CRM - May 2008 - (Page 24)

MOBILE MARKETING campaign with the rest of your business? Some regions are way ahead of the U.S. on those fronts. In Japan, people surf the Net by phone more than they do by computer. South Korean mobile bandwidths are 16 megabits per second (mbps); in the U.S., most cable modems range from six to eight mbps. It’s not as simple as transporting knowledge from one continent to the other. The market has to be ripe, the dynamics in line. Experts say that expensive phones and monthly charges for texting and Internet access are slowing America’s adoption. (Americans are also more inclined to use voice minutes when traveling within the privacy of their cars.) Consequently, though interest may be high in the U.S., Strother says, the actual demand for mobile marketing is just emerging. While the evolution of an advanced mobile society is inevitable, experts warn against waiting for technology to catch up to innovation. Companies can provide a service that appeals to early adopters, but they can also prepare for the coming mainstream audience. In other words, it might not be smart to have a service that only works with the iPhone when most people are still texting from a number pad. In such a competitive market, James Wanless, chief operating officer and cofounder of voice technologies company Talkster, has seen more than enough companies disappear before the technology caught up. Given that the mobile market is still relatively nascent, Wanless says companies should avoid focusing solely on the technology. Instead, the solution can advance as the technology evolves, becoming more sophisticated and more relevant to the end user. MAKING MARKETING MOBILE “It takes a certain amount of creativity, not just to gamble, but to experiment or try something new—to break through the clutter,” Strother says. So far, only a Applications of Mobile Marketing Promote: Companies trying to increase brand awareness and attract potential customers can deliver coupons or promotional offers to a targeted demographic. With a tangible incentive, consumers will have more of a reason to explore new options. WHO’S DOING IT: Toyota launched a mobile campaign to promote its FJ Cruiser as it competed in the annual off-road race, the Baja 1000. The campaign included video and banner ads that brought users to a branded microsite. Interactive material—videos, ads, driver-blogs, and images—provided by MobiTV allowed customers to further engage with the product. Service: Especially relevant in CRM, companies can extend an existing relationship and gain a loyal customer. WHO’S DOING IT: International shipping company UPS provides a mobile notification service that updates customers on the status of their packages in transit. An email notification service was available, customers didn’t want to be tied to their computers. Transact: Mobile users enjoy equipping their phones with accessories such as ringtones, games, news and financial alerts, wallpapers, and horoscopes. WHO’S DOING IT: Carriers and certain Web sites provide these features. According to a study by telecom and mobile-media research firm Telephia (now Nielsen Mobile), premium SMS download purchases—ones billed directly to the mobile-phone owner—from off-portal storefronts amounted to approximately $215 million in the first quarter of 2007. SOURCES: BILL JONES, PRESIDENT OF AIR2WEB; TELEPHIA handful of brands have attempted nationwide mobile campaigns. For the most part, they’re the Fortune 500 companies, such as Coca-Cola and Toyota, that have the luxury of taking such risks. Getting feedback at the point of interaction was “almost impossible” or extremely expensive with traditional methods, says Kirk Hendrickson, director of product management of mobile products at MarketTools. The key to mobile marketing is not to be trendy, but to fill in the gaps and reach consumers in places they could never be reached if they were online. Whether it’s waiting on line at the store or passing by a billboard on the road, the lag time between when consumers see an advertisement and when they sit down at a computer could be just long enough for them to forget the ad entirely, or more likely, to not care enough to expend the effort. Despite modest adoption, mobiletechnology vendors have been popping up everywhere over the past decade. Despite what Strother calls a “crowded field,” the complexity of the mobile space has created a multitude of challenges— and no one has fully “cracked the code.” It’s not as easy as merely making the Web interface mobile; vendors have to address key components such as the ability to work across the networks of various carriers and service providers, the differing phone functionalities, the individual phone plans, the requirements of the advertisers—and, of course, smaller screens.“Realistically,” agrees Charles Golvin, principal analyst at Forrester Research, “[existing] vendors all have one problem or another.” And those problems persist. While Strother says that we’re beyond the basic experimentation, technology providers remain in the trial-and-error phase, figuring out what works and what doesn’t. Companies watching from the sidelines are learning from those successes and failures before diving in. “Over time, these things get sorted out,” Strother says. “Presumably, the mediocre stuff will go away and the good stuff will last.” He adds that nothing is for sure at this point, given the uncertainty of the landscape. www.destinationCRM.com 24 CUSTOMER RELATIONSHIP MANAGEMENT | MAY 2008 http://www.destinationCRM.com

Table of Contents Feed for the Digital Edition of CRM - May 2008

CRM - May 2008 Contents Front Office Feedback Reality Check Customer Centricity The Tipping Point Is CRM Too Hard for Microsoft Vendors Go Virtual For Feedback Sense-sational Marketing How UGC Can Benefit CRM DestinationCRM Dashboard Price Check, Aisle 5 Required Reading The Moving Target The Excellence Myth Seven Steps to SOA Success And They're Off! Are You Ready to Party? Skin in the Game The Right Numbers Secret of My Success Re: Tooling Connect Pint of View

CRM - May 2008

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