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Archive for the ‘Mobile Channel’ Category

Some experts believe mobile devices are on their way toward replacing the laptop. Whether or not this is true, it is clear that usage is up and users are more excited by and engaged with their mobile devices than their computers. This makes then an excellent marketing channel that should not be avoided.

In order to get the most out of the channel, it is important to get in early. Marketers are quickly making a name for themselves and taking up market share. The sooner you take advantage of the platform, the more success you will have in the future. Many experts predict that mobile marketingwill be the fastest growing platform through 2012.

Already, there are more mobile phones than PCs. This happened in 2008. During the same year, a trillion text messages were sent, three times as much as the previous year. That’s 13 messages per user. Users send 350 text messages a month, while only making 204 phone calls. Amazingly, the average teen sends over 1700 text messages a month. The industry still appears to be undergoing accelerating growth. While 85 percent of Americans have a cell phone, only 73 percent have any kind of web access.

As far as mobile internet access, 47 million had it in February of 2009, compared with less than 30 million in 2007.

Mobile phones go wherever your customer goes. This means that the time between exposure and sharing is almost instant. Mobile platforms also allow for a great deal more engagement because it is an innovative platform. Users want to show off what they can do with their phones, and are more likely to share impressions in a social setting, rather than sitting at home by themselves.

Advertisements on mobile devices have a much higher click through rate. Users will click through between 3 and 5 percent of the time on their mobile device. They click through less than 1 percent of the time while sitting at a computer.

When a user discovers a coupon through a mobile device, they will redeem it between 15 and 40 percent of the time. Compare this with less than 2 percent for traditional coupons. Because these services are opt-in, they are much more targeted and customers actually listen to what you have to say.

The biggest mistake that mobile marketers make is treating a mobile device like a small computer screen. They use the same layout and shrink it down to fit on the screen. It’s important to understand the role of context in your mobile strategy.

In fact, several technologies are improving the capability of marketers to detect the user’s context and cater to them based on this information. Knowledge of the user’s location, weather, the noise surrounding them, their speed, and so on can be used to improve the context of the marketing experience.

Where to place the ads? There are generally two options: paid search and display ads. Both receive high response because of the screen’s size and the user’s engagement with the device. Several studies demonstrate that combining both strategies causes them to reinforce one another.