Mobile Reaches Consumers: Here's How
30 Jul, 2007
iMedia Connection
by Mike Baker, CEO Enpocket
Mobile customers want instant gratification. Enpocket's CEO explains how to capture mobile audiences by catering to this need.
To many, mobile marketing and advertising are still dark arts, involving obscure technologies and a complex, convoluted value chain: carriers, aggregators, mobile marketing enablers, technology companies with some technologies and not others … but it needn't be so.
This article is the first in a series called "Demystifying Mobile," in which I'll do just that, uncover the ad mechanics that make mobile the engaging advertising medium it is. Over the course of the next five months, we'll examine the mobile handset in its "natural environment:" everywhere! We'll look at how mobile advertising programs can help point-of-sale-based businesses and event-based programs as well as how mobile relates to the "three screens:" broadcast, web, and mobile itself.
The challenge with the mobile advertising industry is that many people involved -- whether from the brands, agencies, or even many of the enablers themselves -- are new to the medium. Brands, agencies and operators are beginning to see the potential for mobile advertising, but they need a little help in figuring out how to create a valuable exchange with consumers over the mobile channel.
In the present mobile marketing and advertising space, there are many enablers doing many things. A brand may go to one enabler for its mobile website, to another for its banner ads and yet to another still for messaging. But for brands to truly experience the breadth of mobile advertising available to them, they need an end-to-end solution that employs a number of mobile mechanics all under one roof.
What works in mobile
We are beginning to really understand what works and what doesn't. With the mobile ad spend expected to hit $11.35 billion by 2011, according to Informa Telecoms and Media, advertisers can't rely on banner ads alone to get their message across: it's what happens beyond the click that keeps the consumer engaged. Consumers want brand-sponsored mobile content and rich multimedia experiences, and they want it now. Some of the most successful programs we've run have been with mechanics that involved instant gratification.
For example, a program we ran for a beverage company included both a text-to-win mechanic, in which customers could text in for a chance to win lifetime tickets to the Super Bowl, and a click-to-download mechanic that allowed customers to download wallpaper of the brand onto their handset. There were 175,000 wallpaper downloads compared to far fewer entries in the contest. Why? Because the mobile handset is an instantaneous device, and consumers want instant gratification with it.
So what is the lesson? Since the market is still in its infancy stage, mobile ad enablers must be able to simplify things for the brand by providing all the turnkey elements to build a custom solution. There are a large number of relatively straightforward mobile marketing mechanics that work on the vast majority of handsets, and which, once you understand their capabilities, are simple to knit together and deploy, thereby creating an effective mobile marketing or advertising program.
Once marketers understand the broad capabilities mobile advertising offers, the possibilities for reaching new consumers through exciting new ways are endless. Advertisers can use mobile mechanics to lead consumers to their store, to sell tickets, to offer branded ringtones and wallpaper, to offer discount coupons or to show video of a product in action. And once demystified, all these mechanics do one thing: encourage consumers to get closer to a brand on their personal device.
Stay tuned next month when we discuss how retailers can use mobile advertising mechanics to drive store visits and basket size.
