Yeah, yeah, yeah… but do we really NEED mobile marketing?

When consulting clients I am always cautioned by my partners not to be too gregarious in my presentation of what is possible and meet them where they are. That is all nice and well if you want to walk together successfully, both partners keeping up the same pace and all, but here, today I am going to be even more over the top than usual. And I will give you plenty to back up why I say what I say.

Running an SMS campaign simply to create a database of worthless cell phone numbers is like heading down to the 6+ star French restaurant and then ordering German bockwurst with sauerkraut and a beer, while paying for the five-course Michelin meal and three bottles of Moet anyway.

So you have entries… so what?

Setting up the SMS campaign costs you money. Advertising the campaign above or below or wherever on the line to make people enter whatever phoney competition you are using to entice them to get interested in your company, products or services by SMSing a keyword to a short code, costs REAL money. Then, once the dust has settled and your boss has recuperated on the golf course from having been presented with the bill, all you have to show for your bold excursion into the world of mobile marketing is so-and-so-many people who “entered”.

If you are lucky you have their cell phone number, although what the hell you should do with that is anyone's guess and database mining sounds good only in theory, right? Ahh, you say, but you can always SMS more product info to your database, because, after all, they have shown interest in what you have to offer and surely would like to be kept updated on that. You even allow some of them to opt out of your follow ups by SMSing “stop” to some short code (if you are ethical enough or can't get away with anything less), and it is okay to lose a few entrants along the way because business is war and during war you have to accept collateral damage. In your case the collateral damage is the dollars wasted on every Tom, Dick and Mary who were not interested in your company, products or services in the first place but merely wanted to win the grand prize you put up (oops, more costs) but opted out the moment the date of the draw passed and they didn't win.

And then you start all over again…

If the above scenario sounds too far fetched and over the top, please stop and think again.

It's reality

This is the current reality. This is what is happening with mobile marketing… every day, around the world. Look at the last three mobile marketing campaigns that were heavily advertised on TV, radio, print or even outdoor. I bet you that at least two of them promised some kind of prize for SMSing a key word to a short code, possibly accompanied by the bar code of the product. And the prize had nothing to do with the actual product or service that was being advertised.

Now here is the problem: even if that campaign led to a slight rise in sales (because participants had to buy the product to get some code, hidden somewhere “under the bottle cap”), the effort is, apart from a branding exercise, a once-off flash in the pan.

• You still know nothing about your entrants;
  
• You still have no clue if they are interested in your company, products and services or if they only entered because of the prize;
  
• You still have to invest in above the line ads to promote the next campaign;
  
• And most importantly: you have missed a unique opportunity to start building Quality Leads with who you can enter into a long term, sustainable dialogue about your company, products and services.

So much for reality

Quite frankly, given the above scenario I actually DO think that mobile marketing is an entirely redundant proposition. Just run your TV ads, maybe do a little in-store promotion here and there and save yourself the headache of trying to understand mobile marketing. And more importantly, save the money you would otherwise spend on mobile marketing gurus who try to convince you that mobile marketing is the best thing since sliced bread, that your competitor has already run a mobile campaign, and that you will be out of business soon if you don't also invest in mobile marketing. NOW!

No, seriously! The above approach to mobile marketing does not make any sense.

So much for reality. Now for a (still Utopian?) vision of what mobile marketing can REALLY do for you. And (who knew?) it doesn't cost you a cent more than the “burning money exercise” described above, but you DO get a lot more and the expense suddenly becomes an investment!

Create a virtual trading place

Imagine, if you will, a pleasant, virtual environment… a trading place for ideas, opinions, information and, yes, goods and services. Imagine further the above scenario (SMS campaign, sexy prize, ridiculously high above the line adspend) with only ONE difference: entrants are invited into the trading place and only there do they decide which offers to partake in (yes, there are more than one; from different companies; let's not get greedy now).

You know who the visitors in the trading place are, you know where they live, you have all the usual general info about them, but more importantly you know what they do, how they interact with what you have to offer and with what other companies have to offer. You get, over time, a complete, in-depth user profile. You enter into a one-on-one dialogue by e.g. making information about your company, its products and services freely available by means of entertaining video-, audio- and text content. You get user feedback. You suddenly have a personal relationship with your (prospective) customer or client.

All this is possible today, for the first time ever and on the largest scale possible (4 billion people own a cell phone but only 1.5 billion own a TV set, the traditional “mass marketing tool” of choice). How? Simply by FULLY utilizing mobile phone technologies. Sure, building such Quality Leads takes time. It is a long term investment, But it also creates stability, longevity and long term, loyal customer relationships and support that are built on trust and understanding each other's needs, requirements and offerings. It is a long term investment instead of an instant gratification expense (or how I like call it “a money burning exercise”). Doing anything less, like running once off SMS campaigns (as painfully described above), really is like eating the German bockwurst (as also painfully described above).

Yeah, yeah, yeah… I'm dreaming. This is utopia. At least for still quite a while, because here, in the real world, we do things that are tried and tested. Like wasting 50% of our adspend (damn, which 50% is the one that brings revenues again?), or handing out pamphlets at traffic lights… And as long as mobile marketing threatens the very existence of the all powerful ad agencies, they will fight it tooth and nail, even utilizing their ignorance, to save their 16.5%.

Now THAT was a gregarious article!

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