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What was your favorite part?

She pointed out that mobile campaigns and the way they can be launched and tracked is not consistent across vendors and therefore brands are not able to get apples to apples results in reporting. I agree this is a big obstacle. Do you? What other obstacles do you see and, more importantly, how can we overcome them?

With mobile being the newest kid on the block it may seem prudent to let it wait. Just stick with the tried and true methods. Keep it safe. My take on it is that it is the perfect time to jump in with mobile marketing. It is actually the perfect marketing tool for tough economic times because there is no better time to use a tool that is a direct response mechanism that is timely and relevant to consumers. The results you get from mobile marketing are trackable and can make your other marketing trackable. Plus you can beat your competition to the punch with mobile.

Six Reasons Mobile Marketing is the Perfect Tool for Tough Economic Times:

1.
It is a Direct Response Tool

Mobile marketing is a direct response tool – people can quickly and easily respond to your marketing by using their mobile device. This is perfect for tough economic times because if you set up your marketing campaign to be direct response you can measure what is working. And when you build your campaign around the response being a revenue-generating activity then you will be actively bringing in business that you know came from a specific campaign.

2.
Done Correctly, It is Relevant to Consumers

When you offer something of value to consumers and provide it to them when they need it wherever they happen to be, you are the hero. In rough times consumers are looking for ways to save money and they always want to save time and be smart. Give them these things via mobile and you both win.

3.
Nothing is More Timely

There is no faster way to reach consumers than through mobile. If they are looking for you on their mobile browser having a mobile-friendly website makes that possible. If you have enticed them to be on your mobile alert list you can contact them when even email is too slow.

4.
Mobile Marketing is Trackable

Not only can you track your mobile marketing efforts, you can use mobile marketing to track results of you other marketing efforts. By adding a mobile response option (call in on your mobile now, text in to win or even browse to a certain mobile-friendly URL) you can see which of your marketing is getting a response. If you find that a particular marketing effort is simply not paying off you can stop doing it and thereby save money on ineffective marketing.

5.
It Helps Your Other Marketing Be More Effective

Adding in a response mechanism to your advertising and marketing adds a level of excitement and interaction to your other marketing that is unusual. Instead of just staying with the tried and true which may have become boring to your customers, you can bring mobile to the table and step things up.

6.
Your Competition is Not Using it Yet

Because mobile marketing is the newest marketing tool in the toolbox not very many businesses are using it yet. You have the chance to jump in first and reap the biggest rewards. Mobile is as new and exciting to consumers as the internet once was. The opportunity is ripe to be one of the first businesses to get going. Just do it. Really.

What do you think?
Does it depend upon where you live? I bet this question even seems odd to those of you in Asia, Europe or Australia.

Text to Cheer
Let’s see athlete support spurred on via mobile. I’d love to see a way to vote for a favorite athlete or even cheer for someone with text messages.  NBC could use the votes to decide which athletes to give more coverage to and which ones to tease the show with. Sponsors could see who is really worth the big sponsor dollars based on their texted in cheers. As a consumer it would be so much fun and would make me feel like I was more a part of the excitement.

Athlete Bios on Mobile
The Olympics are all about the athletes and when someone is competing I love to know a little bit about them. I’d love to have access to athlete bios on the mobile sites so I can find out some fun details about my favorites.  This seems the perfect opportunity to drive a lot of traffic to a mobile site. The commercials that told viewers about this source of information would then blend in with the content of the games and cease to be interruptive.

Olympic Trivia Contests
Wouldn’t it be fun to engage with the sportscasters interactively as they share what’s going on in the competition? It would make it more interesting to listen to the sportscasters and make the games all that much more exciting. Plus if there was the added chance to win something it would be fun. Maybe anyone who guessed the right answer would get their national anthem played on their phone.

What do you hope to see during the Olympics as it relates to mobile?

]]> http://mobilemarketingprofits.com/170/my-3-wishes-for-the-olympics-mobile/feed/ 1 http://mobilemarketingprofits.com/85/why-the-mobile-web-must-survive/ http://mobilemarketingprofits.com/85/why-the-mobile-web-must-survive/#comments Thu, 24 Apr 2008 12:17:46 +0000 Kim Dushinski http://mobilemarketingprofits.com/?p=85 Much has been said about the death of the mobile web since Mowser’s founder Russell Beattie announced he was closing down his company. The reaction has been everything from agreement (here) to saying the mobile web is misunderstood, complete disagreement (here, here , here and here) and a lot of conversation about how the iPhone has/will change everything (including here).

My take on the mobile web is that it MUST survive. Not because any of us in the mobile industry need it to, but because the ultimate customers (the everyday guys and gals on the street using their phones to access the Internet) do.

While I do absolutely love the iPhone commercials and think the marketing team behind them is brilliant I also think they are confusing a lot of folks. They make it seem like people want to browse the Internet on mobile in the exact same way they do when they have a life-size (not pocket size) computer. I just don’t think that is true.

Think about it for a second, the reason a person goes online with their mobile is to find something or do something specific because they ARE mobile. If they had access to a full sized computer monitor and a keyboard their fingers actually fit on, they would use it. Maybe they do have access to a full sized computer, but think that jumping online on their phone will be quicker. This means they are looking for something specific, not leisurely browsing or researching. Consumers need to find that something and be able to consume it easily.

