August 25, 2008
Educating your Clients on Mobile
By Michael Foschetti, Managing Director, Mobisix
Executives at mobile marketing firms know the intricacies and possibilities that exist within the industry, because it’s what they live and breathe every day. However, their clients and prospective clients are not nearly as knowledgeable about the opportunity because they are still tied to more traditional media and marketing.
As a result, players in the mobile marketing industry must realize their obligation to provide education to those key influencers and decision makers.
The starting point is to convey the five mobile mechanisms available to connect the brand’s message and identity with the engaged consumer. The five mechanisms are very simply: messaging )SMS/MMS), WAP, video, downloads, and voice. Each presents a distinct advantage in terms of penetration rates, customer experiences and targeted audiences. Identifying your target and their needs first helps choose the best mechanism. For example, the entertainment and gaming industries could benefit most from mobile video and downloads. But if you’re a large CPG company selling dry dog food for the last 85 years, a simpler SMS might be the best place to start.
A campaign based around one or all five mobile mechanisms should be built upon six opportunity criteria: simple, relevant, integrated, viral, scalable, and measurable.
First and foremost, mobile campaigns need to be simple. You have already connected with the consumer through their most personal avenue; don’t make it any more complicated than it needs to be.
Mobile content must also be relevant. Without relevancy, there is no engagement, and with no engagement, there is no customer experience and no response. Mobile works best when it is fully integrated, because it has the ability to highlight and boost every element in a full-service marketing campaign.
Mobile communication, especially messaging, is a peer-to-peer proposition. The viral element must be considered and accounted for to optimize your mobile campaign. Scalable fundamentals must exist to be successful, whether you are targeting one or 1 million customers. Finally, although measurability is still evolving in this space, becoming more refined and sophisticated every day, engagement and other goals are highly measurable given the direct response nature of this medium.
The next phase of client education, and perhaps the most important, is establishing marketing objectives and an ideal customer experience. Any mobile campaign can be deemed a failure if you do not have specific and quantifiable objectives for both you and your client to measure against. For instance, measuring the number of click-thrus or percentage of coupons redeemed. Since mobile is the most intimate way to communicate with your customer, a valuable customer experience must be delivered. Every mobile interaction has to deliver something of value, or you run the risk of alienating your customers by interrupting them with just another message.
Mobile may be the most effective way to deliver offers, increase awareness, produce the “hip” factor, capture attention, start a dialogue, and engage consumers on the go. Educating our clients on the power this medium holds will benefit them, their customers, and the industry as a whole.
