There’s loads of stuff around about mobile things and how they’ll change the world. But is mobile really any use for reaching your prospects and customers? Well originally there was SMS, the short messaging service, which only started in 1993 but has seen triendupic (yes, that is made up) growth since then. People love it so much they’ll use it no matter what. O2 sent 166 million SMS over their UK network in the 24 hours over New Year 2008/9 for goodness sake.
But, what use is it for distributing marketing messages? My view? Not much! People love texts but they’re personal, not commercial, relationships that are the driver. How many commercial messages have you got over text that made you buy anything? Me neither.
Text is good for some marketing stuff though. Using short codes to recruit people to a database is good, although if you only know their mobile phone number, I’m not sure what you can effectively use the database for…oh, right, of course. Short code recruitment is really just a revenue stream and not marketing (but don’t tell anyone).
There are WAP sites of course. These are, how can I say this, ‘in the early stages of their development’. There’s a long long way to go before the WAP user experience in effective. Ubergeeks may like them but mere mortals are trailing behind in their love of WAP.
And then there was…iPhone App. Another Steve Jobs transformational intervention, the Apple boys didn’t even realise themselves how popular Apps would be. Apps do change everything for the marketer looking at mobile. What an App does is only limited by your and your agency’s imagination. Direct message delivery, social media type games, useful information portals to enhance your brand. There is the future.
My view on mobile marketing? Forget WAP, forget SMS, go App. If the profile of iPhone users doesn’t match your marketing objectives right now, just wait for the Tesco Wave of new iPhone users after Christmas. The shop named after TE Stockwell and Jack Cohen has announced it will offer a £20 per month iPhone contract. Gulp. Well positioned for Chrimb as the total cost of ownership splits between the giver (a big amount) and the ongoing user (a small amount). Now, that’s marketing.
Hi Mark
I know this is an older blog – but I have to disagree with most of your content – specifically that about SMS and keywords on shortcodes – these products are still to reach their peak regarding potential for marketers, in fact they still have a long way to go.
What us marketers tend to focus on is all what the future is – and I agree that we need to understand whats going to be happening in the future (although some predictions are about as accurate as the recent weather forecasts) – so that we can match customer requirements and expectations – but we also need to look at what works now – so that we can get a ROI on what we do now. I’ve tried to get an immediate ROI on something I intend to do in the future, but I found that the bank manager wouldn’t credit my bank account with future income.
SMS is now and will be part of the immediate future …. and is a fantastic communication channel which should be part of most marketers communication mix – for example a great way in this era of an ever growing digital world, to direct someone to digital content that they will find useful …. and it will work really well during the period that consumers are moving over to Internet enabled mobiles and accounts with Internet access included – to say, direct people to your twitter feed, direct from an SMS – or direct them to your website news page from where they can subscribe to a regular news update via email, SMS (with a link) or to your twitter feed.
Its one thing having loads of digital content – but how can you immediately direct people to content that is relevant to them and timely for them.
Another dilemma, how can you charge people for accessing or using digital content – one way is to use premium rate text messaging via keywords on shortcodes, which using the return (charging) SMS they are sent the WAP landing page which then immediately pushes the content to their device that they have paid for; or maybe sends a unique password. This content delivered could be music files, applications, information, images, reading matter, audio learning material, in the 4G future it could be video or more interactive material etc etc
I think you and many other marketing commentators have dismissed SMS , but its a great bridge to digital media – as well as a great promotional tool.
As long as text messages are kept relevant and timely – and where possible they are personalised – they will be received positively and will be a component for building strong customer relationships and therefore strong brands.
Hi Mark
Apps are amazing. And with 100,000 plus and growing apps, there is an amazing choice. But sometimes too much choice is a problem in itself. How many times have you heard digital TV subscribers say “200 channels and I spend so much time looking for something to watch that I have no time left to watch anything”? The same with apps. You are leaving it to the consumer to find the app.
If you know people that are interested in your services and like to be kept updated, then you can simply send them an email, nice and fancy, HTML laden etc, lots of information – but you ask most people if they read all their emails. Most say no, most have some forms of spam filtering, and even then, a lot gets deleted without reading it. Many will cite lack of time, or too much content. Perhaps if you sent them a text first to alert them of your important announcement or special offer, then that is enough to spark their interest to invest the time in reading the email. Try it, it works.
You are spot on about texts being personal not commercial. So don’t send them unless you have a relationship with the consumer already. But if you have got that relationship then sending a text is a great way to let people know your special news for them. It is personal, so they are willing to read it, unlike many emails. They can receive it wherever they are, not just the small number of consumers that can receive emails on the move. You can personalise it. You can keep the message short and punchy, therefore not impacting much on the consumer. For those with smartphones you can embed url’s in the text directing them to a specific web page.
And these days you can offer location aware text services. You may say Augemted Reality is better than this, in some instances it is, but for AR to work you still require for the user to “look”, rather than being made aware of what is around without requesting it first.
SMS is certainly not the only solution that should be considered, but like most marketing, it should form part of the mix, and then it will work dilligently for you. Give it a go, you may be very surprised.
Awesome post