Taking it personally - engaging with mobile marketing

Marketing to mobile can generate some good responses. With the current economic situation, mobile offers new opportunities to reach customers and reduced marketing costs. The results from mobile marketing can also be very effective, with response rates over 8% being generally measured.

However, anyone looking to run a mobile campaign needs to seriously address the way it is run, who they are contacting and the offer is.

Mobile phones are devices that most of us have with us most of the time. There is a strong sense of identity attached to our mobiles – the type of handset ('I have an iphone' etc), wallpaper or ringtone is as much a part of our identity as the clothes we wear. What’s more, it’s the device that we contact our family, friends and loved ones on.

Whatever the marketing campaign, be it SMS, mobile sites or Bluetooth proximity marketing, sensitivity to the mobile user is paramount. Imagine if you are waiting for an SMS from your partner and a marketing text arrives on your phone? It’s going to annoy the user and put the brand in a very poor light.

A recent discussion amongst technological savvy mobile users about mobile marketing generated many responses like these:

‘Its like the people in the street who try to thrust leaflets on us, except its just about possible to dodge them.’

‘I have received two text messages from businesses I was walking past, both offering immediate discounts. I can think of no other way to more effectively ensure that I will never do business with either establishment again.’

‘If anyone sent a message to my cellphone or other device just because I walked past their store, billboard, advertising poster, etc., they would lose my business forever.’

It is unlikely that a billboard, direct mail or TV ad could cause as much offence, purely from attempting to contact potential customers.

You may think therefore, that mobile marketing is likely to upset customers too much or it is too fraught with problems to run a campaign. However, the highly personal feelings about mobile can be used to great effectiveness. There are many examples of mobile marketing campaigns that have generated an excellent response.

The key is to ensure that it is permission based, highly targeted and offers a real benefit to the customer or potential customers.

Gaining permission often requires more than a simple ‘soft opt in’. It is important and beneficial to get a clear consent from a customer to send them marketing information to their phone. That consent should also be recent. If they opted in 12 months ago then you would need to get their permission again.

Well targeted campaigns means sending the right type of content on the right day at the right time.

The benefit comes from giving your users a clear offer – discounts, free products or mobile content are all examples of offers that work well.

So, mobile marketing has it’s benefits, but working with experienced professionals to deliver campaigns can ensure that you are effective in what you do.

Roaming data charges to be more transparent ...

... but not necessarily cheaper!

Never ones to do things through self regulation, the mobile network operators in Europe are likely to be forced to provide transparency in charges for services such as MMS and internet access. The proposed legislation is expected to come into force in 2009.

Users can expect to be informed of the cost to use data, and even an ongoing total. This is a small step in the right direction, however, there are no moves to reduce the excessive roaming charges. Hopefully once users see how much it is costing them, the operators may decide to reduce the charges to a more reasonable level without futher legislation. But then pigs might fly.

Netsize Annual Survey is out!

The excellent Netsize annual survey and guide is now out. It has some excellent information on phone usage in a number of countires, as well as well written articles on mobile entertainment, marketing and content.

You can download it here: http://www.netsize.com

Will Google and Apple Force the Mobile Networks to Rethink Their Business Model?

For some years now, there has been a major division between the internet and mobile economies. The internet is largely free to user and the mobile isn’t.

Google has made an art form of the free model, releasing all kinds of apps, including mobile ones at no cost. On the other hand, the networks charge for almost everything. As one Orange executive once told me ‘We do not understand any customer unless there is a billing relationship’. In other words, unless the network is charging them for something they are not considered to be a customer.

The iphone has moved the mobile smartphone market forwards, by offering a genuinely seemless mobile internet experience. Just like your PC the internet is just ‘there’, it’s always on. As soon as that happens, adding all kinds of internetty applications – not just games, but maps, weather and so on, become standard.
The evidence of the success is from the iphone Appstore and the results which show that Apple’s users access the internet considerably more than others.

