mobile marketing -
The power of advertising is known to any individuals or companies
engaging in business, and innovative and creative ways to promote the
product to existing or new markets are being sought. This is especially
so with regards to the developments in new technologies and software
advancements, and one of the novel ways that companies are adopting is
mobile marketing. This is the advertisement of a firm's goods through
wireless networks, or simply put, over the mobile phone. The advantages
of SMS marketing outweigh the flipsides, and as a result more and more
firms are adopting this form of advertising.
Mobile marketing
involves sending text messages or multimedia messages to potential
customers and has risen in popularity among most marketers. Text message
marketing is more widespread than multimedia messaging due to the fact
that all handsets support SMS while it is likely that some phones lack
multimedia services. Mobile marketing basically entails the use of
mobile short-codes as domain names allowing potential clients to send a
message to the brand wherever they are. Then through some special
in-built software, the brand can perform actions such as reply to the
consumers. Through a mobile operator, a brand will allow its consumers
to decide to receive the messages and to opt out of receiving the
messages.
The main advantages of mobile marketing include the
fact that it enables a brand to communicate directly with the consumers,
sending customized messages that are specifically targeted at the
recipient. It is a fruitful investment of advertising capital since the
personalization of the message and specificity ensures the target
audience and intended message is communicated as opposed to other forms
of marketing in which unconcerned audiences are not excluded from the
advertisement. The brand can conduct polls, get the views of the
customers, send links to their websites and perform a market research
through such enhanced communication. Through mobile marketing, the brand
is also able to avoid interceptions and vandalism that usually
accompanies other forms of advertising and as a result ensure the
intended message reaches the target.
The only disadvantage that
accompanies use of mobile marketing is the fact that if uncontrolled it
is a form of spamming the mobile subscriber with unwanted messages,
which may have the counter effect of shooing them away from your
product. This has however been overcome through regulation of this form
of advertising and the setting up of best practice standards. A good
example of this is the provision for the targeted customer to freely
decide if to receive the messages, and an option to quit receiving them
by sending a message with the word "stop".
Although the short
codes that are required by a brand to undertake mobile marketing are not
very cheap and may appear unbearable to small traders, there are
several ways to go about this including through a number of firms
agreeing to come together and subscribe to a short code as a unit in
order to spread the monthly charges. Besides, the advantages of mobile
marketing to your business far outweigh the cost of undertaking it.