In digital marketing email is considered a medium with broad reach – most of us have at least one email address, and can in theory receive marketing messages in our inbox.

But when you take a closer look at the characteristics of the Mobile Marketing channel, a much more powerful scenario emerges. An environment in which messages are sent, received and acted upon in seconds. The delivery success rate can easily be more than 90%. Each target number identifies a single individual, and enables your marketing to engage with that person wherever, whenever, in an instant. Spam is not tolerated, and therefore inboxes remain clutter free and response rates high. Access to richer media such as images, audio and video feels much more personal, and viral distribution is actively embraced. Access to content on the move expands the reach of your websites, and interactivity is built-in.

This introduction will provide you with key information you need in order to create, implement and fine-tune mobile marketing programs:

• Why go mobile marketing
• Definitions of some mobile marketing terms
• Key benefits of mobile marketing
• How to start a mobile marketing campaign
• How to embed mobile with other marketing activities
• How to monitor your campaign

Why go Mobile Marketing

As marketers we need to be where our target audience is – and there can be no doubt that today’s consumers value their mobile phone for communication, information, entertainment and even transactions above any other device. With SMS messaging continuing its phenomenal growth, Mobile Internet access exploding and ever more smartphones such as iPhone and Blackberry driving increased data usage, the mobile channel is a must for any switched-on marketer.

Definition of some mobile marketing terms

Mobile marketing is simply the act of creating marketing that makes use of the mobile phone and its inherent capabilities to reach and stay connected with your target audience. To help you get started with mobile marketing, here are our definitions of some key terms:

SMS
Most of us know SMS (Short Message Service) by its more common name, “texting”. SMS is a method of sending a message from one mobile device to another, or from a computer to one or more mobile devices (and back!). SMS is most widely used for peer to peer communications. But its use as a method for businesses to effectively communicate with customers and prospects is growing rapidly. The basic length of a SMS message is 160 characters, however in some markets such as the UK our solutions support long messages up to 459 characters.

MMS
Multimedia message service (MMS) messages can contain images, slideshows, audio and/or video – in addition to text. A typical MMS message consists of a 2-3 images in “slideshow”. While MMS messages are less popular because they are more expensive to send and slightly more difficult to download and view than SMS, the majority of new phones can today send and receive MMS, making this a valuable option for mobile marketing.

Mobile Advertising
Buying space on external media such as mobile sites and operator portals in order to place banners and text links onto those sites, which in turn when clicked upon send traffic back to your own campaign sites. The term is occasionally also used to describe sponsored SMS or MMS messages. We at KODIME believe that currently Mobile Marketing is most effective as a direct marketing and CRM activity, not advertising.

Mobile Content
Describes digital content formatted to fit a wide variety of mobile phones. This includes ringtones, images for use on mobile sites and as wallpapers, mobile video and user generated content such as images “blogged” via MMS to a website. Using content in mobile marketing campaigns enables handset personalisation, a viral component “forward to a friend” and increased brand visibility.

Mobile Internet
The Internet and websites accessed via portable devices and handsets. Specifically websites (mobile sites) designed for use with mobile devices. Mobile Internet sites are sometimes referred to (incorrectly) as "WAP sites". The Mobile Internet is a key element for most mobile marketing campaigns that go beyond SMS, offering options for longer text, images, video, data capture forms and more.

Short Codes, Shortcode Number
Short codes (or CSC Common Shared Shortcodes) are special mobile telephone numbers, typically 5 digits. They work across all (or most) mobile operators (carriers) and enable the easy two-way exchange of messages and other data across many different operators. They are at the core of mobile marketing response programs and are also used to send SMS and MMS messages to and from mobile phones via mobile marketing solutions such as KODIME’s.

Wireless
A different term used for Mobile. But note that a Wifi-enabled “wireless” notebook is not considered a target device for a mobile marketing campaign.

