Unlike other forms of marketing, mobile marketing is much different in that people are asking you to market to them. While this seems like a foreign and almost impossible task that is your primary goal: to be invited into peoples’ daily lives. So how do you accomplish this? In order to do this, you must offer people something they want; something that will add value to their day-to-day lives. Before you initiate a mobile campaign, think about your target audience and decide what you can offer them that will make them interact with you.
Considering we live in a world that is constantly on the move, mobile marketers that provide important, location- based information will find they have more success. It’s no secret that people are extremely busy and constantly in motion. Therefore, they need a marketing strategy that accommodates their routines. If a person is out running errands or needs to find specific information when they are away from home, they are very likely to turn to their mobile devices for answers. After all, “Location-specific knowledge is the No. 1 reason that people access the mobile web for mobile search” (Mobile Marketing Handbook). Thus, for even the most basic mobile campaigns, it is important to have a mobile presence. Doing this enables people to search for your location and contact information via a mobile keyword search. If someone needs to find the nearest auto repair shop for instance, they will want to know where it is located, its business hours, and what types of services they provide. Given that researchers believe that BlackBerrys and iPhones will become a person’s primary Internet connection by 2020, it is important to think about how you can utilize mobile search to promote your brand or business (http://www.pcmag.com/).
Another important benefit of mobile marketing is its ability to provide convenience to people’s lives. Because people carry their cell phones with them nearly everywhere, you could initiate a mobile alerts campaign. This type of campaign would enable you to send customers timely and useful information via a mobile device. You could alert them when their order was ready or make them aware of a special deal you have going on for a limited time. If the information you are sending is useful, your customers won’t view it as advertising, which will enable you to establish a relationship with them.
While a mobile campaign should provide convenience to the end user, research reveals that monetary incentives are highly desirable to consumers. In a Harris Interactive study, it was found that “80 percent of adults and 70 percent of teens identified ‘cash’ as the top incentive for responding to mobile advertising.” In mobile marketing, this could be done with a simple mobile coupon campaign where customers text a keyword to a short code and then receive a coupon that can be redeemed in person. While this is a very basic idea, you can customize it for your target audience to create an innovative interactive campaign. Even though people are very eager to save some “cash,” you will want to make sure your reward is alluring enough to make them interact. In the same Harris Interactive study it was also found that 54 percent of adult participants said they were willing to provide personal information to mobile marketers if the incentive was worth it.
Ultimately, we find that the more value a mobile campaign provides, the more successful it will be. Because a person’s mobile device is so personal, people need a reason to interact. They are not going to ask you to market to them if you are not adding value to their lives. Think about what you can offer your consumer base and how you can make their lives easier. Because mobile technology is all about convenience, your mobile campaign should be as well.
Before you initiate a mobile campaign, it may be beneficial to know which groups of consumers are the most receptive to mobile technology. Obviously, the more mobile savvy your audience is, the more successful your campaign will be. Throughout this article, we will explore a few groups of consumers that are known mobile connoisseurs. Knowing who is using mobile the most will enable you to determine if a mobile marketing strategy is right for your target audience.
Perhaps more than any other group, young people making up Generation Y may be the most receptive and largest consumers of mobile technology. While there is no clear- cut definition of who comprises Generation Y, generally speaking this term can encompass individuals born between the years 1976 - 2000 (http://www.millennialmarketer.com). These are the consumers that have grown up with new technologies and seem to have an innate tech-savvy I.Q. Generation Y members use their phones in a variety of ways, making them a very attractive audience for mobile marketers. In a recent study done by Nielsen Mobile, they found “…that teens were the most likely to recall seeing some type of mobile ad.” While this group of consumers tends to be more skeptical of marketing efforts, they are likely to warm up to a mobile campaign if it is fun, entertaining, and connects to their personal lives (Mobile Marketing Handbook).
While Generation Y has grown up with cell phones and the like, there is a substantial group of corporate users who have access to data plans and sophisticated devices such as smartphones, iPhones, and PDA’s. In this group of consumers, a person’s company pays for their high-end mobile devices and data plans; thus creating a whole new category of mobile users. In this group, we tend to see more people from Generation X as well as baby boomers. These people may look at their mobile devices more as work tools rather than fun gadgets. With that said, these consumers are more interested in efficiency and productivity. In order to reach this group via mobile, marketers must establish a way to add value to these peoples’ workdays.
Even though reaching corporate users may present more of an obstacle, these users are attractive to mobile marketers because they utilize things like the mobile Web. More and more, advanced mobile technologies like the mobile Web are becoming essential components of a person’s workday, thus opening up many opportunities for mobile marketers. It is estimated that the mobile Web will be worth $22.5 billion by 2013 (Juniper Research). For many reasons, corporate data plan users are a prime target for mobile campaigns.
As various studies indicate, there are certain distinctions between people of different ethnic backgrounds, making some groups more accepting of mobile technologies than others. In a Nielsen Mobile study exploring people’s response to mobile advertising, Asian Americans and African Americans reported the highest recall rates. Further research reveals that Latinos are also highly receptive to mobile technology. In a Pew Internet & American Life Project study, it was discovered that 56% of English speaking Hispanics used their cell phone daily to send some form of data (texts, pictures, etc.). Pew Internet & American Life also reported that, “Hispanics and young adults lead other Americans in using wireless access to go online away from home or work.”
As you can see, there is a wide array of consumers using mobile regularly. These users represent many opportunities for mobile marketers. If you are seriously interested in initiating a mobile campaign, take a look at your target audience and see if they fit into any of the categories mentioned above. As the mobile market expands, your mobile audience will surely continue to expand as well so now is the best time to determine how a mobile marketing strategy could be used to meet your needs.
