Mobile Marketing

If traditional marketing just isn’t getting the cut-through you desire for your business, then Mobile Marketing might be the solution for you. Mobile Marketing involves engaging new or existing customers through their mobile phone. Your message is guaranteed to reach your target market, can be scheduled to be delivered to them at a key time and can evoke an immediate response.

Mobile marketing refers to marketing with a handheld device such as a mobile phone, but it can also be applied to marketing using roadside billboards and suchlike. Any marketing that uses a mobile medium could be defined as mobile marketing.

The Apple App Store has recently given the mobile marketing world a new boost by providing an effective delivery model that is robust and functions well. A recent study by Frost and Sullivan has however identified a potential problem with the creation of so many stores, that the result is a fragmented environment, with developers working on different platforms and having difficulties in marketing their products. With such high levels of competition, there are upsides and downsides to the stores, with increased access to the market countered by apparent difficulties in financial sustainability of the model. The report concludes however that difficulties are being overcome and the stores’ success will continue unabated as opportunities for developers and other players proliferate.

Google, in the meantime, has come up with an app that combines translation and optical character recognition. The idea is to point your mobile phone at the text you want translated, such as a menu, and draw a box around specific words using the region of interest tool and then press the shutter button. Select the source and destination languages and hit translate, and up the translation comes. German text was the only option on the prototype, but this has now broadened to cover Spanish, English, Italian and many other languages.

Zergo has developed an iPhone app for DIY enthusiasts that offers product advice and stock details for Evo-Stik, the adhesive and sealant firm. With a store-finder to locate stockists, you can browse for a product by category and indicate the surfaces you want to stick together for advice on products. You can then filter the results you have invoked by DIY, Repair and Trade categories and find all you need in terms of location and postcode of the stockist. This solutions-based approach will greatly help customers wherever they may be, from home to building site.

Elsewhere, the long-awaited Apple iPad is set for launch on 28^th May in nine countries, and can be pre-ordered from the online store from 10^th May. Retailing in the UK at £499 for 16GB and £499 for the 32GB models, they are sure to be snapped up very quickly.

A new streaming service for audio books is underway in Norway, with Aspiro Music signing an agreement with Capellen Damm. This will allow users to listen to some of the publisher’s books on a number of platforms including PC, Mac and mobile, and a customized streaming service is being developed by Aspiro Music so that customers can bring their books with them. With the Norwegian market for audio books set at an estimated £28.5 million in 2008, the new streaming service is sure to be a great success with the public. The worldwide market for such books in 2008 was £660 million.

The benefits of FindMaster Mobile Marketing:

Immediacy

Mobile campaigns are relatively easy to create and execute, with messages being delivered to recipients in a matter of seconds.

Reach

Delivery of SMS messages to mobile phones is almost guaranteed, which is not the case with many other marketing mediums.

Mobility

Customers will receive the messages on their mobile device anytime and anywhere.

Affordability

The cost of sending SMS messages is very comparable to that of email broadcasting rates: on average you will pay around 6 cents to send each message. Prices drop as volumes increase.

Effectiveness

The average SMS response rate is 15% versus 3.5% for traditional promotional methods such as direct mail.

Personalization

Text messages or personalized content is targeted to individuals who have opted to receive them.

Cross-medium form of marketing

The mobile channel is highly complementary to online, press, radio and TV advertising.

Viral communication

The mobile technology encourages viral marketing with the built-in tools for forwarding of the messages to the existing social networks.