Case in point is Blackberry's global demise. While the rest of the world has thrown Blackberry to the pile of "not cool", its market share in South Africa has soared. This was evident when it was voted the coolest brand in South Africa by the Generation Next Awards 2012. Many argue that it is due to South Africa being way behind on trends, and this may be a strong point. However, Blackberry's marketing and penetration strategy as well as actively offering options that are cost effective (under R80 for BIS) is the main reason for its substantial success and maintaining that decorum. Irrespective, the mobile market is a huge and evolving playground.
With Blackberry slowly growing hype on the international stage with news on BlackBerry10's release, along with the iPhone 5 being released towards the end of the year and the popularity of the Galaxy S3, communications with consumers are becoming easier. The smartphone has easily become an extension of a consumer's identity.
Today we are looking at an extremely portable world; how your company selects address mobile performance can make an immense impact. Mobile-friendly marketing signifies a massive prospect for marketers. Done appropriately, it is a low-cost, consistent and permission-based chance to engage with customers on-the-go.
You can distribute focus driven targeting, personalised communication, video and social engagement along with offering a mobile site.
Optimised mobile email can retrieve much more information about the customer and the context of their visit and improve the user-experience. This expands the consumer experience since they don't have to enter data, scroll, or zoom, to get the information they need. Getting the user to do pointless work to get what they need contributes to unfulfilled desires.
Email, mobile sites and SMS should be a part of any marketer's arsenal. Many people in South Africa access the net as well as email and social networking through their mobile devices and this only stands to accentuate the importance of the tech curve.
More than 20% of South Africans have smartphones according to Strategyworx. With 79% and 78% of users using them for web-surfing and email respectively for socially interacting with not only friends, but companies and brands as well.
The popularity of brands creating a connection between people has seen companies become more acceptable within consumers' social space. Conversations are often interjected by a brand or company offering a solution to a client's dilemma allowing for a real time interaction between brand and consumer.
If we take the rise of digital interaction and the increased use and availability of smartphones; the "yellow brick road" seems clearly paved to the next level of digital marketing. With smaller companies finding affordable options such as GraphicMail's solutions, it makes it easier for brands that are considerably smaller to play a role in the digital landscape.