Key Benefits of Mobile Marketing

Visualise your target audience. No matter what product or service your company may offer, whether B2C or B2B, the vast majority of your target audience will be active mobile users. These days people keep their mobile with them 24/7, which means that you can now engage with your target audience through their personal device anytime, anywhere. Here are some of the key drivers for effective Mobile Marketing campaigns:

Last minute offers: No other channel can generate take-up of special offers as precisely timed as Mobile. Time-limited coupons, event reminders, instant redemption - with responses coming in only seconds after sending, mobile is a great option to connect with your audience at key promotional dates and times.

Reaching your target audience no matter where they are: Do you need to get your brand and product message in front of the target audience while they are out with their friends? Traveling or commuting? Shopping? Then use Mobile to engage.

Reaching the Unreachables™: Since such a high percentage of email is spam, many customers are now ignoring email messages, or their spam filters block marketing messages both legitimate and spam. Mobile messaging is a highly regulated environment and effectively close to spam-free. Subsequently your messages will be received, trusted and opened.

Getting a response from your target audience. Because your customers are used to dialogue when they text for personal reasons, mobile marketing can easily leverage this dynamic. Campaigns such as competitions, votes, instant feedback and inviting user generated content are a perfect match.

Use mobile marketing for effective customer relationship management: Mobile marketing is a great tool for CRM tasks such as enrolling customers in rewards programs and encouraging them to access account information. Much more reliable and spoof-proof than email, the mobile number is increasingly being used as the core element for personal identifiable information by CRM-focused marketers.

How to set up a mobile marketing program

While the foundation of a mobile marketing program is similar to that of other digital marketing, it’s important to understand the differences. To set up a program, you need to follow these steps:

Define the program objective, tactics and channel options.

How will you build your list? Which data do you require, mobile number only or full address and personal preferences? Is the target audience likely to have the latest smart phone, or more a SMS-only demographic? What will be the main incentive for the target audience to interact and register? What frequency of messaging, what types of content, which options between SMS, MMS, Mobile Internet?

Develop the promotion plan you will use to build your list.

Mobile marketing is strictly opt-in, so stay clear of buying third party data lists. If you send messages to subscribers who have not opted in, you are acting against industry guidelines and risk customer backlash and legal action.

Create a plan of action that will generate signups and interactions through your other marketing channels such as print advertising, direct mail, websites and outdoor, to name a few. Provide simple “Keep me posted by SMS” options throughout your communication plan, using shortcodes, web forms and mobile internet sites.

Provide a clear reason for action.

Answer these questions from your target recipient’s perspective: “Why would I give my number? How can I stop getting messages? How much will it cost me to receive? How often will I get messages? Does my phone work with this service?”

Here are some proven scenarios to engage the mobile audience:

• Information request
• Brochure request
• Callback request
• Mobile site link
• Scheduled alerts, subscriptions
• Competitions
• Coupons, offers • Content download
• Text to win
• Text to vote
• Text to play
• Text to join
• Surveys
• User feedback

Now test your campaign

Make sure that your campaign works as intended, in terms of message flow, call-to-action, mobile internet access and across different types of devices. Add members of your marketing team to a test group and push out sample campaign messages. Ask others to view your campaign creative, for example a shortcode listed on a flyer, and see if they react as you expect and understand your instructions for texting. Access any mobile landing pages and sites from different mobile phones, and compare presentation and user experience.

The right technical solution can help to conduct these tasks with ease, and to edit the campaign elements where required.

And you're ready to go!

Note for US customers

The US mobile = wireless market offers substantial opportunities for the switched-on marketer. However, due to a stronger involvement of the carriers in the value chain the setting up of new campaigns and services requires jumping extra hurdles (and cost). These include but are not limited to:

• Securing a shortcode number via the appointed registrar Neustar
• Approving the shortcode on each of the carriers for the specific campaign
• Securing the technical certification and completing stringent program testing

One faster route to market is to use a shared shortcode numbers with special keywords, which KODIME can supply, subject to availability and compatibility with pre-approved message flows.

