Mobile Devices Are Hot Ticket This Holiday Season
For kids, it's Bakugan. For teens and young adults, it's a video game system like Wii, Xbox 360 or PS3. But for adults, the hot item this holiday season is the Blackberry Storm. It is a must-have item on many people's lists, and finding one at a store is almost impossible. Following in the footsteps of the iPhone, it's another mobile device that does a million cool things that people are fighting to get. With advanced mobile devices so deeply penetrating the marketplace, will marketers ever figure out a good strategy to interact with customers on them?
Marketers have been very gun-shy about interacting with customers in the mobile channel. They don't want another email spam experience on their hands. Of course everything must be opt-in, and the telecom carriers add another layer of complexity. But it's where customers are, and marketers need to create a valuable contact strategy with a strong mobile component.
Many marketers I talk to aren't sure exactly how to proceed with mobile. Some companies are slowly inching toward using it as a transaction channel (see the Marketing Xfactor article "Retailers Inch Closer to Mobile Payment Reality"), while others, especially entertainment companies, use promotions and contests to interact with customers and fans.
Mobile strategy is best used when it incorporates two key elements -- portability and immediacy. Marketers have gotten used to near real-time interaction with email, but mobile kicks that up a notch. I'm not sure average marketers are ready to deal with that type of immediacy.
With so many people so excited about all their mobile phones can do, there is plenty of opportunity to build loyalty with the mobile channel.
How is your company approaching mobile marketing strategy?
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Very interesting post, Elizabeth. Many marketers do seem to be in the experimental stage with the mobile channel. It will be interesting to see what kind of strategies will be used here.
Knotice's Bill Landers shares a few tips on how to build a good mobile marketing campaign in his latest blog post: http://lunchpail.knotice.com/2008/12/09/how-to-build-a-good-mobile-marketing-campaign/