7 MOBILE MARKETING

Table of Content
Unit Objectives

Introduction

Learning Outcomes

7.1 Introduction to Mobile Marketing

7.2 Research for Information

7.3 Identify Your Target Audience

7.4 Define the Value of Your Offerings

7.5 Outline Your Goals and Objectives

7.6 Keywords

7.7 Summary

7.8 Suggested Books and e-References

UNIT OBJECTIVES

After studying this unit, you will be able to:

• Understand the concept of mobile marketing.
• Describe the different formats of mobile marketing.
• Create a research for mobile marketing.

INTRODUCTION

Mobile marketing is one of the most exciting areas of marketing today and incorporates a broad
range of marketing elements. With billions of mobile devices being used around the planet,
mobile marketing has emerged as a key part of any marketing campaign.

There are hard numbers to back up the hype around mobile marketing. Consider the following:
mobile devices are used for over 40% of online transactions, last year U.S. businesses dedicated
9.4% of their marketing budget toward mobile marketing, and this year a full 16% of U.S.
internet users use mobile phones exclusively to go online, according to eMarketer and Statista.
LEARNING OUTCOME

The content and assessments of this unit have been developed to achieve the following learning
outcomes:
1. Understand the concept of mobile marketing.
2. Understand the search of information in mobile marketing.
3. Describe the types of SEO.

7.1 INTRODUCTION TO MOBILE MARKETING

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) defines mobile marketing as, “a set of practices that
enables organisations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant
manner through any mobile device or network.” (Mobile Marketing Association, 2013)

Mobile devices are important to consider in any marketing strategy, and this chapter looks at
the ways in which we can use mobile as part of an engagement strategy.

Mobile engagement extends far beyond just the mobile phone, or just SMS marketing. It is a
mindset rather than a specific tactic. It is all about context –reaching people at exactly the right
time, place, and mood to facilitate their needs, and provide a convenient touch point and
encourage them to convert. It is important to note that mobile marketing is very different in the
developed world – where smart phones dominate, delivering rich web and application user
experiences – and the developing world – where many phones are still text based, have crude
WAP browsers, and radio, USSD and SMS are the most prolific services. Mobile users have a
hierarchy of needs, which are fulfilled to various degrees by the capabilities of their devices.

Mobile marketing is the marketing communication between a brand and its customers using a
mobile device. Marketers use mobile devices as an additional channel to communicate a
message, sell, promote, build, and maintain customer relationships. A mobile device (cellphone)
is any handheld, battery-operated, portable, pocket-sized electronic device that allows people to
make phone calls and send data (voice, images, text).

However, it is important to understand the history of cellphone technology, for two reasons.
Firstly, different marketing techniques require certain levels of mobile sophistication, both from
the handset and user. Secondly, depending on your target market’s demographics and
communication trends, you may want to choose a different mobile tactic (E.g., send an SMS
campaign or use barcodes, coupons, or augmented reality). Each tactic relies on your target
market having access to a specific mobile device or tool and a certain level of mobile usage.

In short, mobile marketing is the sharing of a brand or business in a way that is optimized for
smartphones and other mobile devices throughout apps, social media channels, and websites.

7.2 RESEARCH FOR INFORMATION

Why is Mobile Research Important?
With more than 125 million smartphone and 52 million tablet subscribers in the U.S. by the end
of 2020, whether planned or not, many online surveys are being taken from a mobile device.
Industry research indicates that roughly 3-7 percent of surveys are taken on smartphones today,
with the number taken on tablets also growing as technology becomes more capable. This
highlights how mobile research has an important presence in the research world today and why
understanding it is a necessity.

Delivering surveys via mobile devices is all about convenience and efficiency. It is about fitting
into consumers ever-busy lifestyles in ways that work for them so that surveys/research are
more convenient to complete. In addition, mobile research allows us to reach consumers in
situations when it would have been difficult or cost-prohibitive in the past.

Implications for Mobile Research Adoption and Execution

Mobile research is here to stay. So, what does that mean for us, as researchers?

• Adapt or Get Left Behind: We must adapt our tools and techniques in ways that work best
for consumers – to fit into their lives and work with the devices they use every day.
• Embrace New Ways to Capture Consumer Insights: We must recognize we are now able to
get insights in the new ways -ways that would have not been possible 5 years ago – that can
lead us to deeper and richer insights.

