Past Tense

Mobile phone marketing, otherwise known as SMS marketing, is the newest evolution of direct promotion. Direct promotion has always been chosen by companies as a specialized and focused method of reaching new consumers and, with the advent of cells, digital marketing has risen in favor. SMS marketing is perhaps best defined as the practice of advertising products and services using digital distribution channels to reach customers in a quick, focused, personal and economic manner.

The most common form of digital marketing is SMS marketing, which has expanded rapidly in Europe and Asia. It is thought that several hundred million promotional messages are sent through SMS every month in Europe alone. SMS stands for ’short message service’ and is a communication form specific to mobiles where a short message can be simply sent to any mobile user. As well as sending material to consumers, advertisers can often encourage consumers to participate in promotional and brand publicity campaigns by encouraging consumers to SMS a particular number at an event in order to enter a competition, to receive a prize or to have their message displayed on a multimedia wall at an event. All of these methods involves the consumer through the medium of SMS and creates brand awareness.

There are a range of other forms of mobile marketing. One example is sending texts via MMS, which is a multimedia version of SMS, allowing customers to receive texts with color, pictures and video. There is also mobile web marketing, where businesses promote marketing aims through websites accessed by mobiles. Publicists often make innovative use of SMS marketing such as location-based services where customers are offered tailored marketing and other network-related information and marketing material based on their location. With the variety of methods and choices available to companies, it is no wonder that a recent marketing survey found that 89% of major brands planned to advertise their products through mobile marketing by the end of 2008.

Mobile marketing is an example of what is known within the industry as “push” marketing. The idea behind push marketing is that that the business has to send (push) the information to the user in order for the information to be received. This is opposite to “pull” marketing, a passive form of marketing, where it is customers who seek out the material from sources such as websites or blogs.

There are lots of advantages to digital marketing. Primarily, the attraction is that this form of promotion can be personalized to the customer. This is the ideal in marketing as it means getting the material specifically to the group it’s aimed at, rather than squandering money on an broad campaign. The specificity allowed by this form of promotions, which results in a more economical campaign, is one reason why a high return on investment is possible with digital marketing. Another advantage of digital marketing is the detailed tracking and reporting of users it permits. Through this medium, companies can track how many subscribers viewed their material and also access detailed data about each subscriber such as their name, their age, their demographic and where they’re located. This permits a promoter to raise profiles of their subscribers; data which then guides future marketing campaigns and, ideally, their success.

It is noted in the industry that push marketing, of which SMS marketing is a form, can help build new revenue and brand exposure if it is implemented correctly and appropriately. This is because it makes users aware of recent additions that they may not think to find already and the way the material is phrased, and even the fact that the information is being delivered by a contemporary, cool medium such as SMS, can say a great deal about a brand and a company.

There are, however, some drawbacks to SMS marketing. By its very nature, it needs a mechanism - the mobile - to be able to send information. The company, as well, needs to make use of specialized hardware and software in order to send the content to subscribers, which can lead to sizeable costs. Another negative is the fact that SMS marketing is heavily regulated by the telecommunications industry in response to customer disquiet about what information and marketing they get shown. Most Western nations have laws in place that compel marketers to receive the approval of subscribers before promotional material is sent to them and must clearly give them with an ‘opt out’ option if they want to stop receiving material. If marketers are discovered to be in contravention of these laws, network providers can block marketing content by marketers.

As mobile technology grows, SMS marketing will surely continue to gather in importance.