Mobile advertising is going from strength to strength lately. Or so they say. A recent BIGresearch study shows that consumers are not of the same opinion about it as marketing providers. 67% don’t like text ads, 60% don’t like voicemail ads, and 60% don’t like video ads. They just don’t like being constantly bombarded with shells of information they don’t need. But what’s that? Seems like Vodafone could care less, sending messages all over the place having forgotten to include unsubscribe function in their SMS. That’s why they are missing $110,000 in their pockets for being a little bit pushy. People don’t want their personal things to be used for the needs of others. They become angry. Don’t make them angry or you’ll lose money.
What else are there that marketing providers are missing? “How much money we’ll allocate for mobile marketing this year?” you are asking yourself. Now don’t look at it as one more way to advertise your products or services. Don’t use it as an alternative to TV, Internet, radio, and outdoor advertising. Be broad-minded. Look at your whole marketing campaign and use mobile technologies to unite all parts of it.
If you don’t want to be an ugly Quasimodo look-alike for your customers read on. Eyeline Call2Service is a solution for mobile advertising that provides a low-pressure way of interacting with your customers via mobile phone as well as keeping them engaged. You make them an offer and now they decide whether they want it or not. They are now controlling the situation and they are doing it for free. But you are also controlling it better than ever. Let’s have a look at how it works.
Let’s say you sell cars. You have a TV and outdoor advertising campaign going on. You place a 5% discount offer and a service phone number under it on both TV commercials and outdoor stands. Your interested customers call your number (call is free of charge) which can be automatically saved in their phonebook and get an SMS message with 5% discount which they will show to you when they decide to buy a car. There is no voice communication. They just need to dial a phone number. Oh, there is also the address of your web site in that SMS they got. So now they can explore your product in details. By the way, you can place different phone numbers on TV, stands and radio ads and see where the most of your customers are coming from, thus eliminating unnecessary expenses.
Look further. You may set that the customers will get a USSD menu instead of just SMS. There they will have several options such as the above-mentioned 5% discount coupon and a possibility to subscribe for your news and offers. They will do it voluntarily if they want. And of course there is an unsubscribe function. Now they are feeling warm and fuzzy inside. There is no reason for you not to feel warmth spreading all over your office too. You now have phone numbers and loyalty of your customers. And all these are achieved in a very delicate manner.
Source: Nikita Tekutiev
Photo: mobile marketing watch
To be honest, I’m part of the 67% who don’t like text ads, part of the 60% who don’t like voicemail ads, and part of the 60% who don’t like video ads. I don’t want any of this on my phone, even if it means discounts. But being a marketer I have to think differently. Our goal is, to reach customers, an preferable very targeted. And mobile phone marketing opens the door for it. However, marketers have to be very careful and always know about the laws because we don’t want to end up with a $ 100,000 fine like Vodafone. The laws are different in each country too. We also have to be careful not to annoy people too much as this kind of advertising can do more harm than good if not done right. The technique described above can be a good solution I think because people are calling the number first and are happy to get a discount.
As I said before, from the viewpoint of a customer I would not want to get ads sent on my phone, even if there is an opt out option. Why do I have to spend 10 minutes a day, opting out of several advertising messages? Also I think as soon as this becomes too much, there will be spam filters for mobile phones and it will be harder for marketers to get their messages through the spam filter.
Personally I think sms ad is better than video ad and voicemail ad, because it takes less time to go through the whole thing. I do get sms ad sometimes. However I don’t mind it to much, because sometimes I do find the information useful for me especially it about the discount or promotion of the brand I like or some information for the event. However, it is not good if the company send it too often like every week or two weeks. That would be very irritating. Sometimes I get the information about the social events at certain venues. I think it’s good because it contains all the information I need including date, time, address, and event details. I can easily forward to my friends who might be interested and I can have all the details with me without the need to write down the details. However, the most important thing is the mobile marketing should target the right customers. If the ads are sent to someone who can’t even care less, it would be irritating. However, if they are sent to the right segment then it would be a good and cheap way for advertising, but the frequency can not be too often as well.