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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 prevalent example of digital marketing is SMS marketing, which has expanded very quickly 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 mobile phones where a short message can be easily sent to any mobile holder. As well as sending information to consumers, advertisers can often encourage consumers to join in promotional and brand publicity promotions by encouraging consumers to text 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 customer through the medium of SMS and creates brand exposure.

There are many other forms of digital marketing. One example 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 brands publicize marketing goals through websites accessed by mobiles. Publicists often make innovative use of digital marketing such as location-based services where consumers are offered specific marketing and other network-related information and marketing material based on their location. With the range of techniques and options available to companies, it is to be expected 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 several advantages to mobile marketing. Primarily, the attraction is that this form of marketing can be tailored to the user. This is the ideal in marketing as it means getting the message specifically to the group it’s aimed at, instead of wasting money on an broad campaign. The specificity allowed by this mode of promotions, which results in a more economical campaign, is one example why a high return on investment is possible with mobile marketing. Another advantage of mobile marketing is the detailed tracking and reporting of users it permits. Through this medium, companies can track how many customers viewed their material and also access detailed information about each consumer such as their name, their age, their demographic and where they’re located. This permits a business to raise profiles of their users; information which then guides future marketing campaigns and, ideally, their success.

It is noted in the industry that push marketing, of which digital marketing is a type, can help drive new revenue and brand exposure if it is implemented correctly and appropriately. This is because it makes users aware of new changes that they may not know to enquire about already and the way the material is phrased, and even the fact that the message is being sent by a innovative, hip medium such as SMS, can say a lot about a brand and a company.

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, digital marketing will certainly continue to increase in importance.

Filed under: Marketing