Past Tense

Mobile phone marketing, otherwise known as SMS marketing, is the modern evolution of direct marketing. Direct marketing has always been favored by businesses as a personalized and focused method of reaching new consumers and, with the rise of mobiles, digital marketing has risen in usage. Digital marketing is perhaps best defined as the practice of advertising products and services using digital distribution channels to reach consumers in a timely, focused, personal and cost-effective manner.

The most well-known example of digital marketing is SMS marketing, which has expanded very quickly in Europe and Asia. It is thought that several hundred million marketing messages are sent via SMS every month in Europe alone. SMS stands for ’short message service’ and is a communication form specific to mobile phones where a short message can be quickly sent to any mobile owner. As well as sending material to consumers, advertisers can often encourage consumers to join in marketing and brand publicity promotions by encouraging consumers to SMS a particular number at an event in order to enter a competition, to receive a gift or to have their text displayed on a multimedia wall at an event. All of these methods involves the consumer through the medium of SMS and creates brand exposure.

There are many other types of digital marketing. One variation is sending messages via MMS, which is a multimedia version of SMS, allowing consumers to receive MMS with color, pictures and video. There is also mobile web marketing, where businesses advertise marketing goals through websites accessed by mobile phones. Promoters often make innovative use of digital marketing such as location-based services where consumers are offered tailored promotions and other network-related information and marketing material based on their whereabouts. With the range of methods and options available to promoters, it is no wonder that a recent marketing survey found that 89% of major brands planned to advertise their products through digital marketing by the end of 2008.

Mobile marketing is an example of what is known within the industry as “push” marketing. The concept behind push marketing is that that the business has to send (push) the material to the subscriber in order for the message to be received. This is different to “pull” marketing, a more unobtrusive form of promotion, where it is users who seek out the material from sources such as websites or blogs.

There are lots of positives to digital marketing. Primarily, the attraction is that this method of marketing can be personalized to the consumer. This is the gold standard in marketing as it means getting the message specifically to the audience it’s aimed at, instead of wasting dollars on an unfocussed campaign. The specialization allowed by this method of advertising, 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 subscribers it allows. Through this medium, promoters can track how many people received their material and also access specific data about each subscriber such as their name, their age, their demographic and where they’re located. This allows a business to raise profiles of their users; data which then guides future promotional campaigns and, ideally, their success.

It is noted in the industry that push marketing, of which mobile marketing is a type, can help drive new revenue and brand reinforcement if it is used correctly and appropriately. This is because it makes subscribers aware of new changes that they may not know to inquire about already and the way the material is written, and even the fact that the material is being sent by a contemporary, hip medium such as text, can say a lot about a brand and a business.

There are, however, some negatives to digital marketing. Inherently, it needs a mechanism - the mobile - to be able to send information. The business, as well, has to make use of specific hardware and applications in order to deliver the content to subscribers, which can involve significant costs. Another negative is the fact that digital marketing is heavily regulated by the telecommunications industry in response to consumer concerns about what data and advertising they get exposed to. Most Western nations have laws in place that compel companies to gain the approval of subscribers before advertising content is received by them and must clearly give them with an ‘opt out’ option if they ask to stop receiving content. If companies are discovered to be in breach of these laws, network providers can block marketing material by companies.

As mobile technology improves, mobile marketing will surely continue to grow in importance.