Although almost every adult in the United States has a cell phone, some demographics are better targets for mobile marketing efforts than others.

Mobile advertising best to target young men.

According to a study by BIGresearch, mobile marketing efforts are best suited to target the following groups:

  * Young Men — This group is very cell phone-centered and are likely to be regular users of social media such as Facebook, MySpace, or Twitter.  At the opposite end of the spectrum are older women who are less likely to be centered around their cell phones or to use social media.

  *  Electronics — Mobile advertising is more effective when targeting specific industries or product groups such as electronics.  Those who are regular users of mobile marketing tend to be far more likely to purchase  electronics over the next six months than those who did not like mobile marketing.

  *  Advice — Mobile marketing users are more likely to both give advice and seek advice about products or services they have purchased.

The study confirmed the dominance of males in mobile advertising.  57.8% of those who use mobile marketing are male versus only 46.2% of the American public being male.  The average age of those using mobile advertising is 39.2, slightly younger than the 45.9 year-0ld age of non-users.  37.9% of mobile marketing users utilize Facebook versus only 26% of non-users.

 The good news for legitimate mobile marketers is that more consumers are now understanding that mobile marketing is true opt-in marketing.  58% of people in the study now understand that mobile marketers need permission prior to sending a mobile advertisement.  This is up 3% over last year’s study.

Insisting on permission prior to sending a mobile marketing message is an important factor for all legitimate direct marketers.  It is good news that consumers will insist on permission prior to be marketed to, for that is precisely why mobile marketing is so effective.

The battlefront that has opened up between Google and Apple is very interesting. With rumors hotting up about the imminent launch of a Google phone (here) and the recent acquisition of AdMob, Google have clearly stepped up in the mobile space. It worthy of note Eric Schmidt was on Apple’s board until only a few months ago..

If the Google phone launches clearly it will be pitched head to head with the I Phone. Android as an OS has been around a while now and you could argue that there have been Google phones in the market for a couple of years, however I believe that if Google launch a pure Google branded handset then this is a very different play. They are suddenly playing in Apples backyard, offering the same tech and software market offer that Apple do (and use as a USP against Microsoft) apposed to the open source OS, OEM partnerships that we have seen to date. If you believe the rumors the Apple looked at AdMob (here) then you could conclude that this was not only an aggressive move into mobile but a strategic move against Apple.

Brand Republic have also just reported that Apple is considering introducing advertising on its iPhones, iPods, computers and Apple TV which users would have to watch or listen to before being allowed to use the products (here) the article came about after Apple filed a -patent application in the US for ‘enforcement routine’ software. It is understood that this will allow Apple to create unskippable ads that could help reduce the cost of the products.

So the question is, is Apple about to enter the advertising space?  If so is the first battleground mobile advertising?

Is Google entering the handset market?

In other words are they both entering each others markets?

Could be an interesting year, and we may not have seen the end of mobile ad technolgy company aquisitions.

AdMod, recently bought by Google, has released some interesting learnings, extracted from the data of the past two years. 

- The number of monthly ad requests in the AdMob network increased 6.3x over the past 2 years from 1.6 billion in September 2007 to 10.2 billion in September 2009.

- 64 countries sent more than 10 million requests in September 2009, compared to only 16 countries in September 2007.

- In September 2007, the top 10 mobile devices included 8 models by Nokia or Sony Ericsson.  In September 2009, these brands only have 3 models left in the top 10 (the N95, K800i and 5800 XpressMusic). The others have been replaced by phones from RIM (Blackberry), HTC and Apple (iPhone).

More details here

About

Think Forward

Out of the several influences mentioned in the article, marketing had the biggest influence over my purchasing decision. The elements of marketing’s influences are: product, price, and service. CarMax, in my opinion, has the best selection of used cars to choose from. Their vehicles are serviced, repaired and stamped for approval before hitting the show floor. The company reveals all records of the car’s history. They ensured I got a quality vehicle and the buying process was executed in a timely, professional manner.
I also consider myself a bargain shopper. It doesn’t matter how small or big of a purchase I’m always looking for huge saving. I felt that I saved time and money with CarMax. I got what I wanted for my trade in, I got the below asking price on my new purchase, and walked away with cash in my pocket. CarMax has an active marketing campaign that promotes an easy and simple solution to buying and selling cars. As a valued customer, I can they stand by every car that is sols off their lot, however, I can only base this off my two experiences and the long line of people I see at the payment counter when I pay my car note. CarMax has set a standard for itself that it upholds to its customers. They fix it right and they have the great prices. Combine that with innovation and superior customer service you have a solid top management company, which does a great job relaying its message to its constituencies. Who in turn prioritize and execute very well. The end result, another car sold. According to “Consumer Buying Behavior (2009),” the number of influences on consumer behavior is limitless (“KnowThis.com”). CarMax does an excellent job of surveying consumer’s needs. By understanding their needs they can develop effective marketing campaigns to influence their purchasing decision.

