Mobile Marketing – What Is The Future?
What Does Mobile Phone Technology Mean for Your Future Marketing?
Dec 21, 2008
Mobile marketing has for awhile now been described as the future of marketing. When SMS was introduced the potential to reach people on the move was irresistible. But soon, after many spamming text messages were sent, this was put under strict control by the Electronic Communications Act.
Does that Mean the End to Mobile Marketing?
No. Mobile marketing has many possibilities, SMS just being one of them. SMS can be a very useful tool if the consumer has opted in to receive the messages. With premium SMS this can also be a good revenue generator.
Don’t Limit Your Sights to Just SMS
With mobile phones now having Internet access and video streaming the possibilities are endless. So how do you take advantage of this technology in your marketing? You may have a website but is it mobile friendly? Remember the screen is a lot smaller so you need to know how your website looks on a mobile screen. It may even need repurposing or redeveloping so that it is mobile browser friendly.
This is where it can get technical and if you are not a web programmer you will need to enlist the help of one. As the technology grows so does its ability to write websites for multi browser function including mobile phone browsing so it is getting easier. That said you will still need to test the user experience yourself.
Making your website mobile phone friendly for navigation means that the website will be more accessible to more people whilst they are on the move.
SMS still has great potential
SMS or text message marketing still has lots of possibilities if used correctly. People do not want to be spammed or bombarded by text messages. Interruptive marketing should be considered a thing of the past for any serious marketer today. But using SMS text messaging in a permission based format can be very good practice.
Allowing users to sign up to receive updates from your company or website with news or special offers can create brand loyalty and generate more sales. Adding this to the fact that you have made your website mobile phone friendly will mean you could make more on the spot sales. For example if your customer has signed up to receive special offers from your website and you send them a personalised, limited time special offer just for them, sent via text to their phone, with a link to your website and the offer you could see massive returns with people making on the spot purchases and all for the price of a text.
With all permission based marketing there needs to be balance. If a customer has signed up to your service and you then bombard them with text messages they will soon opt out and more damage than good will be done to your brand. Well timed personalised offers that are properly scheduled are the way forward. Think like the customer and you should get it right.
