April 2009

Navigating your way into the perfect
mobile marketing storm
Here are some best practices for establishing your mobile marketing strategy By Derek Colfer

Back in July 2001, we had just finished launching one of the first mobile marketing executions in the UK. It was a nationwide mobile CRM/loyalty program with incredible levels of uptake and conversion. The client, Heineken, was ecstatic. The billings were sound and the media reach was limitless. Other mobile marketing clients soon followed: British Airways, the BBC, and Deutsche Bank, to name but a few. The floodgates had been opened and the mobile media and marketing revolution was upon us, or so we thought…

Seven plus years later and a similar level of potential seems to have crossed the pond. While it certainly took longer than most people expected, mobile marketing has finally arrived in Canada.
It takes a lot of local knowledge to navigate your way through the various mobile opportunities and challenges in this country. How well you navigate them will have a direct impact on your customer acquisition, retention, conversion and even more importantly in 2009, your bottom line.
When I was asked to put pen to paper and pull together an article on “What’s Next” in the mobile space, it occurred to me that there still remains a lot of confusion as to where we are today in Canada with regards to mobile marketing. The ensuing rant should help to set the record straight and provide some insight as to what is possible today in the mobile space, what you need to know to get it right and what might be possible in the near future.

State of the nation
There is nothing, I repeat nothing, more direct as a marketing channel than your mobile phone. It is the most intimate, ubiquitous and intelligent communications device in the history of modern communications. Period. If you don’t have a mobile marketing plan for 2009 and you are a marketer… doom on you.

I initially thought I would rattle out some stats to show the incredible proliferation of mobile devices in Canada or the explosive “hockey stick” growth of text messaging, but I digress. If you’re in the know, you know. If you’re not, check out the Harris/Decima research report that was conducted in September 2008 for the CWTA. It’s very current, quite comprehensive and best of all, you can download it free from the CWTA Web site.

Different folks will derive different things from this report. However, its headlines are obvious… times are rapidly changing and your marketing tactics and channels must keep pace. Suggested next steps… book off a couple hours, close your office door (or leave your cubicle), read the report, corral the troops (if you’re lucky enough to have them) and get a mobile marketing plan in place.

First steps
Let’s focus on developing your mobile marketing strategy. One of the challenges for marketers interested in developing such a plan are the various unfamiliar terms and technical nuances that are thrown about like nobody’s business (short codes, CWTA, binary content, MMS, premium revenue shares, carrier interoperability, and so on). These terms are real and there are numerous others that can easily confuse the uninitiated. While there is no room to list and define each of them, some critical and concise advice is provided here.

Do not rely on your traditional and/or interactive agency to lead you into and through the mobile marketing space. Identify and engage a mobile marketing firm: one that knows the space intimately and is a specialist in this realm. There are plenty of mobile marketing options right here in Canada and leaving your mobile strategy in anyone else’s hands is a waste of time and money.
A great way to filter the thought leaders from the thought needers is to provide a brief and a budget (fictitious or otherwise) and ask the prospective mobile marketing partner to present their optimal mobile strategy recommendations. Standard questions such as: “Do you own your technology?” “Do you outsource any development?” “How long have you been in business?” etc., should help separate the new arrivals and wannabes from the real deal.

Experience in this channel is essential. Do not make the mistake of building your mobile marketing strategy in a vacuum. Your traditional and interactive agencies will always play a critical role in the dissemination of your mobile strategy. Mobile marketing is permission based and opt in. As a channel, it relies on leveraging your existing traditional and interactive marketing.

Getting it right
While the realities of the mobile space and its marketing potential continue to unfold, there are, nevertheless, a number of lessons that are tried and tested. The following best practices will help you identify the broad strokes of your mobile strategy. The tactics should be placed in the hands of your newly acquired mobile marketing partner.

Constantly measure: Like the Internet, the mobile marketing channel is measurable. Throw out your GRPs and leave your impressions based methodologies at home. This channel is measured in acquisitions and your standard media measurement rules do not apply. Mobile consumer activation is a richer, more defined engagement because the consumer has asked the brand to speak to him or her. Regardless of how rich these mobile engagements can be, if you’re not watching the dials (demo uptake, media uptake, conversion, viral referrals, etc.) you won’t know where your mobile solution is headed. You wouldn’t fly a plane without consulting your instruments now and then; the same idea applies to “in-flight’ mobile solutions.

Offer an incentive: It sounds like a no-brainer but you’d be surprised how often this critical component gets overlooked. The size of the carrot can vary but the carrot must exist. While the initial incentive is fairly straightforward, the tricky part is evolving your program so the true incentive becomes the mobile solution itself.

Integrate effectively: As mentioned, your traditional and interactive agencies will play a critical role in the dissemination of your mobile strategy. The more you integrate the messaging across various media and at higher frequencies, the better your overall uptake results will be. Get it right the first time by integrating your mobile call to action throughout your media mix and focusing on high traffic consumer touch points.

Entertain the masses: Your mobile marketing programs don’t need to flash and ring like the fruit machines in Vegas but they do need to entertain to some extent. The related content and themes will vary based on your target demo but some level of entertainment value should be apparent.

Profile or perish: Profiling your database is critical to remember during the front end of the consumer acquisition stage. The benefits are obvious. The more you profile on the front end, the deeper the data you will acquire on the back end. Unless you are generating some level of consumer insight, the opportunity is quickly wasted.

Secure mobile CRM opt ins: A mobile CRM opt in is probably the most powerful marketing consent in the history of modern advertising. It transpires when a brand secures a consumer’s consent to speak to him or her on an ongoing basis through their mobile device. It amounts to a consumer telling a brand “I want you to speak to me.” Imagine that! The larger risk associated with collecting such opt ins is the incredible but true fact that brands sometimes collect them and then put them on the back burner. A word to the wise: mobile CRM opt ins are not like Twinkies®. (The shelf life of a Twinkie® is ten years —no kidding!) The shelf life of a mobile CRM opt in is about ten weeks (maximum). Bottom line: if you are collecting these opt ins, you’d better have a plan in place to engage with these consumers in the near term.

What’s next?
Canadian wireless carriers are unique in the sense that there are a number of commonalities and not a lot of distinctive selling points between them, when compared to their global counterparts. They remind me of what it might have been like to buy a bottle of vodka in Russia during the Cold War… plenty of vodka but not a lot of distinct choices.

The moment the very first iPhone was placed in the first Canadian consumer’s hand, the mobile landscape changed completely. No longer did the carrier determine what content you could view or what applications you could upload.The iPhone is not the end all and be all next generation mobile marketing channel. Smartphones (those funky keyboard, touch-screen, mobile Web enabled pocket rockets of which the iPhone is one of many choices) are. If you’re a marketer and you’ve got a Web-based marketing strategy, you will now need to ensure that these activations transfer seamlessly and effortlessly to the mobile Web space.

Beyond the mobile Web, there are other rapidly advancing mobile marketing tools and strategies that you will need to learn about (location based services, mobile ad serving, mobile ticketing and couponing, mobile search and analytics etc.) Each of them requires an expert and you won’t be able to fill in the gaps between them and the other 14 marketing programs you own, execute and manage on a daily basis. Do yourself and your brand a favour and pick up your mobile phone to call an expert. If you can surf the Web on it even better. Let your fingers do the walking.

Derek Colfer is vice president of Strategy at Silverback Media, a global mobile marketing and media company based in Toronto, with additional operations in Los Angeles, Miami, Montreal, Paris and Aix-En-Provence.