Reference
Consumer Buying Behavior “2009”
http://www.knowthis.com/principles-of-marketing-tutorials/consumer-buying-behavior/

My opinion on the below article:

I personally do not see a shift back to SMS advertising.  Working with one of the largest open mobile networks across Europe we see a huge increase in display and text link based advertising.  They work and work well.  Currently, SMS advertising can cost far too much.  CTR’s on SMS advertising generally are much less than display or text links.  SMS can cost an advertiser up to £200 CPM, whereas display and text links will vary from much lower CPM’s or CPC’s.  Whilst with SMS you can get reach that a branding campaign will demand, the majority of campaigns in the UK market this year have been DR.  Moving forward, I believe Network Operators will need to focus on more integrated campaigns across all mobile properties like: Display, Text Links, Video Pre & Post, Idle Screen, Voice Messages, SMS, MMS, Customer Service Messages and so on.

I believe agencies find mobile advertising a challenge because they are learning it is never just about selling an ad spot. Mobile advertising often forms part of a wider mobile marketing strategy tied in with CRM, Customer Acquisition and Engendering Loyalty.  In addition, it often forms part of a campaign that is integrated into traditional media which again presents further hurdles.  Therefore, when brands want and need to understand the entire spectrum and not just the advertising element many agencies struggle.    We can keep blaming lack of clarity on where the buying points are and lack of ad-serving capabilities and reporting but I think this is a weak argument.  All growing industries will have these kind of challenges.  The key should be more focused on how we can work better together, understand each others skills and how this can transform into combined positive output to the client.

To summarize, Mobile is so different to traditional media.  Historically speaking, it has always been ‘ONE FORMAT’ Print, Radio, TV or online.  Mobile is a whole world of different formats from one device to the next few thousand, all with different capabilities and don’t forget the users all come with different mindsets.  It requires specialist knowledge to effectively utilize this channel and understand the dynamics.  This is not knowledge that can be shared overnight and will take time for all to learn.

Whilst I agree it has been tough year from a recession perspective I would argue that mobile marketing and advertising budgets have grown and not been cut.  Well this is certainly what we are experiencing having a record year in the UK. As mobile budgets traditionally have been so small brands cut the bigger budgets in TV, Print, Radio and Online. If anything mobile budgets have grown this year and I certainly would anticipate huge growth in 2009 from 2008.

This is not going to happen over night.  Online took a good part of 11 years.

by Global Telecoms Business

Mobile operators have extensive data about their customers, so why aren’t they earning more revenue from advertising? The market seems as far away as ever, according to key participants in the business


Jay Seaton of Airwide: Trying to force-fit ads to
thousands of different handsets is an issue

Mike Short of Telefónica: Mobile advertising is
going to have to have a debate about reach and
responsibility

John Rands of WIN: Sometimes an agency puts
together a campaign and will do mobile as well

Neil Wentworth of mCentric: Brands are in the
dark. They have no idea how to access people by mobile

Why has mobile advertising not had the stunning success that many have been forecasting for so long? For years the mobile industry has looked for ways to earn revenue by targeting its users with advertising — and there has even been a whole operator, Blyk, which wanted to cut call costs to zero if its customers simply checked a few ads every day.

But little has been achieved, even with smartphones that could, in theory, deliver high-quality content to phone users.

Indeed, says Nick Lane, chief analyst at research company MobileSquared, where operators are achieving anything it’s via the 15-year-old technology of SMS. “We spoke to 30-35 operators around the world,” says Lane. “Just over 60% said they used SMS messaging as the foundation for next generation messages. A lot of agencies are going back to SMS. There’s a shift away from what people were saying 12 months ago.”

