Mobile Marketing or Marketing Through Cell Phones

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Mobile marketing or marketing through cell phones is a relatively new but fast-growing concept in the marketing sector (Flew 126). Since the inception of mobile phones and the short messaging services, (SMS), it has given rise to a new contemporary form of marketing that has revolutionized the whole marketing industry (Sheehan & Morrison 3).

Probably this is because in marketing, the first principle is to strategically reach as many target markets as possible, and since it is estimated that more than 4 billion people all over the world use mobile phones, and that the value of the global mobile advertisement market could reach $10 billion by 2010, it was observed that this method of advertisement would revolutionize the whole marketing sector if well structured and coordinated (Few 6).

Other than SMS, there has been a more interactive way of mobile marketing that involves the use of Multimedia Message Services (MMS), where different brands are in a position to send as well as receive different rich contents through the application-to-person (MMS A2P) or even person-to-person (Parasuraman 34). Motorola has effectively applied the MMS marketing in their House of Blues campaign. Others used are in-game mobile marketing, mobile web marketing, mobile marketing via Bluetooth and via infrared, and location-based services (Parasuraman 35). Its the response and success of its use that has made mobile marketing gain a lot of interest from both scholars and sales professionals all over the world.

According to Smith & Krugman (233), mobile marketing has gained popularity due to two main reasons: interactiveness; this involves getting some permission from the mobile owner to receive and respond to some interactive messages mostly in the premium way involving personalization of the message. Secondly, it has become the consumer-controlled method of marketing where the consumer chooses to pay attention or not to the advertisements (Smith & Krugman 134).

It is also said that consumers are more positive towards interactive marketing communication than toward one-way communication (Sheehan & Morrison 4), a concept that eludes marketing agencies who have strictly stuck with the traditional marketing channels like outdoor billboards and television.

The above findings have been reinforced by more recent findings published by Kelsey Group, that mobile advertising revenue is predicted to hit $ 3.1 billion by the year 2013, from a mere $160 million in 2008, while on the other hand the local newspaper advertisements, direct mail, television, radio, outdoor, magazines, yellow pages, and online is expected to face a downward trend by slipping from 155 billion in 2008 to $144.4 billion in 2013 (Sheehan & Morrison 5).

With the emergence of companies like SMSconnect that has specialized in Advertising campaigns for mobile phones, the consumer is likely to draw benefits mostly from both an interactive and non-interactive environment of advertisement (Smith & Krugman 249). This is because it allows the consumers to actively involve themselves in the advertisement process, hence direct participation in the process of persuasion. In addition, this process helps the consumer to choose the options of buying or not buying the product, that is, they can easily customize the products to the level of their satisfaction (Smith & Krugman 251). This will give them (consumers) a chance to make a private choice without being coerced by the direct sales as seen in some cases of word of mouth advertisement (Smith & Krugman 252)

It has been noted that Mobile Marketing is useful because it has a direct or one-on-one approach to the potential client; the companies using this channel of advertisement can easily get access to the potential customer anytime and anywhere since the mobile gadget users keep them so close to the most of the time, as seen in the UK where about 75% of the population carry their mobile phones with them all the time, unlike internet, television, and radio that people set a particular time frame for viewing or listening (Smith & Krugman 5).

According to Smith & Krugman, the advertisers are also able to access the database of all mobile telephone numbers that were sent to advertisements targeted recipient, and can get the feedback from the targeted clients whether they are interested or not, hence its convenience, time and resource-saving possibility (7).

It is also possible to change or alter the senders name thus the possibility of changing the identity of the company (9). In general, according to Jack Philbin, President of Vibes Media, SMS messaging is the only way 80 percent of adults in the UK can be contacted through their mobile phone. Volumes are still growing, and its short, concise, convenient, and relatively cheap (sic)

In marketing, communication dissemination is one of the tenets for getting back a good response from clients. In a survey conducted by He & Mukherjee, and published in Journal of Marketing communication, it was observed that companies that involve their clients directly in an interactive marketing process are more likely to succeed since the clients are more likely to get personal attachments with products and the companys image, hence boosting sales (12). They, therefore, advised that companies or organizations should give the consumers more time to express their views and opinions on what should be done and what they expect to make it more personalized (13).

However, in terms of interactiveness, mobile marketing gets more personal and directly goes into and may infringe a clients private life (He & Mukherjee 13). This is why experts and seasoned practitioners put it clear that until the marketers and advertisers step into the shoes of and approach the mobile advertisement from the consumers point of view; they will find it hard to succeed in the market (Flew 139).

These challenges have therefore been analyzed and suggestions made that for more mobile marketing to be more effective and acceptable, it requires the full consent of the consumer, a dilemma that has proved relatively challenging for the companies that intend to use it (Few 140), especially when sending information that does not require feedback. Research also has it that people do get irritated with the SMS advertising especially if they do not have any connection with the product advertised, i.e. if the advertiser does not target the right audience.