Adapting Tools and Techniques to Accommodate Mobile Devices

From a purely executional perspective, we must adapt our research tools to account for mobile
device survey completion, which involves:

• Enabling respondents to start and stop along the way, saving their data so that they can
resume the survey later or on another device.
• Ensuring that the question layout is in a mobile-friendly format to guarantee a positive and
efficient survey experience for the mobile survey taker.
Without adapting our tools and techniques, the survey experience is compromised for the
participant, with data quality and completion rates suffering.

Major Benefits and Uses of Mobile Research

Most importantly, the proliferation of mobile devices enables and enriches our research.
Researchers can now harness mobile technology to increase consumer engagement and capture
higher-quality, more accurate in-the-moment feedback, and opinions.

A variety of research objectives can be met and exceeded by utilizing mobile technology to
deepen our understanding of the consumer. A few examples where we have seen mobile
technology leads to more impactful insights include:

• Understanding path to purchase via questions and tasks administered before, during, and
even after the shopping experience through a combination of an online survey and via their
mobile device, including UPC scanning, photos, text-based questions, etc.
• Bringing to life the product usage experience through videos and photos.
• Understanding at-shelf decision making in real time utilizing text messaging and photos
taken by respondents.
• Capturing thoughts and opinions at the moment of purchase or usage helps capture
details often missed when people are asked to recall at a later time via more traditional
research methods.
• Unpacking the shopper experience at specific retailers through location-based survey
triggers to initiate surveys when a particular store is entered.

As research strategies and approaches adapt to the ever-increasing mobile world, opportunities
to get to respondents in-the-moment also increases exponentially – along with the ability to get
to even deeper, richer, and more relevant insights.

7.3 IDENTIFY YOUR TARGET AUDIENCE

In some ways, mobile marketing is no different from other types of marketing. You need to
identify the demographic characteristics of your target audience and design a campaign tailored
to its specific interests. What makes the mobile medium so promising for marketers is the sheer
number of tools available to reach that audience on an unprecedented level of immediacy and
detail. It also offers increased efficacy, as evidenced by the high redemption rate of mobile
coupons compared to regular coupons.
• Path to Purchase: The Mobile Marketing Association found in a survey that over half of
the respondents used their mobile devices to search for products and 38 percent ended up
using their phones to buy the product. By presenting numerous opportunities to engage
with the company and interact, such as a mobile call to action via a traditional ad or a bar
code to get a mobile user quickly to a website, mobile marketers are able to identify which
consumers are reaching "critical mass" toward purchasing the product and when that is
occurring. To clinch the sale, marketers then offer carrots such as mobile coupons, text
messages inspiring the recipient to try the product and mobile videos.

• Opt-in Programs: Permission-based marketing has a high return on investment. In that

you are dealing with a self-selected group of interested individuals who are already
attuned to your company. A receptive person is gold in a world of unwanted unsolicited
messages; so, opt-in programs to receive text alerts keep the campaign focused and pre-
vetted, ensuring you are addressing the right people. Mobile marketers, in inviting
customers to opt in to receive deals and updates, must be compliant with the legislation
such as the revision of the Telephone Consumer Protection Act, effective October 2013,
which requires conspicuous disclosure.

• Contextual and Situational Targeting: Mobile marketers target prospective customers

based on real-world actions and behaviors. Specificity and timing are critical aspects of
relevance. Honing in on the right people means capturing a person's interest at the exact
moment when she is already engaging in a particular mobile website or app. Having your
ad appear when the app launches ensures that she will be tuned in and your ad will be
relevant to her interest.

• SMS Mobile Marketing: SMS mobile marketing involves businesses sending advertising
messages to customers via short messaging service on their cellphones. Using SMS,
businesses can send texts to those who have opted-in to receive them. Because mobile
devices are increasingly ubiquitous, even basic cellphones have text-messaging
capabilities, and most users take advantage of that feature. This technique uses direct
marketing concepts to reach customers predisposed to open their messages right away.

