply best to its industry and market positioning.

Each tactic has unique benefits in building your brand. It boils down to finding the right fit to best align your company’s brand position with your end-consumer’s mindset.

Mobile Marketing tips & tools for your business

It’s close to 2010 and time to think carefully about what you want to achieve through mobile marketing. To help you out, I’ve prepared this mobile strategy guideline. It breaks down some of the major areas you will need to consider before you proceed further into your mobile marketing endeavors.

This article outlines a list of questions to ask yourself before entering into or expanding your mobile marketing strategy. Even if you answer half of these questions you’ll find some insights, focus on your mobile marketing goals and you might even come up with a great plan to promote your business. Right, let’s get down to business:

1. Mobile Messaging Continues to Grow

In 2010 mobile messaging will continue to grow despite the current downturn in the global economy. As mobile data revenues increase and voice revenues are under pressure, mobile messaging will be seen as the lifeline to the mobile industry, as especially youth see it as cheap, fast, private and easy way of communication. Recent figures from M:Metrics state that the number of people using SMS (Short Message Service) has increased 3.3% year on year even across mature markets like the UK, Germany, France, Italy and Spain. The growth rate of MMS in the same market is even higher at 9.2%. According to Nielsen Mobile, the 13-17 age group in the US sends around 1800 SMS per month, that is 60 SMS per day!

Most new subscribers to mobile services will come from less economically developed and newly industrialized regions, many of whom have a low disposable income. Most of the phones shipped to these markets have little more than voice and text capabilities so the growth potential for SMS in these markets will be significant. According to ABI the number of messaging users will grow with a rate of over 10% per year in countries in Asia, South America and Africa.

The use of MMS (Multi-Media Service) will continue to grow especially in China where MMS is booming. Its growth will be helped by ever improving handsets and the demand for user generated content, blogging, social networking and mobile marketing. According to ZTE, the application-to-person MMS traffic in China makes up for 70% of all MMS traffic.

2. Personalization is Increasingly Important

As consumers have become increasingly demanding, the importance of personalized messaging and greater user experience is vital. The era of blanket mass messaging is coming to an end as you can now deliver your message, with added personal touch, without any added costs. Linking your SMS messaging into existing CRM systems can create highly personalized experiences. Personalized messaging is also built-in to our online mobile marketing tool – SL Interactive SMS & MMS Messenger Pro, and it is available to all our customers with no added costs.

3. Go Local and be Relevant

If your message is relevant and well targeted, it can generate an extremely fast and very profitable result for only a few cents per message. Mobile marketing is one of the most inexpensive forms of marketing and it can be executed almost immediately. But the success of SMS and MMS marketing is all in the targeting and relevance of the message. If you’ve got a special lunch offer, don’t send info about it to someone who lives too far or never visits your establishment during lunch time. Location based advertising has been made very easy in the SL Interactive SMS & MMS Messenger, where you can choose your target customers based on their postcode.

4. Don’t forget Call-to-Action

Make sure that there is simple and specific call-to-action in every message you send. Be clear in letting people know what you want them to do and why they should do it. Some popular options are different types of competitions, discount vouchers, instant wins or free content of some sort. Keep in mind that the most effective message is personal, relevant, timely and valuable.

5. Create a Genuine Value Offering

The best call-to-action mechanisms give the respondent a clear and immediate return. Mobile is fantastic tool for fast response marketing and if you offer people something they value, they’re much more likely to give you something you value, such as opting in to a promotion or offer. I have included a great example from Scandinavia where a private hospital sends their patients notifications if the doctors are experiencing delays. Patients are recommended to wait at home with an estimate time when the doctor will be ready for the appointment. The introduction of the service lead to significant reductions in patient waiting at the hospital waiting room as well as improved the quality of the appointment through reduced stress levels and improved atmosphere.

6. Be Mindful of Privacy and the Law

I’m sure we all agree on Spam emails being highly irritating and a complete waste of time. With mobile there is zero-tolerance for Spam. The laws on spamming are very specific and people will be extremely upset, and may even take further action, if they haven’t opted-in to receive your message. You should very clear that you have the recipient consent for messages and that you always provide an option to opt-out from your list.

7. The Era of Mobile Internet Has Begun

The use of the mobile internet will increase significantly by the end of 2009. According to IBM more than 50 per cent of consumers would substitute their PC based internet connection for their mobile. As the majority of new phones come with internet access as standard, it is not hard to foresee that the number of people accessing the internet from their mobile will increase dramatically in the years ahead. According to T-Mobile Germany, iPhone users have lead the way of mobile Internet browsing with a significant margin over other handsets.