According to Parasuraman (35), many companies who used this method of advertising in the past never got it right since they did not strategize well hence got the wrong audience, who eventually got irritated and made bad comments about the companys bad approach in advertising their products. The other disadvantage of SMS advertising is the fact that it has a limited use capacity, that is, it is limited to the receipt of SMS by the target recipient and thats all if a more expensive MMS advertising is not used to reinforce the advertisement (Sheehan & Morrison 5), a venture that may prove more expensive than traditional marketing.

The effectiveness of the message will matter a great deal as found out by Nisbetin (99). In his book, Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment, he stated that the character of the message being passed is as important as the channel used to pass it. The message richness and the validity of the source is a very critical factor in the message delivery and acceptance. This concept is justified by the successive study that found out that several respondents (68%) cared much about the message source and that 74.7% said they would take only a keen interest if the message is shorter and clearer, with less complication (Mattsson 17).

This research also indicated that mobile advertisements have a major limitation when it comes to delivering much-complicated messages about technical products such as pharmaceuticals (19). In that case, it would be necessary to adopt the word of mouth (WOM) approach in message delivery, to make the message clearer to the potential clients. Furthermore, word of mouth has been proved to be the most effective form of advertisement/ or marketing communication between the consumer and the seller (Nisbett 67), hence a combination of both contemporary and traditional is advisable.

However much of this new revolutionary marketing approach has taken the marketing world by storm, most experts agree that it is not all rosy as many may judge from outside. Approximately half of the marketing agencies looked at it as an experimental medium of marketing, in contrast to 36% of the brands. However, both reportedly agreed that they had some level of success with mobile marketing effort, terming it average about other conventional marketing methods (Sheehan & Morrison 9).

Interestingly, this study also found out that most advertisers (70%) tried to integrate mobile marketing with the internet, a trend that is growing with the rise of more complicated mobile technology (Sheehan & Morrison 10). However, an unexpected finding was that mobile marketing will become more successful once it is tied to other media approaches like trade shows as well as promotional events, with 36% of the respondents tying their bet to it (Sheehan & Morrison 12).

According to the recent study by Media post, there is a clear observed trend that mobile marketing has helped reduce the overall marketing cost in this period of recession, with the prediction that mobile marketing spending will grow from the current $1.7 billion to a whopping 2.16 billion in 2010 (Parasuraman 44). This is backed by the fact that of the brands and agencies interviewed in the poll, significant half reported that they had a plan to do some mobile advertising, with the majority (66%) polled mentioning SMS as their preferred choice in the trial, 53% said they would use a mobile website advertisement, and 33% would try out mobile email marketing (Parasuraman 45).

Following the above research facts, there is universal agreement that mobile marketing is yet to reach its potential despite the challenges it is facing. This is because of its cheap cost and portability. It, therefore, takes you nearer and/ or accompanies you to the store where you have the choice to choose from a wide variety, unlike more stationary home PCs. The nature of response when a client enquires about a product is almost instantly, therefore making the whole process of inquiry more practically convenient to the need of the buyer.

However, it is necessary to put in place laws that guide its use. Again it is necessary to reinforce its effectiveness by integrating it with the traditional advertising channels. This will drive its success despite the challenges faced by the marketing industry in the current recession and beyond, for marketing is all about creativity and flexibility as seen in the way it has revolutionized in the past few years.

Work cited

Flew, Thomas. New Media: an Introduction, Melbourne: Oxford. 2008

He, Hong-Wei & Mukherjee, Avinandan. Corporate identity and Consumer Marketing: A Process Model and Research Agenda The Journal of Marketing Communication, Vol. 15. Issue 1, pp 12-13, 2009. Web.

Mattsson, John. Services Management: a Holistic, Multi-disciplinary and Customer Driven Research Agenda, New Zealand Journal of Business, 1995, Vol. 17 No.2, pp.1-18. Print.

Nisbett Ross, L. Human Inference: Strategies and Shortcomings of Social Judgment, Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ.1980. Print.

Parasuraman Berry, L. Problems and strategies in services marketing, Journal of Marketing, Vol. 49 No.2, pp.33-46. 1985. Web.

Sheehan Kim, B. & Morrison Deborah, K. The Creativity Challenge: Media Confluence and its Effects on the Evolving Advertising Industry, Journal of Interactive Advertising, Vol. 9 No. 2, pp. 3-13. 2009. Web.

Smith Sarah, M & Krugman Dean, M. Viewer as Decision-Maker: Digital Video Recorders and Household Media Consumption, International Journal of Advertising, Vol. 28, No. 1, pp. 231-255, 2009. Web.

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Mobile Marketing or Marketing Through Cell Phones

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