Whilst Apple’s entry into the phone market has been to produce a great handset and beautiful operating system, Google’s entry has been less glamorous, but potentially more significant.
Google started by building some excellent mobile applications – for example maps and email – and has now launched it’s own OS.
And now everyone’s doing it! Expect 2009 to be the year of the smartphone and the year of the application store … Microsoft will be launching Bazaar this year.

The problem for mobile networks is that the offerings from these companies challenge their traditional billing relationship. Why pay for a call when you can use Skype (available for both iphone and Google phone)? Why use SMS when you can use instant messenger? Why send an MMS when you can email your pictures, or upload them to your Facebook? Why SMS to Twitter when you can send it for nothing with a Twitter app on your phone?

Even location services, which were previously the (expensive) monopoly of the networks will be opened up with Google Latitude.

Apart from the basic data cost (typically around £7.50-£15 per month), users can do pretty much everything on their smartphones without having to pay for them. The money in mobile will be in paid apps and mobile advertising.

So the networks have a dilemma. Do they embrace the new free(ish) world of mobile or carry on regardless and make money while they can? Given their past form, I suspect it will be the latter.

Mobile Marketing News Service Launched

OK, it's not the first, but our new
mobile marketing news service is intended to give another spin on what's happening in the world of mobile advertising and marketing.

Why are we different?
First of all, we come with no vested interests to a network, handset or membership. Secondly we are not tied to any particular medium, whether it is SMS, applications or mobile web, we are happy to report it. Finally, we are looking at the influence of general developments onto marketing. For example, the recent launch of Google Latitude may have no obvious marketing implicatations, however the expected launch of an API means that location based mobile advertising will become a practical possiblity.

The news service is here.

The Google Latitude Controversy

In the UK this week many people have been up in arms about Google Latitude. If you have missed it, Google’s has launched a new location app, which allows you to publish your location based on the position of your mobile phone. The complaint has been largely one of intrusion and a compromise to personal freedom.

Personal Liberty

The issue of freedom is completely understandable. This is especially so in the current climate in the UK. These day’s Britain is the most watched country in the world – we have four times more CCTV cameras than the rest of Europe put together.

The problem for citizens in the UK is this:
We cannot move, drive our cars, stop our cars or do anything without being watched. And on the other hand we feel no safer, and it doesn’t appear to reduce crime. It seems that technology is used as a means of indirect taxation and population control. In short, people in the UK are understandably suspicious of anything that monitors and tracks our movements.

The idea that you can be tracked through your phone, naturally worries people. However, Google Latitude has not introduced a new concept. Mobile network operators have been able to trace people through their mobiles for years, by triangulating to the nearest base station. This has been offered as both (expensive) location based services, and the data has been of use to the Police during criminal investigations. Any unscrupulous government or agency can easily track your location through your mobile.
What’s more services similar to Latitude have been available for a few years: it has been quite possible to track your friend/partner/family member’s already.

Will Latitude Change Things?

The main change is that it is Google who has introduced this. That means that it is free and works (or will work) seamlessly with existing Google Apps. And being Google, most people are now aware of it’s existence.
The main question raised about tracking someone’s location, is why would you want to? The worry is that employers will track their employees movements, partners will spy on each other, parents on their children and so on. It is quite understandable to be suspicious of the motives of someone who wants to track other people’s locations.

In fact, simply as a location tool there is little point to Latitude and will not take off. The following post on Mobile Industry Review makes the point very clearly: http://www.mobileindustryreview.com/2009/02/latitude_the_trojan_horse_--_why_whos_nearby_is_not_a_business.html

The point is where Latitude will go. As the author states: ‘Be under no delusion, Latitude is Googles Trojan horse into the social networking space.’

