Since we established India’s first mobile marketing company in 2002 (yes, it really has been that long), I’ve personally seen a huge transition in the market. Some would call me a mobile veteran now, and I’m not entirely sure if that’s a good or bad thing! From the initial days of getting our 3636 SMS short code live across all the mobile operators (a hugely draining project that aged me a good few years), to showing brands the value of building SMS response mechanics into their advertising, to now seeing SMS short code campaigns firmly established in the marketing industry, I’ve seen at first hand mobile develop as marketing tool.
For many brands now the SMS short code is becoming passé. They’re looking for fresh ways to reach the 200 million Indians through their mobile phone. Things are changing fast with a bunch of new mobile marketing products coming to market in the past 12-18 months. My own company now offers brands a portfolio of products for both standalone mobile campaigns, and for campaigns integrating mobile with other media. These campaign products include mobile coupons, bluetooth marketing and WAP advertising to a name a few.
'I need a SMS short code’ is a line I often hear, when the real priority should be on the SMS marketing
Although there are plenty of fresh and exciting new opportunities, I firmly believe there is still huge untapped potential in the old SMS short code. But the mentality from brands has to change. One major mistake that we see a lot of brands doing is to limit their thinking by focusing on the SMS short code rather than the SMS marketing campaign that is to be run. ‘I need a SMS short code’ is a line I often hear, when the real priority should be on the SMS marketing campaign to be run on the SMS short code.
There are a lot of SMS marketing campaign opportunities that the majority of brands have yet to take advantage of. We have built some great SMS marketing products for running purchase-linked sales promotions/loyalty, location-based dealer finders and viral marketing. The fact that 100 per cent of India’s 200 million mobile phone users can participate in a SMS campaign means it should not be ignored by brands. It is the most effective way to enhance and add interactivity to the huge spend brands are doing on otherwise ‘one way’ brand-to-consumer touch points.
Aside from SMS short code, there are also lots of new options for brands to reach the consumer on their mobile phone. WAP advertising is available right now both on the mobile operator portals (Airtel Live!, Reliance R-World) as well as off the operator portals (Indians are amongst the top 5 visitors to international WAP sites). As a fresh experience for consumers, click through rates for WAP advertising are an order of magnitude higher that Web advertising. These super response rates will surely drop over time, just like they did for the Web, but right now brands that are using the medium are seeing mobile deliver far superior ROI than the Web.
So it’s definitely something that we are now recommending brands to at least experiment with. Given the fact that as handsets and networks improve, more and more Indians will be using the mobile internet, it absolutely makes sense for brands to get their hands dirty and learn about this medium today.
Mobile coupons can be a powerful final call to action to drive the consumer to actually transact
Bluetooth marketing (a.k.a. Bluecasting) is starting to happen at retail points, allowing consumers to turn on their phone to participate in interactive brand campaigns. A brand can offer content, run quizzes or even deliver a mobile coupon to the consumer. Mobile coupons can be a powerful final call to action to drive the consumer to actually transact and purchase the product. It is an area that we’ve done a lot of work both in the UK and India. Our mobile coupon and loyalty platform RAPOS today runs ‘Orange Wednesdays’, the world’s largest mobile promotions project for the mobile operator Orange in the UK. We also run similar program for Vodafone in India. To date over 10 million mobile coupons (and retail sale transactions) have been processed by the RAPOS platform. I believe that in India in particular there is a great future for mobile coupons. There is a potent mix given our retail explosion, the increase in marketing promotions plus the consumer’s simple delight at getting a damn good discount!
In summary, brand managers have an increasing range of options in front of them for reaching the consumer through the mobile phone. There’s a lot of life still left in the SMS short code while at the same time many new possibilities. It’s early days for sure and there’s experimentation, learning and refinement to be done. Some risks need to be taken, some things will work and others just wont. With 200 million consumers on the medium, it’s not a question of `if’ for brands, but `when’ and `how fast’ do you go! |
DigiWrite
