CorpComms Magazine

Imagine a world where you can communicate directly with thousands of willing customers at the touch of a button, and then herd them in droves through the doors of your store or to your firm's website.

It may sound the stuff of dreams but mobile marketing, as this phenomenon is called, can make it a reality. Last year more than 1.3 mn text messages were sent every second from over 60 mn mobile phones in the UK - more than one handset for every man, woman and child in the country.

Calling all ages

Nor is this just a young person's phenomenon. Consultancy Mintel estimates that three quarters of those aged 55-64 now use a mobile phone. Indeed, such is the allure of a mobile that, according to studies commissioned by Ofcom, Carphone Warehouse and mobile marketing group Enpocket, 42 percent of users favour making calls with a mobile to using their landline at home, while 80 percent sleep with their phones switched on, and 38 percent would go home for a forgotten phone before they would go back for their wallet.

Even more interestingly, in the first three months of 2006, more than half (57 percent) of 18-34-year-olds questioned said they use their mobile phone to interact with a company in response to its marketing efforts.

So if a company can get it right, marketing to customer s via their mobiles is a no-brainer. And many have already started. High street book chain Borders, for example, recently emailed 480,000 recipients of its newsletter to ask if they would like to receive money-off vouchers by text message, which could be redeemed by showing their phone with the vouchers displayed to the person behind the till. More than two thirds agreed.

Mobile marketing is particularly successful because the people a company is opening a dialogue with have actually opted to do so - spam text messages are now forbidden. Borders also asked people if they would be happy to receive more communications via their mobile; again, two thirds agreed. This meant the firm could compile a new database with the mobile numbers of around 220,000 people it already knew to be interested in its products.

It also got willing customers through the doors of its shops. 'You are getting your product into the hands of the consumers,' says Scott Seaborn, head of technical marketing at Uxbridge-based technology agency Magnet Harlequin. 'We investigated mobile technology as a means of extending our voucher programme,' adds Laura Stafford, marketing manager at Borders. 'Mobiles are such an everyday part of people's lives now; it just seemed to make sense.'

Casting the net

The most basic form of mobile marketing is text message response, also known as SMS response. This involves asking phone users to text a keyword to a five-digit phone number, typically by placing the keyword and number on marketing material or in a television advert.

You might text the word 'brochure' to 82222, for example, in order to receive a request for your address, or even a link to an online brochure. Or you might respond to a competition on the back of a food packet, by sending the answer via text message to a given number. 'This adds hype and captures user eyeballs,' explains Tim Dunn, head of marketing services at marketing group MIG. Companies can respond to users by sending an internet link that takes users to the brand's internet site, which could include competitions, downloads or more product information. Or companies could respond with money-off vouchers, as Borders did.

Laundry powder Colour Catcher launched a free sample campaign using TV adverts with an SMS response option. The aim was to increase sales, which had stagnated for the previous five years. 'Tens of thousands of samples were requested during the month-long campaign,' says Dunn, whose firm oversaw the campaign. 'During that period, Colour Catcher experienced an unprecedented 300 percent increase in sales. Following the campaign, sales settled at 60 percent above the base level, which is where they remain.'

In another example, posters advertising Hollywood blockbuster The Bourne ultimatum invited passers-by to 'Engage with Bourne' by taking a photo of the poster, sending it to the number on the poster, and receiving an internet- link message, which, when clicked, took them to the Bourne website.

Response to such a campaign is easy to measure. 'Each week, the brand can receive a report from us that shows it how many responses it has received, on what day and at what time,' explains Medi Gibbs, PR and market ing manager for mobile marketing provider Ad.IQ. 'By using a different keyword on each advert, the brand can also find out which media are generating the most responses.'

SMS response marketing can be very effective, says Chris Bourke, managing director of creative advertising agency Aerodeon. 'You do see a much higher response rate than with other forms of marketing because even where people are too lazy to get off the couch to fire up their laptop, they will still pull out their mobile and send a text message,' he notes.

On the move

'Often people don't want to talk to anyone. They would much rather just send a text,' adds Robert Thurner, commercial director at Incentivated, a mobile marketing provider.

Mobile marketing has the additional advantage of capturing people who are out and about. You might not remember to respond to an advert you saw on a train journey by the time you get home, but if you can respond while still on the train, you are much more likely to do so.

It is also possible to use Bluetooth technology to target your brand message at the r ight audience. Aerodeon used Bluetooth transmitters at the Ski Show at London's Kensington Olympia last year to publicise the Discover y Channel 's Snow patrol programme. It sent alerts that would be picked up by Bluetooth users, asking if they would like to receive a message from the Discovery Channel; an impressive 60 percent said 'yes'.

The possibilities for this grow as more train stations, airports and other public areas put in permanent Bluetooth transmitters. Bourke believes Bluetooth has to be carefully targeted, however. 'We knew many people at the Ski Show would have Bluetooth switched on; this sort of technique wouldn't necessarily work at a random bus shelter,' he points out.

The mobile internet offers further possibilities for mobile marketing. 'Website addresses are often used in advertising, which is fine if you happen to be near a PC,' says Thurner. 'But you could be at the airport or waiting for a train. Using the mobile internet means you can advertise your brand on terms that are convenient for the customer.'

For now, this form of advertising is still predominantly aimed at those in the 18-24 age bracket, and has only really begun to take off in the past 18 months, with most adverts appearing on youth websites. But, says Seaborn, as these people get older and continue to use more sophisticated forms of mobile phone technology, the appeal of mobile advertising will inevitably widen.

