Direct Marketing Observations

Did you know that a billion text messages are sent per day? Did you know that 2 years ago that nearly 11% of all voting done on American Idol was via text messaging? What kind of a hard number was that?  Try about 65 million.  Mobile marketing is projected to grow from $708 million in overall revenue in 2007 to $2.2 billion in 2012 according to Jupiter Research. In 4 years it’s going to grow almost 300%.

The mobile web is exploding, and if you don’t understand that by now, then you’ve been living under a rock. Thanks to the iphone in particular,  and Safari more specifically, intenet enabled phones are becoming more user friendly and more robust in their offerings and overall customer satisfaction. With that being said, the mobile web is now becoming a more desirable place for marketers to try and pitch their products.

Interestingly enough, the mobile web is a more collaborative environment for marketers and their products in that It requires and has a lot of moving parts. You cannot run a mobile campaign without buyin from multiple channel partners, multiple departments, and multiple vendors and technological entities. But truly what marketers need to know best is their consumer, their user, the person they are trying to reach through their mobile device.  Yes it’s product centric, but trying to appeal to a demographic of 54+ with a NIke mobile text to win ad, might be tougher than going after  the 18-24 male demo- so the point is mobile is best at going after the meat and potatoes consumer who is no more than a foot away from their mobile phone at all times. The person who’s cell phone is an extension of their personal brand. Find that person. That is the key, then tie that person into THAT specific offer. A 1:1 offer that makes sense to that person.

With more than 70% penetration of mobile use in urban areas. The last great frontier of marketing to consumers is mobile. It’s only going to get better and the potential will be endless.  Opportunities exist for marketers in the form of text to win campaigns- the most pervasive and common currently, as well as consumers using their mobile phones for everything from purchasing tickets, mobile video, searching for pricing, searching for coupons, downloading music through wifi, and or interacting with billboards.

What marketers needs to know is that, yes it’s not too late to get in the game and yes it’s a game that everyone is eventually going to be participating in to a certain extent. Bear in mind that not only are theur savvy marketers and companies out there, but the consumer is becoming more hip and more comfortoable with the technology, and thus the bar will keep getting raised in regards to consumer expectations.  Always keep in mind that the phone is merely an extension of or a conduit for entertainment. Whether its music or video or chat or sufring the net. Consumers like to be entertained and with the continous advances in pushing the content out, the opportunities to piggback enetertainment are just as viable as a text to win campaign.

Along with text campaigns that keep spiffing up the offers, another aspect to keep in mind is that search will become more of a viable optiion with mobile as well. So you the marketer need to be aware of and prepared for your mobile web offerings to be compliant and search engine friendly to mobile search. Yes there is a lot here, but if you start doing your homework now and start small, you will be well ahead of the game and more comfortable with what is thrown at you and what you can bring to clients.

How far does mobile marketing extend? Here’s your last example. Virgin mobile has a mobile campaign that allows users to interact with ads in exchange for free services. How old is the target market? 13-34 year olds. 13. How many registered users are there up to this point? Almost 700,000. Your goal, figure out what the consumer wants and deliver a mobile solution.