Mobile Advertising to Go Mainstream?

A recent report from Limbo-GfK on mobile advertising has some encouraging news. It says that mobile advertising, as an advertising medium, is slowly becoming a mainstream phenomenon around the world. Here are some snippets from the report.

1. According to the report, nearly 35% of the mobile users in the U.S. got ads on their mobile phone during the fourth quarter of 2008. The number was particularly high with iPhone users – 42% of iPhone users in the country got mobile ads.

2. One third of mobile users who got ads responded to them in some way. Women, as expected, are more likely to respond than men.

3. 18-24 year-olds are most likely to respond to mobile ads.

4. In the UK, the mobile advertising market is growing bigger by the month. A lot of analysts have predicted a huge growth for the advertising medium which has made business owners, both small and large, take notice. As a result, a lot of marketers have decided to spend more on mobile advertising. The report claims that more than 50% of marketers in the UK have decided to increase their mobile advertising budgets in the coming months.

5. Already, more than 50% of advertising agencies in the UK have tried their hands on mobile advertising campaigns and have had relatively good success. So, it is likely to become an important part of the mainstream marketing plans both in the UK.

The way I see it, there are two important reasons why most marketers have decided to give mobile advertising a try. One is the huge success of companies like Blyk and AdMob. The other one, as we all know, is the global economic crisis which has made companies turn toward mobile advertising. At this credit-crunched time, it is obviously a wise move to spend on mobile advertising campaigns which are likely to give you better results than traditional advertising campaigns. Don’t you think?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising, All things mobile phones.

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Expert from MMA Discusses the Future of Mobile Marketing

Chasing The Storm has a good interview of Rohit Dadwal from MMA (Mobile Marketing Association). To my surprise, most of the things Rohit mentioned in the interview are things that I am already familiar with. In fact, anyone who has been following the mobile marketing industry closely could easily relate to what Rohit says in his interview. Some of the most important points he made include

1. SMS (short messaging service) marketing or text message marketing will continue to grow steadily in 2009.

2. Bad economy will make businesses and brands think twice before spending their money on traditional advertising. So, they are more likely to spend their advertising dollars only in mediums like mobile phone marketing that guarantee quantifiable returns and successes.

3. Mobile social networking will continue to grow steadily.

4. Mobile search marketing will become big.

5. Location based services will be a huge success and it will continue to play a major role in mobile marketing.

6. Mobile coupons and mobile alerts will become a lot more popular with people.

7. In the next five years, a lot of brands around the world will have a strong mobile presence. In fact, it will become so common that it will be unusual for a big brand to not have a strong mobile presence.

8. Mobile marketing is meant for businesses of all sizes. No matter how small or how big a business empire you have, all you need is the ability to reach the end users. So, businesses can benefit from mobile marketing irrespective of their size and popularity.

As you can see, none of the points made above is new. If you have been following the industry closely, you can see that it is growing steadily and moving in a direction exactly as predicted by experts a few years back. If it continues to grow the same way, it will be a multibillion dollar industry just as predicted. Don’t you think?

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

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Mobile Advertising Startups Attract VCs Despite Rough Economy

We already saw how bad economy has managed to make a lot of companies interested in mobile advertising. It does not stop there. It keeps getting better and better. According to the latest reports, a lot of VCs (venture capitalists) are interested to invest in mobile advertising start ups as they show a lot of promise despite the rough economy.

Two examples come to my mind right now.

1. Blyk, one of the most popular companies in the market right now, recently managed to raise more than $50 million in private investments in its third round of funding. Considering the growth it has had so far, I would have to say that the investors have made the right choice.

2. AdMob, yet another famous U.S. based company, managed to raise around $16 million a few months back. Again, considering the numbers we have seen so far, this does not sound surprising at all.

If you notice carefully, you can see that there has been a paradigm shift in the advertising industry lately. The money spent on traditional advertising methods like TV ads, radio ads, and print ads has come down significantly. At the same time, mobile advertising is slowly becoming a lot more affordable than it used to be in the past. And thanks to the state our economy is in right now, businesses cannot afford to spend money on ads that don’t deliver results.

The biggest advantage with mobile phone advertising is that it delivers terrific results. The average CTR (click through rate) of a mobile advertising campaign is in the range of 1.5% to 2%. In some cases, it has been unbelievably high thanks to specific, targeted advertising campaigns. For example, the average response rate of Blyk’s mobile ad campaigns is a whopping 29%. So, even if you spend a little more money than what you usually spend, you are bound to get very good results. This is what makes mobile advertising so good.