And that is the key to this. Mobile Social Networking will allow users to ‘socialise’ with people who are in close proximity. Location based-dating could boom from this. But there are numerous other location services that could benefit from Latitude: security applications – I don’t mean spying, I mean ones where people at risk (whether professional or personal) can publish their whereabouts. Then there are applications, like travel, transport or weather.

Although many of these have already been tinkered with, they have not really taken off. There are two big factors as to why: cost and trust. Outside of phones with GPS, location based service providers must pay the networks for each hit. On the whole, users are not willing to pay for such a service, so there is no broad commercial model currently for Location Based Services. On the reasonable assumption that Google Latitude will publish an API (which they have already done with Maps and many other apps), then any developer can access location data for free and including it in their application.

Whilst there is no doubt that trust is a major issue for users of with LBS, Google are better placed than anyone to establish that trust:

‘Don’t be Evil’ is Google’s slogan. OK, there are times when they have not always been perfect (Google China being a point of this), but that overall principle seems to be intact.
Google has gone to great pains to ensure that it’s Latitude service is not evil. Only the most recent location is stored, making it difficult to track an individual’s movements. Each user has control over how their location is published with three settings:
Automatic, Manual or Hide your location … or as the Mobile Industry Review article aptly describes it, Honest, Lie or Paranoia.

Until now, location based services have been the Cinderella of mobile applications. However, the whole point of mobile is that it is, mobile. Including your location into services or apps, is the obvious next step. With Google Latitude the ‘where am I’ service is pointless and unlikely to take off. We must look to the applications that can come out of it, bringing us real benefit.

Mobile and Technology Usage Figures

I am asked, probably on a daily basis, 'do you have any figures for the number of people who ...'.
Maybe my answer should be 'If you give me £3000 I can get you the report(s)' as that is how much they cost.

However, cobbling together various sources, the following is a general summary of the UK view mobile and technology attitudes and usage:

General UK mobile information:

There are over 64 million mobile handsets in the UK. More than one per person.
Most users, around 60%, are on pay as you go.
Just under 30% of users have a flat rate data plan for the internet. And around 40% use the mobile internet.
There are nearly 6.5 billion SMS sent each month in the UK (peak time is New Years).
There are around 5.5 million MMS sent each month in the UK.
Smart Phones account for less than 20% of the market. The ihpone is less than 1%.
Around 30% of people have their Bluetooth turned on all the time.

From a June 2008 study by Mintel:

I will only by an upgrade if there is an obvious benefit 53%
I wait to buy until the price comes down before buying 52%
I wait until I’m absolutely sure which is the best to buy 47%
I only buy something when I need to (ie replacement) 43%
I sometimes feel overwhelmed by the sheer choice of new technology on offer 24%
By the time I’ve bought something, it’s already out of date 20%
With new technology, it’s best to stick to the most popular brands 17%
When I buy something, I sometimes worry I made the wrong decision 17%
I tend to buy new things I want as soon as they come to market 5%
None of these 4%

Digital items personally used are highlited in the table below,
June 2008 Base: 2,001 internet users aged 16+

Digital items personally used All

Mobile phone 90%
Broadband internet at home (via high-speed, always-on connection) 88%
Digital TV 62%
Portable digital music player, eg iPod, Zen, MP3 player 50
Wi-Fi (wireless internet connection) 44%
HD-ready TV set 34%
Personal video recorder 32%
Interactive services on digital TV 28%
Digital radio, ie DAB 27%
Podcasting (downloading audio from the internet for playback on your computer or MP3 player) 15%
PDA or other handheld computer, e.g. Palm, HP iPAQ or Dell Axim 10%
Internet dial-up at home 6%


According to the Mobile Life European Report, the British population tend to use the full range of mobile features:
(LSE, 2008)

used Bluetooth 50+%
recorded video using a mobile handset 37%
downloaded a music track 27%
accessed the internet using their mobile 46%

So there you have it. Some useful base line figures. Clearly we are a nation of texters (more than voice calls) and although things like mobile internet have a place, they are a smaller proporation of users.