James Tagg, head of mobile at ad agency Starcom MediaVest, agrees: “It’s been a very tough world for mobile advertising this year,” he says. The recession means advertising budgets have been cut around the world “and mobile was the first to be cut — massively”.

One of the reasons is that mobile advertising still earns small revenues for agencies, which employ few specialists in the medium. “Some have only two people covering mobile, compared with 30 for print advertising. There’s only so much those people can do until the money is there. We’re not losing money but we’re not making huge money.”

And behind that, “most clients don’t really understand mobile”, he adds. Now’s the time to remedy that, he says: begin to adjust now “and you’ll be in a lot better position in two years”.

One of the key problems is a lack of information on which to make decisions, says Stewart Goldberg, executive chairman of Business Logic System. “The operators don’t have the same demographics about their base that the TV companies have.”

Mike Short, vice president of Telefónica Europe disagrees: “Some of the demographics that we have is a lot better — but it’s in a different format.” The mobile industry is working via the GSM Association and mobile marketing analyst ComScore to remedy that. “We can do age, location and subject,” he says.

Lane is not convinced: “Traditional advertising is very visible,” he says. And potential advertisers can easily get information about how much it costs to advertise. “If you want a rate card [for mobile advertising] you have to go down a long dark tunnel and sign a non-disclosure agreement.”

There is widespread ignorance among potential advertisers, says Neil Wentworth, director of sales at mCentric, which runs a service delivery platform for the industry. “Brands are in the dark. They have no idea how to access people by mobile,” he says.

It is starting to shift in agencies, says Alistair Hill, a senior analyst ComScore. Its work with the GSMA is aimed at “simplifying the process of buying”, so that agencies can see metrics that allow them to compare different types of advertising — including mobile with conventional, if that is the term, online.

Mobile is too often an addition to an existing ad budget, complains John Rands, managing director of WIN, which describes itself as “a dynamic enabler of entertainment, information and interaction services”. Sometimes a brand or an agency puts together a campaign “and will do mobile as well”, he says: “It’s the ‘as well’, and that might mean just putting a text number in the corner.”

It’s better in some countries, says Goldberg. “In south-east Asia and Australia there are millions of transactions executed using two-way text.”

Simeon Coney, vice president of business development at Adaptive Mobile, adds that in South Africa mobile advertising is starting to dominate, because of an underdeveloped traditional media business.

Many customers see mobile advertising messages as spam. “What’s considered as spam is personal,” says Jay Seaton, chief marketing officer of Airwide.

Coney believes the industry has to be careful, as governments might impose rules about what can and can’t be sent. “Governments will be putting the onus on operators,” he warns. “It will be a real challenge to the industry.”

Short says: “We’d rather have a simple set of rules. Mobile advertising is going to have to have a debate about reach and responsibility.” Child protection and parental controls will have to feature in that debate, he adds. “It’s now getting to ministerial level.”

According to Hill of ComScore, mobile advertising is still some way behind online advertising. “Everything on the internet has become contextual,” he says.

Lane also believes that the parallels with PC-based advertising should not be ignored: “All we’re doing on the mobile is browsing: email and social networking, and news, sport and weather.”

Goldberg, who has just had to extend his daughter’s mobile package to 1,000 texts a month, says: “We should have 11-year-olds on the boards of our companies.” Though Hill retorts that “the average age of the mobile media user is 35”.

Gather any group of enthusiasts for mobile advertising together — and this group was at an event hosted by Airwide — and you’ll soon hear stories about mobile advertising successes.

Unfortunately, most of these stories date from those optimistic times before the recession: such as BMW sending its car customers in Germany localised weather warnings by MMS, complete with a picture of each customer’s car in the right colour.

In theory, the industry has the data that could be enormously useful to advertisers — but Short points out that one of the problems is the sheer volume of it.

Goldberg sympathises: “The amount of data on the network is huge — 120 million transactions a day.” That’s the figure for the UK. “You’d need data warehousing the size of small countries. Operators have the data, but extracting the data is a non-trivial exercise. It just can’t be done in real time.”

Short emphasises the scale of the challenge: “We know the location of 50 billion text messages a year,” he says.