Bourke also believes mobile advertising can only get more popular. 'In 2000, we thought SMS was just for teenage girls - now text-messaging has become the norm for everyone,' he notes. 'Five years ago, we could not have run a mobile marketing campaign aimed at mothers communicating with their kids. Now we could do.'

Phoenix from the flames

Although the first wave of mobile internet technology launched a decade ago failed to take off, it is now seeing a major resurrection. 'There is a real growth in broadband speed on mobile phones - 7 mn people a month use the internet on their mobiles now,' says Bourke.

The cost of a mobile marketing campaign can vary considerably. For SMS response campaigns, a mobile marketing provider will usually charge 4p-5p per message sent. A one-off text-to-win competition might cost a brand £2,500 while a more complicated, highly targeted and longer-term campaign using more sophisticated technology could easily cost as much as £20,000.

'Ultimately, you will probably save 75 percent to 80 percent of the costs of traditional print advertising for the response you can achieve,' says Colin Stewart, director of marketing group Interlinked.

'It's quite possible to build a small mobile internet site and buy media on two operator portals, all for under £10,000 - so what's stopping you?' asks Dunn. 'A trial campaign will feed back detailed results. Remember, your consumers are out there on their mobiles today. Why not get out there and let them find you?'

How to make mobile internet sites work for you

Mobile phones these days are radically different from the huge battery-like boxes with handsets of the 1980s. But because the mobile goes through huge transformations every few months, there are still hundreds of different devices being used, all with different capabilities and functions - so the biggest challenge you will face when setting up a mobile internet site is making sure it can be viewed from as many of them as possible.

'You might be targeting a certain demographic with highend handsets,' says Rich Holdsworth, co-founder of mobile internet solutions Wapple. 'But it would be foolish to allow your site to fail should those users want to share the experience with someone who has an older device.'

Mobile phone users sophisticated enough to access the mobile internet with their handsets will not be impressed if your site looks dated. 'White screens, black text and blue links are so 1998,' says Holdsworth. 'A technically inferior mobile site stands out like a sore thumb, and a site built with little design consideration is rarely able to carry a brand accurately. So strive to design in a colour scheme that reflects the message of the site you're creating.'

Holdsworth recommends making sure the content of a mobile internet site is truly compatible with mobile phone use. 'When we view a web page, most of us will be viewing on at least a 17-inch screen, using a full keyboard armed with a mouse,' he explains. 'On a mobile device, things are more limited. The screen is smaller, the page is vertically stacked and scrolling top to bottom can take what seems like a lifetime. So ensure your content is bite-sized and easily navigable. Don't fill a page with useless links, and try to group common features and functions together.'

Furthermore, a mobile site stacked with sophisticated graphics, rich text and widgets can take a long time to squeeze down into a handset. 'It is essential to balance the amount of graphics and their quality with the desired speed to download,' says Holdsworth. 'Good content is worth downloading but users will not be happy if you add three seconds to every page load just to have a cool banner at the top.'

That doesn't mean, however, that you should just offer users the same old boring mobile content to download, such as wallpapers and ringtones; there are lots of new interactive applications you can add to your site, as long as you have the technology to make sure it works properly.

The most important page on your mobile internet site is the homepage. 'From the outset, users will have invested a significant amount of energy just finding your site, by texting in or by entering a thumb-blistering URL,' says Holdsworth. 'If your site does not impress from the homepage, users tend to switch off immediately - so make it count.'

Finally, Holdsworth says it is essential to use a 'dynamic' rather than a 'hard-coded' website if you want to ensure your site can be viewed on as many different handsets as possible. 'This will mean adapting graphics, working around known device issues, and so on,' he notes. 'This requires a higher grade of site technology, but it is worth it in the end.'

Top tips for effective mobile marketing

1) Involve the mobile marketing provider from the outset in the construction and development of your marketing campaign. 'All too often, we get brought in right at the end of a marketing campaign,' says Chris Bourke, managing director of advertising agency Aerodeon. 'It's much better if the mobile part is truly integrated from the start.'

2) Make sure the call to action is prominent on your marketing or advertising material. 'TV ads are all about making something look great, so it is tempting to squash the word and text number into a tiny corner,' says Bourke. 'The ad-maker thinks it's more beautiful that way, but you have to consider what's most important.'

3) Target your audience. 'It's easy to spend a lot of money across the mobile platform - SMS works universally, although MMS probably still works for a younger crowd only,' notes Bourke. 'But if you tried to aim a Bluetooth campaign at stay-at-home mothers, you would probably be disappointed with the results.'

4) Use incentives. 'The mobile experience is about fun videos and other download content, competition entries, or free samples,' explains Tim Dunn, head of marketing services at MIG. 'Offering people product info or trying to get them to sign up for a customer relationship management programme without offering them some incentive is unlikely to engage many users.

5) Make your mobile website fun and easy to use. 'Behind the banner, your site must be colourful, cool, creative and - above all - brief,' warns Dunn. 'People use WAP for short periods, so make it quick and easy to reward them, engage them and gather their data.'

6) Evaluate your campaign. 'With mobile advertising so nascent, there are still relatively few supporting case studies, so create your own,' suggests Dunn. 'Review which placements worked, where you have best captured the target demographic, and use SMS survey techniques on opted-in users to gauge consumer feedback.'

7) Make it short and sweet. 'Keep it simple - don't ask for too much information in the first reply text as this is off-putting,' says Medi Gibbs, marketing and PR manager at Ad.IQ. 'Use a keyword - for example, text 'Brochure'. That's memorable, not too long, and makes reference to the brand or the campaign.'

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