• Popularity: SMS mobile marketing can be effective because of the popularity of SMS and
the likelihood that your message will be read by its intended target. In the United States
alone, more than two trillion SMS messages were sent in 2011, an average of six billion per
day. More than 80 percent of the U.S. population owns a mobile phone, and 70 percent of
that number sends or receives text messages. When one of those individuals receives a
new text message, the person is likely to look down to read the message.
• Regulations: Mobile marketing is highly regulated. The service is permission-based,
meaning that Federal Communications Commission guidelines mandate customers have
to opt-in to receive messages. They also must be given the opportunity to opt-out of
receiving future messages.

• Location Based Marketing: Location-based marketing is a marketing method that changes

depending on where potential clients are located. Instead of treating customers as a
monolithic entity, location-based marketing adapts to the particular social, cultural, and
personal traits of customers by making assumptions about their habits and preferences
based on their location at a particular moment. Technological advances have allowed
companies to know much more about their clients' locations so they can target these
clients individually.

• Traditional Location-Based Marketing: Marketing campaign organizers attempt to adapt

their message to the people who are likely to view them. The advertisements you view in
a large city, for example, are likely to vary from those you may see in a rural setting. This
is because businesses make educated guesses on the socio-economic nature of people
based on where they are located. For instance, marketers who target airports know that
their target audience has enough financial resources to travel and has time on their hands
while waiting to board a flight or pass-through security, so these marketers adapt their
billboards, digital displays, and fliers to the particular characteristics of that audience.

• Smartphones: The proliferation of smartphones has increased the potential for location-
based marketing. According to a 2008 report by the Mobile Marketing Association, 40
million subscribers in the United States use their phones to surf the internet, check email,
and keep up with their social networks. According to the same report, 26 percent of
mobile internet users remember seeing some kind of advertisement while using their
phones. Smartphones usually have built-in navigation and location devices that allow
businesses to know where an individual phone user is located. This means businesses can
target the advertisements that an individual phone user views to her particular location.

• Internet Users: Marketers who advertise on websites or who use search engines to find
clients can determine where internet users are located by the computer’s unique Internet
protocol, or IP address. For example, if an internet user in New York City types "Indian
restaurants" into a search engine field, the user's IP address tips off the search engine to
the user's location so that it can provide information and advertisements for Indian
restaurants in New York City.
• Geo Marketing: The use of social networks, web searches, IP addresses and smartphones
to target advertisements and information to a user's location is called geo marketing. This
marketing method is no longer exclusive to large businesses with huge marketing
budgets. Small and medium-sized companies may easily partner with search engines and
social network companies such as Google, Bing, Foursquare or Facebook to tailor their
message to the location of your clients. For instance, a restaurant owner may register for
free with Google Maps, a GPS application used on smartphones. The restaurant then
comes up on the Google Maps application when clients look for directions or search for a
restaurant in the area.

Weakness of Mobile Marketing

More than 255,000,000 people in the U.S. or 84 percent of all consumers, were wireless
subscribers at the end of 2007, according to the Wireless Association. However, the sheer
number of mobile users alone does not make mobile advertising viable or profitable. The
mobile phone industry has several obstacles to clear, such as unifying the industry and
convincing users to accept ads before mobile ads become a significant part of the advertising
market.

1. Fragmentation: Martin Sorrell, founder and chief executive of WPP PLC, the world's
largest advertising company by revenue, declared fragmentation the biggest hurdle in the
mobile advertising market at the 2011 Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, according to a
2011 article in The Wall Street Journal. For instance, as of 2011, Apple had not released its
iOS operating system to third-party developers. Google maintained the open-source
Android system and Microsoft had its Windows Phone operating system. The lack of
unity across cellphone operating systems meant that advertisers could not target ads to
certain users such as they would have for a TV or Internet audience.

2. Measuring Viewership: As of the time of publication, the cellphone industry has few
ways of identifying unique advertising impressions and eliminating fraudulent views or
clicks from bots and other malicious programs. In addition, companies cannot segregate
legitimate impressions in key categories, such as U.S. versus international users. Some
mobile content, such as downloaded songs or video games, make only intermittent
connections to the user's mobile carrier.
3. Other Challenges: The mobile advertising industry must respect user privacy and
convince consumers to allow companies to place ads in mobile content to allow increased
access to demographic information. Mobile carriers and advertisers must help spur the
demand for new types of mobile content rather than fulfill existing needs, according to the
Interactive Advertising Bureau. The ongoing transition from 3G to 4G systems and more
powerful hardware should eliminate most technical obstacles to delivering data-intensive
mobile ads.