But operators haven’t explored new opportunities, suggests Goldberg. They would know the identity of 150,000 people attending a grand prix or other sports event, he notes. There’s potential there to use information to send them messages.

Mobile advertising, in theory, is a lot more economical than television advertising — which reaches many more people than could possibly be interested in a deal. With mobile, “you offer a deal only to people to want to offer the deal to”, he says.

One of the problems is that there is an advanced market for advertising in developed countries, says Seaton. “In developed markets there’s not such a need to innovate.”

Smartphones, if anything, make life for mobile advertisers complicated — simply because there are so many, built with different standards. “The market’s evolving quickly, with lots of new handsets,” says Tagg.

Seaton notes that this is why in some markets advertisers have relied on the simple technology of text messaging. “Trying to force-fit ads to thousands of different handsets is an issue. That’s why we’ll be having the same advertising discussions in two years.”

Goldberg returns to the theme that the industry is ill-informed about mobile advertising: “Operators and suppliers need to educate agencies and brands,” he says. “Many just don’t know what you can do.” That, he adds, is “why text is so good” — advertisers do understand that.

So how should the market move? “It’s up to the operators to expose their assets,” says Seaton. “There will be thousands of opportunities. Application developers can leverage all the assets, not just the 15% of smartphones.”

But Lane concludes with a sceptical note: “There’s hardly any money in mobile advertising and it dominates all our conversations,” he concludes. GTB

URL Link to Global Telecoms Business:

http://www.globaltelecomsbusiness.com/Article/2346535/Operators-still-waiting-for-ad-revenue.html

Google plans to acquire Teracent, a startup that allows display ads to be customized for specific deliveries. Teracent’s Intelligent Display Advertising relies on machine-learning algorithms to select the optimal creative elements for each ad impression. The technology from Teracent can also be valuable for delivering Google’s mobile ads.

By Jennifer LeClaire at Newsfactor

On Monday, Google announced it plans to acquire yet another advertising company. The search giant has targeted Teracent, a San Mateo, Calif., startup that customizes display ads for different situations. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Teracent’s trademarked Intelligent Display Advertising makes ads fully customizable to specific consumers and sites. The technology relies on machine-learning algorithms to decipher and select the optimal creative elements for each ad impression.

“As you know, we’ve been busy releasing new features and products to help improve display advertising on the web for everyone. We believe that Teracent’s technology fits neatly into these efforts,” Neal Mohan, Google’s vice president of product management, and Joerg Heilig, Google’s engineering director, wrote on the company blog.

An Important Mobile Feature

Teracent’s technology can pick and choose from thousands of display-ad creative elements in real time. Advertisers can change images, products, messages or colors. These variables can be optimized based on factors such as geographic location, language, the content of the web site, the time of day, or the past performance of different ads.

“This technology can help advertisers get better results from their display-ad campaigns,” Mohan and Heilig said. “In turn, this enables publishers to make more money from their ad space and delivers web users better ads and more ad-funded web content.”

Greg Sterling, principal analyst at Sterling Market Intelligence, agrees that Teracent’s technology could bring Google users better display-advertising results — and he noted it’s an important capability in mobile advertising as well.

“The promise of mobile advertising is ‘right time, right ad, right place.’ In search, the user expresses that need or interest in the form of a query and you get an ad back that generally or directly satisfies that query,” Sterling said. “So search is not as much of an issue as display advertising, which has historically been static.”

Tying in AdMob

With mobile advertising, there are too many variables for human beings to manage. To fulfill the promise of right time, right ad, right place, a platform that mixes and matches creative elements and ad copy based on time of day and place is required, Sterling said. Teracent is that platform.

“Google has AdMob with all its publisher relationships and creative ad units, and now they’ve got a technology platform to allow some of those creative elements to be substituted based on these variables,” Sterling said. “That’s a pretty formidable combination.”

Google snapped up AdMob for $750 million in stock earlier this month. Google said the AdMob deal will help the company develop more effective tools for creating, serving and analyzing emerging mobile-ad formats. As this ecosystem continues to grow, Google expects the new marketing media to offer significant benefits. Like Microsoft and Yahoo, Google is looking to tap into a mobile advertising market that’s expected to grow to $5.7 billion by 2014.