Research firm eMarketer says that mobile advertising market will grow significantly in the next few years. It says that the proliferation of high end phones has made things easier for mobile advertisers as these smartphones open a lot of possibilities for ads.

In summary – I just have to say what I always say. Mobile advertising is here to stay. Don’t you guys think so too?

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Mobile Advertising Rates Come Down Significantly

We all know how effective mobile advertising is. What most people don’t know is that it is cost effective as well. The CPI (cost per impression) rates for mobile advertising have come down quite a bit of late. Experts believe that this will make mobile advertising even more appealing to businesses around the world. A couple of reasons could be attributed to this phenomenon.

1. The first, and the most obvious, reason is the economy. Bad economy has taken its toll on many a thing across the country and mobile ad rates are not an exception as well.

2. The proliferation of mobile applications, especially the social media applications, is a very important reason. Mobile users tend to spend more time on these applications on their high end phones and, needless to add, this is very good news for mobile advertisers.

As a result, the average CPM (cost per thousand impressions) has come down to $15 as opposed to $20-25 last year. In fact, until last year, it was not uncommon to see $50 CPMs. Now, it is safe to conclude that they are history.

Industry experts say that mobile advertising, as an industry, has matured a lot in the recent past. Also, ever since mobile advertising started to attract the attention of mainstream media, there has been an influx of a huge number of companies like never before. This has made the concept of arbitrary pricing obsolete and has paved way to a systematic pricing.

While some people point out that that mobile advertising is still somewhat costlier than online advertising, the CTR (click through rates) tells a different story. The average CTR for mobile is in the range of 1.5% to 2% whereas it is only around 0.15% for online. So, despite the cost difference, mobile advertising is significantly more effective than online advertising or any other type of traditional advertising for that matter. Most importantly, as more and more companies enter the market and as the inventory increases significantly, the prices will come down even further. The way I see it, if things continue this way, then sooner than later, mobile advertising will become the most sought-after type of advertising.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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Thanks to Bad Economy, Companies Turn Toward Mobile Advertising En Masse

The current economic crisis has taken its toll on a lot of companies around the world. Traditional advertising campaigns are not as successful as they used to be and this has made everyone think really hard to come up with a new strategy. The new strategy, apparently, is something that has been in the news for quite some time now. It is called mobile advertising.

Here are a few examples.

Pop group New Kids on the Block decided to start their own mobile fan club for their ‘The Block’ tour this year. While they were touring, they added at least a 1000 fans to their club each night. Over a span of just over 60 days, the band has over 30,000 loyal fans in their mobile fan club. All these fans get regular updates on tour schedules, merchandise info, ticket sales, and venue details.

It took around one and a half years for Echo Management to build an email list of 17,000 members for country pop singer LeAnn Rimes. Later, they decided to give mobile phone advertising a try. The result – over 24,000 members added to the list with just 16 shows.

In the month of June, UMRG (Universal Motown Republic Group) promoted Lil Wayne’s album ‘Tha Carter III’ by organizing a mobile advertising campaign. The result – 124,000 phone calls in the first week and a mobile fan list consisting of 90,000 members in a surprisingly short period of time. The label has now made this mobile list into a premier mobile fan club.

A famous retailer sent both mobile alerts and email alerts to customers offering discounts and promotional offers. The mobile alert campaign was 16% more effective than the email campaign. Also, people who received mobile alerts spent, on an average, $13 more than people who received email alerts.

The name behind these mobile advertising campaigns is Mozes – a very famous mobile marketing company. The web based platform from Mozes helps mobile advertisers create and manage simple yet effective mobile ad campaigns. The company has had a lot of success of late. The numbers are staggering. Take a look at some of the milestones reached by the company.

1. A whopping 3.5 mobile connections in a single month.

2. 130,000 mobile connections in a single day.

3. On an average, the company gets at least 7000 voice calls from fans.

4. Over 500 well known artists have a Mozes widget on their website or social networking profile.

A lot of experts believe that mobile marketing will be the key format of marketing in 2009. A mobile marketing campaign is very easy to create, even easier to manage, can easily reach the target customer base, and most importantly, gives amazing results. So, the future, like I’ve always said, is mobile.

Categories: Cell Phone Advertising.

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