Make no mistake about it, I’m not saying the mobile web is WAP, far from it. The mobile web at its best is sites like m.redbook.com, m.tvguide.com, mobile.allrecipes.com and tarotreading.mobi. These sites are designed specifically for consumers to use them while they are mobile. The best features of their sites that people want are there, ready to be consumed easily via mobile. Ta Dah – this is the mobile web.

As Giff Gfroerer, i2SMS commented amid all this discussion:

Simply put, one can not put their entire Internet site onto what people see when they pull up their site from a mobile web browser. Figure out what content your consumers will need from their mobile device and make that front and center.

Yes, that’s it. I couldn’t have said it better myself.

It will be even better when consumers don’t need to choose a specific mobile URL but will automatically be directed to the proper content for how they are consuming it. And if they want the full site on their mobile to be able to choose that too. That is the future of the mobile web as I see it.

It is our job as mobile industry professionals, marketers and businesses to help consumers get what they want and need as quickly as possible whether they are using an iPhone, smartphone or flip phone. It really isn’t about what phone anyone is using, it is about the experience they have. If we want that experience to be good then the mobile web must survive.

Tomi Ahonen wrote a very interesting blog post about how companies can utilize consumers’ movements, mobile activities and social interaction (their digital footprint) to more effectively market to them. As with pretty much everything Tomi writes, it is worth a read. It is also worth some time actively considering the implications of digital footprints and their use in marketing.

First of all, he talks about how a digital footprint is created:

Take a typical London resident, working in the City. He (or she, we don’t care at this point) spends most weeknights and weekend nights at one area of London, regularly. Lets say the Earl’s Court area. If this customer spends most nights there, that is the real home, the real address. While we don’t know necessarily the street address of this guy, we know at least by cell identity, which section of Earl’s Court the person lives in.

He goes on to explain in a lot more detail about this concept including how to know a person’s interests, lifestyle and decision making processes by what they do and where they go with their mobile phone. It is fascinating reading.

I don’t know about you, but I read these kinds of things differently depending upon whether I am thinking like a marketer or a consumer at the moment I’m reading it.

As a consumer I am shocked to think that someone would be tracking all of my movements and activities based on the fact that I happen to have my cell phone with me at all times. It feels like 1984 all of a sudden (and not in that good-I’m-still-a-senior-in-high-school kind of way).

As a marketer I am excited by the possibilities of being able to use mobile marketing in such a way that it adds so much value to peoples’ lives that they don’t even realize it is marketing. After all, if all marketing/advertising that was presented to you was actually valuable to you, it wouldn’t even feel like marketing. It would feel like life.

After all, providing value with mobile marketing is critical (with or without the whole digital footprint concept) and one I strongly advocate. As I’m explaining in my series about what value to provide with mobile (started here), consumers simply won’t engage with mobile marketing unless there is something in it for them.

What do you think about this digital footprint concept? As a consumer? As a marketer? I’d love to know.

As a normal cellphone user – I don’t want the full internet. I want what I want, when I want it. Information from Rss feeds, the ability to browse a few mobile-friendly sites and blogs, and the ability to make transactions at my bank or other vendor safely and easily.

I’m not writing full documents out in public. I want quick viewing that loads quickly and gives me what I want. I want 20-30 minutes of easy reading time when I’m standing in line, or waiting for the wife to shop, or looking for sports scores. I don’t want ESPN.com – I want the mobile version of ESPN that gives me the football scores, some video, and columns I want to read.

So what do you want on the mobile web?

I do this for two reasons. First, I want to keep my blog on topic about mobile and secondly, I am very curious about how other people use their mobile devices. (Surely I can’t be the only one who speed dials accidentally at odd hours – see #1.) Anyway, here goes:

1.
Recently I had to turn off my Speed Dial because I kept dialing my dad’s phone number when I was trying to hit the snooze button on my phone. (On my Treo 700wx the snooze options pop up right on top of the speed dial photos. If I accidentally double tapped the snooze it started dialing. Not a good thing since I routinely set the alarm for 5 AM.)

2.
I put up with an error message showing up on my phone about a program (an alarm clock) that I have uninstalled because I have no idea how to make this error message go away. (This seems like the equivalent of 12:00 flashing over and over again on the VCR.)

3.
I set an alarm to remind me to pick up my daughter from school. I’m afraid that I’ll be so focused on writing my book that I’ll forget.

4.
Evidentially, my phone is a portable alarm clock.

5.
I fervently wish that more of my friends were text messagers. Did I mention this is a fervent wish? I also wish my mom would turn on her cell phone all the time so I could call her on it, but she insists that if she needs to call someone she will turn it on then. At least my dad is reachable – he has three cell phones.

6.
I am the room parent at my daughter’s school and had hoped to be able to text message other parents with alerts. No such luck. Out of 54 parents, only 2 of us text message. Thankfully, 26 of the 27 families do email. Note to Chase’s parents: GET EMAIL!

7.
Since I am in the making wishes mode, I would like to request that Atlantis Quest be made mobile for my Treo so I can play this totally awesome game all the time.

I am now tagging:

YOU.

Please put your 7 Things About My Mobile Use in the comments. Or feel free to blog about it and trackback here.