8. Save Time, Money and Resources

Smart marketers will look for cost effective tools, such as the SL Interactive SMS & MMS Messenger Pro, that can help them reach specific customers with offers that are most relevant to them and at the right time. You have to be careful with mobile marketing because it could too easily turn into spam, which could even result in negative reactions from your key target audience. Research and experience shows that provided the customer has expressed interest and willingness to receive offers, the right offer, at the right time and place, can generate a particularly positive response.

Checklist

Your activities:
1. What are your mobile related activities?
2. Do you have a mobile friendly version of your site?
3. Do you have the means to drive traffic to the mobile site?
4. Are you doing all the talking or do you encourage interactivity?
5. Do you have a genuine value offering for your customers?

Your competition:
1. What are your competitors doing in the mobile space?
2. Have they already worked out how to engage their audience?
3. What are the advantages of your competitor’s mobile activities and what will you need to do to beat them?

Your industry:
1. What is your industry achieving by focusing on the mobile space?
2. Are there any trends you should be aware of?
3. What are the ideas you like?
4. How can you play a bigger role in this industry?

Your audience:
1. Who are you talking to and why?
2. What is your niche audience?
3. What do they like to do?
4. What type of information you would like to gather from your audience?
5. How can you help make their lives better?
6. What will get people talking about you?
7. How can you be different?

Your resources:
1. What is your scope, time line and budget?
2. Who’s going to manage it?
3. What are the software requirements?
4. Do you have the necessary knowledge in-house?
5. Have you researched alternatives?

Your marketing:
1. How will people know about it?
2. How can you spread the word?
3. What is the launch plan?
4. What are the PR opportunities?
5. Are there any viral opportunities?

Your responsibilities:
Who’s in charge of the following:
1. Data entry and validation;
2. Mobile site management;
3. Linking to content on the mobile site;
4. Visitor tracking,;
5. Opt-in list management; and
6. Conversion measurement?

As a marketer, if you can’t find compelling reasons to answer all of the above mentioned questions, or at least most of them, you might be selling yourself short mobile, and worse still, allowing your competitors to take ownership of the space. As one of the pioneers of successful mobile marketing campaigns we look forward to assisting you in developing or refining your mobile marketing strategy.

This article originated by:
Lauri Lassila@ SL Interactive Pty Ltd
+61 433 188903
His Blog is here: http://slinteractive.blogspot.com/

Mobile Marketing: A Green Opportunity

Mobile devices are an important new marketing channel and represent an important new marketing channel. Increasing mobile penetration worldwide has led many in the marketing industry to believe that 2008 is the year of the mobile. According to a Cisco study mobile devices are quickly joining physical stores, websites and catalogs as an important fourth channel for retail growth.

According to Don Knox, global vice president at ad:tech Expositions, “Mobile continues to pique the interest of marketers and advertisers as it matures and the devices mature in the U.S…marketers are seeing the benefits of relying on mobile to reach consumers…Everyone seems to sense that we’re on the verge of a big breakthrough in mobile, as consumers are stepping away from their PCs and relying on these mobile devices more and more, and in that sense, it’s a logical extension of today’s marketing plans…Marketing is no longer just traditional or interactive, but rather marketing is encompassing both worlds…And as we’re seeing more of the marketing spend become digital, we’re attracting more traditional marketers and traditional media…We’re seeing mobile rapidly advancing around the world…A lot of what can be done will be determined by the carriers, but many marketers see mobile as an opportunity to extend their messaging, branding and more and more advertising opportunities.”

The vast number of mobile devices in the world today makes this an extraordinary marketing opportunity. Currently, there are three times as many mobile-phone subscribers (3.3 billion) as Internet users (1.3 billion) worldwide. India is a prime example of this large and growing audience. With 267 million mobile phones, India is growing at the rate of 8.3 million phones per month, Chaitanya Nallan, CEO, Gingersoft Media adds, “As a medium, compared to the Internet, mobile is much more powerful. I can reach you wherever you are because mobile is with you all the time.” And a mobile marketing dollar appears to get better results when compared to the Internet. According to Rajiv Hiranandani, CEO of Mobile2Win, “Clicks in this medium are around 5-8% and outperform the clicks in the Internet medium.”

Social networking has significantly impacted the use of mobile devices. Sites like Facebook, MySpace, Tribe and LinkedIn have changed consumer expectations and buying behavior. Social networking is increasingly mainstream and no longer only for the young. Facebook reported 286 percent growth in members aged 35 and over from May 2006 to November 2007. Social networking has grown on a global level, with the number of European log-ons (127 million) surpassing that of the United States (124 million).

