South African students to learn mobile marketing in classrooms

South Africa has always been a special market as far as mobile marketing is concerned. With more than 80% of population having mobile phones, mobile phone has almost replaced TV and other such media to become the number one medium for marketing and advertising purposes. To add another feather to its cap, South Africa has introduced something which is truly one-of-its-kind. Soon, university students in South Africa will study a course in mobile marketing.

As incredible as it may sound, it is true. The UCT Graduate School of Business has unveiled a course in mobile marketing which is scheduled to begin next month. This course, I’m told, will focus on getting students used to mobile marketing the right way. It will take a proactive approach to educate the students to reach the 36 million mobile users in the country.

I really hope this course equips students to get acquainted better with mobile marketing techniques and develops an ability to devise different strategies for mobile marketing. Didn’t we hear someone say ‘the future is mobile?’

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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South Africa - Mobile advertisers’ dream market

While experts all over the world are arguing whether or not mobile advertising will grow at the rate it’s been predicted to grow, there is one market which has sent a loud and clear message to all of ‘em. It’s South Africa.

Mobile advertising in South Africa has been very successful and as a result lots and lots of brands are coming up with innovative mobile marketing campaigns to reach out to their target customers. Just check out the facts below.

1. MMS (multimedia messaging service) has been the most successful form of mobile advertising in SA. Most MMS campaigns get a tremendous response within just 48 hours.

2. The response rate for mobile advertising in general has been very good. It’s usually in the range of 10% to 25%, which is way better than the response rates for traditional advertising methods.

3. Amazingly, only less than 1% of people unsubscribe from mobile advertising campaigns on an average.

4. The viral impact of mobile ads has been phenomenal, with mobile users sharing mobile ads with their friends, family, and other people.

5. A lot of companies in South Africa have started their own mobile websites to bring customized mobile content to their customers and the response has been pretty good.

So, South African market has debunked the fact that people in general are averse to mobile ads and all that. Needless to mention, South Africa is said to have the most proactive mobile user base in the world and their data rates are perhaps the cheapest in the world.

This has just reaffirmed my faith that providing useful, relevant mobile content at affordable rates is the key to successful mobile advertising.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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On why mobile web is the next big thing

Sometimes, people ask me why I get excited about the future of mobile web. Well; what do I tell them? Just check this out.

There are 3.3 billion mobile users in the world today as opposed to 1.5 billion TV users and 1.1 billion PC users.

In Japan, only 30% of use their PC to access the internet. The rest, a whopping 70%, use their mobile phones to access the internet. In other words, mobile browsing is the thing in Japan now.

In South Africa, mobile data plans are very cheap and this encourages people to use their mobile phone to access the internet. In fact, South Africa is one of the biggest markets for mobile web in the world.

Click through rates in mobile advertising are roughly 10 times more than the click through rates of traditional advertising. This will encourage mobile advertisers tremendously to join hands with carriers and offer ad funded mobile content via mobile web to people.

Any other doubts?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones, Mobile Web.

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Vodacom’s mobile advertising campaigns get encouraging results

Rick Joubert, the man in charge of mobile advertising in Vodacom, recently had something to say about Vodacom’s position in mobile advertising and the edge that mobile advertising can give you over other traditional methods of advertising. Some of the points he made were quite interesting.

To begin with, he says mobile phone is the seventh mass medium in the world today after print, recording, cinema, radio, TV, and the internet. He also says that the amount spent on mobile advertising will soon be as big as online advertising. Also, he feels that mobile advertising is kind of handicapped right now because the industry is not standardized and there is a lack of metrics.

But despite all this, Vodacom’s mobile advertising market in South Africa is going strong like anything. Given below are some of the figures released by Vodacom. Metropolitan Life, a campaign by Vodacom, generates about 100,000 leads per month.

Vodacom’s Nike branded mobile content gets downloaded 84,000 times.

Vodacom’s Steer branded mobile content gets downloaded 52,000 times.

Personal loan products for large banks generate around 35,000 leads per month.

Figures like these can give one a lot of confidence. Especially, for a market that is considered to be in its nascent stage, these figures are very encouraging.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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