Normally, the natural psychology of businesses when the economy falls into recession is to find ways to cut everything, including marketing costs. However, according to statistical research results on Marketing in economic downturns The 70s, 80s, and 90s showed that “continuing to invest in marketing” was the wisest choice. McGraw-Hill research showed that continuing to invest in marketing during an economic downturn helped companies achieve 2,56% more revenue than those who cut 50% in marketing costs. In addition, companies that proactively “hibernate” to re-establish their brands often have to pay 4.5 times the cost savings from cutting back on marketing activities.
Of all the marketing methods, mobile marketing is perhaps the most recession-proof marketing tool.
From the benefits…
According to the General Statistics Office, by the end of October 2008, the country had nearly 60 million mobile subscribers, accounting for over 81% of the total number of telephone subscribers nationwide. Thus, choosing mobile marketing, your business stands before a huge advantage from exploiting a new market and moreover, it is a large market. In addition, terminal devices (mobile phones) are increasingly sophisticated, multifunctional... making mobile marketers have more and more choices, faster in approaching potential customers. Compared to traditional marketing forms such as publications, television... even other forms online marketing emerging (website advertising), mobile marketing still has very specific competitive advantages such as extremely high target reach (high profit margin); fast deployment speed while still ensuring the ability to evaluate investment efficiency; minimizing other costs such as printing, labor; supporting multi-format content (characters, audio, still and dynamic images...).
Similar to the Internet, the mobile environment also has all the conditions for a mobile advertising message to spread very quickly. Thanks to that, businesses can attract new customers without incurring any additional costs.
…to the tool…
SMS Advertising. In the most common form, advertising messages appear in text form and are sent to mobile subscribers via short message service (SMS). In Europe alone, several hundred million advertising SMS messages are sent by service providers each month.
Advertising via MMS with the only difference being that the message format supports both images and sounds. Of course, due to the larger file size than SMS, mobile marketing via MMS messages needs to be supported by the network infrastructure of the mobile service provider and the terminal (e.g. GPRS connection).
In-game advertising for mobile devices. Advertising messages are “embedded” directly into the game content or in the form of sponsored banners. Along with the “upgrade” of mobile devices, mobile games are increasingly invested in and of course, advertising messages through mobile games will become more and more popular.
Mobile Website Advertising. Placing banner ads on websites that can be accessed (“browsed”) via mobile phones is also an option. The proliferation of wireless networks and the proliferation of Wifi-enabled mobile devices are making mobile websites increasingly mobile friendly.
Advertising via… bluetooth. This form of advertising appeared in Europe in 2003. The transmission process requires the acceptance of the recipient at a higher speed and uses radio technology so it is completely free within a small range.
Infrared advertising. This is the oldest and most limited form of mobile marketing because infrared connections have a very low effective range (only 10cm – 100cm). “Infrared marketing” was used by some companies in Europe in the late 90s.
Location-based advertising. Location-based mobile advertising (LBS) is implemented when service providers send advertising information to subscribers by locating their location. In this method, a global positioning system (GPS) chip is integrated into the phone so that the subscriber's location can be detected when they move into the coverage radius of LBS stations. This method of mobile advertising is often very effective because it is highly customizable. For example, you sell pizza on the street. Anyone who enters that neighborhood or nearby locations can receive a message notifying them of your store's presence.
…and how to implement it
It is difficult to say all the benefits and potential of mobile marketing. However, before "reaping" these benefits, businesses will also have to go through many challenges and difficulties.
Unlike sending an email or placing an advertising banner on a website, businesses should be extremely cautious when sending a message due to its ability to directly impact the privacy of the recipient. “Receive Send advertising messages to 10,000 mobile phone numbers. Phone numbers available in the database are used for advertising and product quotes. Interested individuals and units, please contact via Email: vnxxx@yahoo.comvnxxx@yahoo.com .” – with just a few clicks, businesses can find these types of classified ads. With an “offer” price of only about 1000 VND/message (10 million VND for the whole package), your product advertising message can reach 8,000 potential customers (performance 80%). It sounds cheap, but the price your business has to pay can be many times more expensive!
On August 13, 2008, the Government issued Decree 90/2008/ND-CP on management. spam (including spam messages). Accordingly, individuals and businesses that participate in providing advertising services via text messages in violation of regulations can be fined up to 100 million VND. Businesses that use text message dissemination services for advertising can also be fined 20 million VND. Decree 90 is based on research on two models of off-in (sent only with the recipient's consent) and off-out (sent when the recipient refuses) that are popular in the world. Businesses themselves also need to carefully study Decree 90 and the two models of off-in and off-out to outline effective ways to approach customers via mobile devices. In addition to the risk of breaking the law or choosing the wrong "service provider" leading to loss of money, businesses certainly do not want messages to have the opposite effect by causing frustration and discomfort to customers.
To enter mobile marketing, the first target that businesses need to approach should be old customers who have agreed to receive messages in accordance with the law. The initial marketing message can be just an introduction to new products; new promotions applied... or customer care actions (happy birthday, happy new year...). This database will continue to be expanded steadily, integrating the subscriber numbers of potential customers. Businesses need to invest appropriately in building a customer database. A list of 10,000 or 100,000 mobile subscribers is not too important when compared to other information about customers such as date of birth, address, hobbies, job... Subscriber numbers are just a clue for you to reach potential customers Meanwhile, the approach, the time of approach and the content you want to convey to customers - important factors to ensure the success of a mobile marketing campaign, are determined by the information that seems to be just "additional" as mentioned above. According to the author's concept, mobile marketing is really a fast and powerful marketing tool. However, to control it well to ensure the expected success, the preparation work should be carried out firmly, with screening and continuously evaluated and adjusted.
SAGA article introduced in Saigon Business Newspaper at the weekend, issue 286, published on February 6, 2009
www.SAGA.vn l Duc Cuong – DNSGCT