The ongoing proliferation of e-commerce will also help drive usage of mobile devices. Forrester Research estimates that online sales will reach $204 billion this year and $335 billion by 2012. With e-commerce accounting for only 6 percent of all retail sales in the United States, there is considerable room for growth.

According to the Cisco IBSG survey, at present, mobile marketing is done primarily using SMS (Short Message Service). SMS is being used to communicate promotions, provide a two-way service for customers’ questions, and offer item availability and delivery updates. Peer-based reviews and interaction are becoming a baseline expectation. Some mobile marketing includes advanced visualization, video capabilities, and mobile commerce technologies. Companies are also using mobile devices to generate leads, provide loyalty rewards and offer free downloadable content.

The Cisco IBSG survey found that:
42 percent of retailers provide the ability to view product information on a mobile device through reformatted web pages or specific mobile pages
15 percent offer the ability to conduct transactions (make purchases, complete inventory queries, etc.)
10 percent are using SMS to provide information or answers to customers’ questions
6 percent have webpages and a URL specifically designed for mobile use
The Cisco IBSG survey of e-commerce sites found:
17 percent provide the capability to connect to communities of interest
52 percent provide customer reviews for products
50 percent have advanced visualization tools
50 percent provide multimedia such as video
50 percent offer customer support through multiple channels, such as click-to-chat

There are several factors that contribute to successful mobile marketing. Steen Anderson, VP of marketing for 5th Finger suggests a simple formula for his clients. R=V+E (Response = Value + Exposure). “By maximizing the value and relevance of the offer to the target audience and maximizing the exposure of the call to action across as much media as possible, the response rate will be maximized.” According to Anderson, “More than any other medium, in the mobile realm, marketers must strike a good balance between a creative idea and the technical execution of that idea in order to ensure ROI.”

Perhaps most importantly, successful mobile marketing involves a targeting strategy that is focused on those mobile devices used by the demographic you are seeking to reach. The call to action must be easy, clear and discernable at a glance. And as Anderson cautions “In the cases when you are offering prizes as part of the call to action, a large volume of lower value prizes can be much more effective in encouraging participation in promotions than having just one high value prize on offer.”

As reported in AdAge a recent New York Media Information Exchange Group breakfast panel was discussing mobile marketing strategy. They questioned whether the mobile category will continue to exist on its own or “simply merged into overall consumer environment of digital connectivity.” According to Dick Cantwell, vice president of IBSG’s Retail / CPG Practice mobile devices are part of the “new era of multichannel retail” The main threat according to Nallan is from spammers, “Spam messages have a low price band and take away our business.”

Although unlikely to replace traditional mass media, mobile marketing offers a unique marketing proposition and a strong value proposition. Mobile marketing has a wide audience base and has the capability to effectively target specific demographics. Mobile marketing is less expensive than traditional marketing mediums and it is also more cost effective because the message reaches the audience directly. There is also added flexibility when marketing through mobile devices. As explained by Brand Analyst Harish Bijoor, “the advertiser can decide how much to market, to whom to market and with what intensity to market. The control lever is with the marketer. More he uses, more he pays.”

Mobile marketing is easy to track. Shishir Sharma, Director of Business and operations at Active Media Technology says, “Since all downloads and SMS replies are trackable, evaluating effectiveness is much better in mobile marketing compared to other conventional marketing methods.”Hiranandani calls mobile marketing “the most effective marketing channel for the years to come.” And Sharma adds, “With the mobile phone being in virtually every hand, mobile marketing is the future of advertising.

Mobile marketing is still a relatively new concept and accounts for a relatively small portion of most companies marketing mix. (Only 15% of leading retailers provide mobile commerce). Marketers and business owners should understand that when is comes to mobile marketing, every sector is in the trial stage. Those that appear to be putting mobile marketing to the greatest use are the financial, auto, travel and retail sectors. By monitoring innovative companies SMEs can adapt successful mobile marketing practices to their own circumstances and strategies.

Mobiles value as a marketing medium comes from the widespread penetration of mobile devices and the fact that mobile device users are a captive audience even when they are roaming. As a relatively inexpensive marketing option, mobile marketing is an effective and accessible way for SMEs to communicate a targeted message. Because of its targeted message, wider reach, and cost effectiveness, mobile marketing is an ideal marketing medium for emerging Green themed businesses.

Success often follows those who anticipate the trends. And an effective mobile marketing strategy considers the desired capabilities long before they are worked into future platforms. In mobile marketing, as with sustainable business practices, those who are proactive in developing and implementing strategies will be in a more competitive position than those who do not.