Our team has tremendous experience in getting short codes and campaigns approved, and we continually keep our technical platform compliant with the ever evolving carrier rules on opt-in, opt-out and other such message flows.

Embedding the mobile channel with your other marketing

Mobile is the only digital marketing channel that allows you to connect all other forms of media and communications, to generate maximum impact. There are numerous ways to integrate mobile marketing with other marketing programs and offers. Here are a few effective and proven scenarios:

Outdoor and ambient: Posters, flyers, hoardings, signage, billboards, transit and point of purchases displays are ideal mediums to use when asking for mobile response. Use these mediums to offer discounts, brochure, links to mobile sites and more.

Print Advertising: Maximize the return from your media budget by including the mobile response option across your creative materials. Whether you’re looking to increase brochure requests, trigger call backs or to drive footfall, offer the mobile option.

Direct Mail: Sending direct mail to households is great for offers, coupons, and brand awareness. Adding mobile marketing as a response option using shortcode numbers and keywords such as “Text OFFER now to 60123 for your free voucher” improves ROI and captures valuable mobile customer data.

On-Air: Promote your mobile marketing program on TV or in radio commercials as a method of response or as a way for customers to instantly interact with our company. Or add your shortcode to your YouTube marketing clips.

On-Pack: Add shortcode and optionally QR code (a special mobile barcode) on your product packaging as a way for your customers to enter a competition or provide feedback.

Competitions: Engage your audience using proven game-play scenarios such as text-to-win, text-to-vote and sweepstakes. Easily manage even nationwide competitions using automation, instant response and winner selection.

User Generated Content: Let your users get back to you, directly from their mobile phone. Whether you want to receive simple text or advanced programs involving images and even video to be published on websites, mobile is the channel of choice to engage your target audience.

Events: Use Mobile marketing across all phases of your event marketing. From pre-ticket sales registration to post event marketing co-branded with sponsors, events are perfect environments to engage and interact with a mobile target audience. Generate fan interaction via SMS-to-Screen, service alerts and related content downloads. In a B2B environment you can also use mobile marketing to confirm and remind appointments, promote booth traffic or to generate instant feedback at a trade show, event or conference.

Websites: Offer your website visitors and easy way to opt-in to your mobile communication using pop-ups and embedded data fields. Add mobile-only incentives such as discount upon registration or exclusive content for mobile subscribers. Instantly send subscribers a welcome message with details of the program and opt-out information.

How to monitor & fine-tune mobile marketing programs

With your program live, it is important to view, interpret and where required edit the campaign parameters to achieve optimum results. Mobile offers a range of key performance indicators, and with the right solution you will be able to review:

• Messages sent and successfully delivered
• Messages received
• Responses by media channel (Smart Media Analysis™)
• Click through rates to Mobile sites
• Brochure requests (Email, Snail Mail)
• Contacts added
• Contacts opted-out
• Offers redeemed, Vouchers downloaded
• Operator / carrier share across campaign
• Most popular handsets used across campaign

When using the right software to manage your campaigns, it is then easy to edit message flows, mobile site landing pages, keywords and other parameters to further fine-tune the campaign.

Summary

Mobile Marketing gives digital marketers the ability to expand reach and impact of their wider marketing and communication programs, and help “Reach the Unreachables™“. Given the potential, no savvy marketer will want to pass up the opportunity to add mobile into the mix.

If your company has never used Mobile Marketing, the process of getting started can be complex. Using the right technology is mission-critical, whether in self-service or managed by a service provider. We own our mobile platform and code, and our team has the experience and deep understanding of 1000s of campaigns. Rely on us to help you through the process, get your campaigns set up and out to your target audience professionally and with minimum fuss.

And if you are already using Mobile, then take a closer look at what our solutions offer in multichannel, rich media, m-CRM, mobile site management and m-Commerce – you may well be surprised to see what we include as standard in our cost effective solutions.