URL Link to Newsfactor:

http://www.newsfactor.com/news/Google-Buys-Display-Ad-Technology/story.xhtml?story_id=113003MY4WFG

Google (s goog) this week expanded its coupon service to mobile just in time for Black Friday, enabling U.S. consumers to access and redeem the discounts via their phones. It’s an effort that could give the space a much-needed shove into the mainstream.

Retailers can now create and upload mobile coupon offers to Google’s Local Business Center; the offers are presented with business listings to users searching Google.com on a handset. The move expands on a 2-year-old service that enables users to access coupons on the Internet and print them out.

Mobile coupons have been around for several years but have failed to gain much traction with consumers. Startups such as Cellfire and txtwire have launched promotions with nationally known retailers, but no campaign has enjoyed the marketing support necessary for large-scale success, and consumer awareness remains limited.

Google’s new offering could change that if enough retailers buy in and present their offers to consumers. While existing startups in the space must ink deals with individual retail partners, Google’s massive list of businesses could boost consumer awareness as users increasingly use their phones to find local retailers. While Google’s effort is unlikely to provide the overnight breakthrough many in the space have long hoped for, it could go a long way toward bringing mobile coupons to the mass market.

We have just released our November issue of our corporate newsletter. In this month issue we highlighted the use of Mobile Publication Platform for catalogues or print publication where it has proven to be an efficient way for our client to reach even wider segments of the market.

We are excited about the use of the mobile publishing platform not only due to its innovative ablility but also due to its green initiative. 

Businesses are increasingly looking into ways to adopt greener practices. We know that the concern by businesses when it comes to green practices has been that they cannot afford it. The good news is by going mobile you can take the step towards being more environmentally friendly and at the same time improve your bottom line. 

 Unlike print publication, once users read it, they can just easily delete mobile content without wastage. 

For the publisher, there is no need for printing, packaging, logistics and extra material cost. There are various ways we can do to play apart in helping to create an eco-friendly environment in our business activities. Let’s make the change today by choosing to go mobile.

What is the one device that people have with them at all times, whether they are at work, on vacation or at home watching television? More than 70% of the world’s population are mobile users and around the world more people use their mobile phones than PCs to access the Web. Mobile phones have evolved into much more than just communication devices. The mobile Internet is a reality. 

Tourism is an ever-evolving industry and this article provides an overview on one of the newest top trends – mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is the only media that allows direct, personalized, interactive and targeted dialogue between brands and consumers. This article takes a common-sense approach to explaining more about the key components of mobile marketing, how they can be used and what they mean to the tourism industry.

How Big is the Mobile Marketplace?

Worldwide mobile communications usage has increased dramatically since 2001. A significant number of cell phone subscribers now have access to the mobile Internet and use some kind of data service such as texting, email, Web browsing, etc. Mobile users expect instant access to information as well as an Internet experience that rivals the one via traditional PC’s and laptops.

Mobile is changing the way your customers search for, buy and enjoy your travel product!

• Mobile phones technology advancements, economic cost and small size have made them a constant companion for people worldwide
• Of the 6.7 billion inhabitants of Earth, 4 billion were cell phone subscribers worldwide at the end of 2008 – compare this to than 1 billion in 2002
• Around the world more people are now using their mobile phones instead of their PCs to access the Web.
• 26.3% of mobile phone subscribers will log on to the mobile Web at least once per month in 2009, for a total of 73.7 million mobile Internet users.
• 67% percent of travelers and 77% of frequent business travelers with Web-enabled mobile devices have already used their devices to find local services (e.g. lodging) and attractions.
• Over a third of travel companies will be investing in mobile this year

               Source: EyeforTravel, PhocusWright
Ways in which Mobile Marketing can be Used

Mobile Advertising

Mobile Websites, App’s and Text Messaging allow businesses to promote and market products and services. All businesses have a message to send. By utilizing mobile technology and text messaging you can market your message, product and/or service to the world’s 4 billion cell phone users. Mobile puts your message in the hands of your audience and by utilizing mobile strategies such as building a list of text message opt-in subscribers you will be able to stay in front of your audience consistently. GoChoice.mobi utilizes an informational on-the-go format in combination with SMS text messaging and money saving mobile coupons to provide travelers with a valuable tool which even facilitates mobile booking.