4. Considerations: Despite its weaknesses, the mobile advertising industry is poised for
huge growth. Between 2011 and 2014, for instance, mobile advertising spending should
grow from $1.1 billion to $2.6 billion. The ability for advertisers to target ads by location
offers companies an unprecedented way to communicate with niche demographics. In
addition, consumers might respond almost immediately to location-specific
advertisements.

7.4 DEFINE THE VALUE OF YOUR OFFERINGS

You have attracted traffic to your landing page, and you want people to share information
about themselves so you can convert hits to leads. You need a marketing offer to entice your
visitors to share their information with you. What does an offer involve and how do you
know what to offer visitors to compel them to share their personal information with you?

What is a Marketing Offer?

A marketing offer is a free product or service of value you give in exchange for people
completing a call to action. An offer can be an ebook, podcast, membership benefit, coupon,
trial period, checklist, guide, app, or any other vehicle that provides information, service, or
product at no cost to your potential leads. They are paying you in information.

You can make different offers available at varied points on your site paired with call to action,
targeting people at various parts of the funnel. A guide to area attractions may appeal to
someone just beginning their vacation search, enticing them to share their name and email. A
coupon will have greater pull for someone who is further along the process and they may be
willing to share more personal information to get it. There is no limit on how many offers you
choose to make available but maintain high quality with each offer you extend.

While it does not directly pitch your business, there should be some overlap between your
offer and your business, and it can subtly enhance the value of your business. You can
highlight the attractions within a certain radius to your business, your specific business model
as opposed to a competing business model or focus on aspects of your business segment that
appeal to a targeted market. Good market offerings are helpful, general, and low pressure
rather than salesy.

Why Do You Need A Marketing Offer?

• Most people have learned to be discriminatory with sharing their information. They are not
going to fill out a form with their contact information just because you want them to. The
perceived value of your market offering will directly impact how much information people
will be willing to share with you.
• Delivering on the promised value may be your first opportunity to make sure someone
wants to return to your site to continue learning more about your business. It is also an
opportunity to start building trust in your brand.
• Offers paired with a CTA allows you to build profiles of leads so you can market to them
more effectively.
• Looking at lead profiles collectively allows you to determine where interest is the heaviest
and create content accordingly.

Analytics do not tell you anything about the needs and wants of individuals browsing your
page. You need people to complete calls to action for lead generation. Marketing offers are the
most effective way to get people to perform CTA and convert hits to leads.

7.5 OUTLINE YOUR GOALS AND OBJETIVES

• The average smartphone user checks his or her device 47 times a day — that is over 17,000
times a year.
• How much time do we spend on our phones, you may ask — almost 3 hours per day, and if
you include tablets, it is over 4 hours.
• Further, according to an article published by CNBC in early 2019, almost 73 percent of
internet users will access the web solely via their smartphones by 2025.

As these stats make clear, mobile is not going anywhere. In order to stay ahead of the
competition, brands must keep optimizing their marketing strategy for mobile users, connect
with their audience members, and stay connected with them. Read on for some insights on
the advantages and disadvantages of mobile marketing/advertising. Hopefully, these will
help you ensure that your views on marketing and mobile technology are up to date.

ADVANTAGES OF MOBILE MARKETING

• Easy Access: Let’s face it — our phones are by our side most of the day. Further, the average
user spends over an hour per day on the top five social media apps and will tap, swipe, and
click their phone over 2,600 times a day. In 2019, it was noted by the Pew Research Center
that 37percent of adults in the U.S. say they mostly use a smartphone when accessing the
 internet. All of these are reasons why you should focus on mobile marketing. The
accessibility of phones will ensure that your ads/campaigns can be easily seen by us, the
users.

