Mobile marketing: future's road most travelled?

It is also estimated that digital will represent approximately 12% of total ad spend in 2009 and will grow to 21% thereof in 2014 - almost doubling in five years, according to Forrester Research.

Experts believe that these staggering figures demonstrate that mobile marketing will overtake traditional marketing, becoming the roads most used by businesses as the world experiences an enormous surge in cellphone technology.

Mobile marketing is on the move

Speaking at the Thinking Mobile conference held late last week at the IDC headquarters in Sandton, Johannesburg, Sean Pashley, of Starfish Mobile, said, “2009 is the year in which the gap between the hype and reality has significantly narrowed in the mobile marketing arena.

“Several blue chip brands have developed the mobile marketing campaigns and have seen phenomenal returns on investments, and resultantly they have started long-term commitments to mobile marketing.

“What are the possibilities that these success stories can be transposed into other African territories and what are the considerations for your companies' expansion strategies?”

He added, “In general terms, brands in most African territories are limited to TV, print, radio and billboard advertising from a traditional media perspective.”

Lacking interactivity limits engagement

Pashley pointed out that since these media types lack interactivity, this limits how brands can engage their audience.

“The interactivity and inherent features (such as building a permissive and profiled database), which mobile allows, is therefore immensely appealing.”

However, he cautioned potential mobile marketers hoping to venture into Africa to do their homework properly, especially in areas such as regulatory environment (lack of short codes, no stable MMS and GPRS capabilities), local flavour (religious and cultural norms), and handset and mobile considerations.

He explained, “Evidently your chances of success increase exponentially if you are able to offer your content in the predominant local language.”

Nevertheless, Pashley said that even with all these and other seemingly negative considerations in mind, there is a big money to be made.

“Think strategically”

“If you're in publishing, there is often a dearth of local information available correctly structured, and promotions still do phenomenally well.

“Think strategically about how to create a long term value for the subscriber (in these promotion scenarios) - the advertisers budgets will surely follow and ad models funded will prevail in the long term.

“Target your mobile campaign or content accordingly. Remember that airtime is a precious commodity and subscribers will only engage for enticing offers.”

Formed in 2002, Starfish Mobile has permanent offices in South Africa and Tanzania and operates in 18 countries in Africa and the Middle East (12 in Africa). The company has, to date, conducted over 2500 mobile marketing campaigns worldwide and has over 60 major clients, making it one of Africa's largest mobile content catalogues. It specialises mostly in content provisioning, content aggregation and content promotional strategies.

Bizcommunity.com was a media partner of the Thinking Mobile Conference Series. For more, go to www.mobilemarketingwinners.com, www.mymobworld.com and www.starfishmobile.com.