 Customer Relations Services

Finding ways to strengthen your customer relationship is crucial to a business’s success. NTA is using Meetings2Go.mobi to provide mobile info-on-the-go to all attendees during their annual convention via GONTA.mobi. By developing a list of opt-in mobile user numbers, NTA can regularly communicate with all attendees utilizing text messaging. NTA’s SMS alerts notify meeting attendees of upcoming meeting sessions and events; and they can even distribute mobile surveys for instant response.

Viral Marketing

Mobile and text messaging is an ideal viral medium. Creating and deploying a viral mobile strategy can generate a big buzz. America’s Premier Shopping Places utilized a viral component for a national sweepstakes. Sweepstake subscribers were given the opportunity to register via SMS for a chance to win the grand prize. Subscribers could also forward a text to win text message to their friends so that they too could enter for a chance to win the sweepstakes. You can imagine how quickly this campaign spread.

Marketing Support Tool

One of the biggest challenges of advertising is enabling an immediate response to a call-to-action. People are constantly enticed with outdoor and print advertising on-the-go; however, despite their interest they usually forget to act on it later. By including a mobile or text call-to-action response method, organizations can ensure that the interest sparked by print media is translated into action. Recent SMS integration by The Official Interstate Guide into their printed coupon guide is a good example. By including text message information in their publications hotel print ads, travelers are able to text the mobile id for any hotel they are interested in and be sent to a custom hotel page on TheOIG.mobi with descriptive information and photo’s telling the traveler more about the property. Travelers can then click to call their hotel of choice and book in real time on-the-go.

Mobile as Part of your Marketing Strategy

Can you see ways that mobile marketing could be used as part of your marketing strategy? Here are some of the areas you should be aware of.

Simple  

Mobile marketing strategies must be very simple. If the consumer does not get it the first time, they may not use it again. Mobile websites, App’s and text message campaigns need to be intuitive and easy to navigate. This is well demonstrated by the GONTA.mobi example

Targeted

Campaigns must be targeted and tailored to the audience. One of the most valuable components of  mobile websites, App’s and text messaging campaigns is the ability to provide users ‘urgent now’ information that is relevant to them on-the-go. For tourism mobile sites, the emphasis should not be marketing. Instead it should be on rapidly allowing users to navigate to information they are interested in to facilitate an immediate buy decision.

Permission Based 

People consider their mobile phone an important personal accessory and value their privacy. Ensuring that you are targeting users in ways which comply with the Data Protection Act is a must. Unwelcome intrusion into a user’s personal space runs a high risk of eroding your brand. A recent poll shows that when users gave permission to receive mobile marketing messages, 61% identified SMS as their most preferred way to be reached ahead of TV and radio. By using permission-based marketing best practices you can help ensure the success of your mobile marketing strategies.

Interactive

Mobile marketing should engage consumers in a true two-way dialogue. To best take advantage of the mobile medium, give users the opportunity to interact. Mobile website, App’s and text messaging campaigns should create interactive experiences for the user including location based searches, click to call phone numbers, text to win contests, surveys etc. The success of major brands such as GOChoice.mobi was in a large part due to this.

Measurable

Mobile marketing campaigns are very measurable; It is one of the huge benefits of mobile marketing. However mobile is not a medium of isolation and all mobile marketing should be integrated into your overall marketing mix to produce the desired return on investment. In the case of The Official Interstate Guide, one of goals was to drive more hotel bookings utilizing the publications coupons, which it did through close integration with participating hotels’ marketing efforts. In the case of America’s Premier Shopping Places the goal was to increase brand awareness, which it did overwhelmingly. Both examples demonstrate very different return on investment success.

Cost Effective

Mobile marketing is much more cost effective than other marketing channels such as Internet marketing, advertising and direct mail. Cost effective mobile website setup costs can range from a few hundred dollars to several thousands of dollars depending on the size and complexity. Text messaging credits available for a few pennies each are an economical communication tool to support your mobile marketing efforts. 

Summary

Mobile marketing for the tourism industry is here! It is no longer cutting edge, untested technology. Throughout the last 10 years mobile marketing has benefited from increased technical development and market testing and is now considered a proven and valuable medium. Most importantly, mobile demonstrates an attractive return on investment and is affordable and can be used by small and large business alike.