• Location and Personalization: With mobile marketing, you can reach people at any place, at
any time — at work, at home, or even on vacations (we do not usually encourage this last
one). And by using location-based marketing, a lot of information can be gathered about
user preferences, all because of their phones. This helps with ad personalization — targeted
advertising that can be adjusted to speak directly to one person, based on things like
purchase history and location.

• Viral Potential: Let’s admit it — we like to share things with our families and friends,
especially if the ad or content is good, interesting, or has other value. Mobile marketing
enhances the potential for things to “go viral.” You will get a lot more exposure with no
extra effort or cost.

• Instant Transactions: Mobile is your friend if you are an impulse buyer — and
subsequently, of course, if you are a seller. Think of it like being in line at your local favorite
retail store. Items are there to grab your attention while waiting and could hopefully lead to
a purchase. Mobile advertising does the same thing. We all use our smartphones as a form
of entertainment, and boredom can create interest in something new. And as a seller with
online offerings, you are able to fill a consumer’s need.

• Cost Effectiveness: This is probably one of the most important advantages of mobile
marketing, and there are a couple of ways to look at it. Because the screen size of mobile
devices is smaller than with a desktop or laptop, the available area for ads is limited, and the
needed content is much smaller in size and cost, as well. To that end, the cost of mobile
advertising is much less when compared to something like radio or TV advertising.
Targeting is a big contributor to this, as well. You can focus on targeted advertising to reach
customers who want and need to see your ad(s). And if it is not working, you can save
money by just stopping your campaign.

DISADVANTAGES OF MOBILE MARKETING

• Little Room for Errors Up Front: First impressions are everything. If your ads give viewers
a negative first impression, unfortunately, that is the one that will matter most. So be sure to
make your ad or content error-free. It is very hard to fix a mistake before it is seen, as mobile
advertising is very fast in nature.

• Potential for Bad User Experiences: This piggybacks the first disadvantage. Bad ads or
content can go viral just as easily as good ones. Review your ad or content carefully,
perhaps even have multiple people review it — and try to make sure that your ad will not
be received in a bad way.
• Possible Navigation Issues: Consider this when designing mobile ads: About 80 percent of
phones used are smartphones, which means that around 20 percent of consumers are using
standard cellphones. While the user might be interested in your ad, some might not be able
to access it.

• User Costs: This is one disadvantage that should not be overlooked. Although we see
advertisements about unlimited data, that does not mean that everyone has an unlimited
plan. Standard data and texting charges may apply to some of those seeing your ads, so be
mindful of that.

There is really no ignoring the rise of mobile marketing, as the advantages mentioned above
would indicate. Mobile marketing is a necessity for a growing brand, especially considering that
people are spending more and more time on their mobile devices.

7.6 KEYWORDS

• Mobile Marketing: It is a set of practices that enables organisations to communicate and

engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile
device or network
• Viral Potential: Viral Marketing is that which is able to generate interest and
the potential sale of a brand or product through messages that spread like a virus.
• Cost Effectiveness: Cost-effectiveness means that the product meets all of the desired
specifications at a price that is competitive with, or even lower than, that of other
vendors.
• Location-Based Marketing: It is a marketing method that changes depending on
where potential clients are located.
• Traditional Location-Based Marketing: Marketing campaign organizers attempt to
adapt their message to the people who are likely to view them.

7.7 SUMMARY

Mobile Marketing is a set of practices that enables organisations to communicate and engage
with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device or
network. Mobile research allows us to reach consumers in situations when it would have been
difficult or cost-prohibitive in the past. A marketing offer is a free product or service of value
you give in exchange for people completing a call to action.

Advantages of Mobile Marketing are: Easy Access, Location and Personalization, Viral
Potential, Instant Transactions, and Cost Effectiveness.
Disadvantages of Mobile Marketing are: Little Room for Errors Up Front, Potential for Bad User
Experiences, Possible Navigation Issues, and User Costs.

7.8 SUGGESTED BOOKS AND e-REFERENCES

• Suggested Books
1. Understanding Digital Marketing by Damian Ryan
2. Internet Marketing
3. e-Marketing by Rob Stokes and the Minds of Quirk
• e-Reference
1. https://www.britannica.com/technology/Internet
2. https://www.bigcommerce.com/articles/ecommerce/
3. https://www.moburst.com/mobile-marketing/