As you consider your future in mobile marketing, remember, there are many services that need to be brought together and the easiest route is often to contract with a experienced company who specializes in mobile marketing and who can navigate between and manage your various Mobile, App and SMS technologies as well as implement effective mobile strategies.

About ITI Marketing

ITI Marketing, Inc. is a leading provider of mobile marketing solutions within the tourism and hospitality industry. As one of the first agencies to apply Mobile Marketing inside a tourism environment, ITI Marketing’s unique experience of being marketers first, technologists second allows us to provide specialized proven mobile marketing solutions. The business model is simple – ITI Marketing helps organizations increase the effectiveness of their advertising, marketing, PR and CRM campaigns utilizing Mobile websites, text messaging and other cell phone features such as Apps and location‐based services, resulting in more successful marketing strategies. Having worked with hundreds of clients of all sizes, including: Choice International, The Official Interstate Guide, America’s Premier Shopping Places, NTA, The State of Georgia and Jacksonville, FL., ITI’s integrated marketing capabilities allow us to stand out among larger agencies, while our intimate size allows for a true marketing partnership. Contact ITI Marketing at (912)267-1558 or Info@ITI-Marketing.com

This article was published in the November E’Newsletter of the Destination Marketing Association International.

And now for a not-so-negative online advertising forecast: Forrester Research is pegging the U.S. interactive ad market to reach $55 billion over the next five years—meaning marketers will go from spending just 12 percent of their total ad budgets online this year, to 21 percent by 2014.

Search and display will command the biggest percentage of spend overall—with $31.5 billion and $16.9 billion in spending, respectively—but most of the growth will come from social media and mobile advertising.

Advertisers will spend just $716 million on social media marketing (including ads on social networks, not to mention devoting resources to their own blogs) this year, but that will grow by 34 percent to top $3.1 billion in 2014. (This gels with a recent Forbes survey that found that senior level marketing execs planned to spend more on viral and social media campaigns over the next six months). Meanwhile, mobile ad spending will grow by 27 percent—from $391 million this year, to $1.2 billion in five years.

Here’s one of the things we do at Forrester Research: we interview as many marketers as we can about their plans, identify trends and project future likely conditions, and then we put together some numbers to make a projection. If you’ve ever seen a Forrester projection, it comes from a process like this.

This means that inside every projection is an idea or ten about the future. Those ideas can be powerful, and they come from research with marketers and consumers.

My colleague at Forrester, Shar Van Boskirk, just published our five-year interactive marketing forecast. The idea inside it is the real kicker.
In this recession, marketers have learned that interactive marketing is more effective, and advertising less effective, per dollar spent. While budgets for online have decreased, they decreased less than other budgets. Six out of ten marketers we surveyed agreed with the statement “we will increase budget for interactive by shifting money away from traditional marketing.” Only 7% said “we have no plans to increase our marketing budget.”
Unlike the last recession, digital marketing is no longer experimental. Now it looks more like advertising is inefficient, relative to digital. More than half of the marketers we surveyed said that effectiveness of direct mail, TV, magazines, outdoor, newspapers, and radio would stay the same or decrease within three years. In contrast, well over 70% expected the effectiveness of channels like created social media, online video, and mobile marketing to increase.

The result is that digital, which will be about 12% of overall advertising spend in 2009, is likely to grow to about 21% in five years. Along the way overall advertising budgets won’t grow much.

THIS IS HUGE!

It means we are all digital marketers now, since digital is at the center of many campaigns anyway.

It means media is in trouble, or at least in the middle of a transformation. For example, online video ads, which will be about $870 million this year, will grow to over $3 billion in 2014. What will this do to networks plans to put more of their shows online in places like Hulu. How will it accelerate some newspapers plans to become more and more centered around online?

And it means that social “media,” which will account for $716 million this year between social network campaigns and agency fees, will generate $3 billion in five years. And this doesn’t even count displays ads on social networks (which are in the display ads category.) Of all the parts of digital marketing, social network marketing one is poised for the most explosive growth.

Pundits have been declaring the end of mass media and advertising for years now. From my 14 years of experience analyzing this stuff, I’ve learned that things die very slowly, but there are real trends you can see. If you’re in advertising, you’d better learn to speak digital, because that’s the way the world is going.

Consumers expect their mobile Internet experience to be every bit as easy and accessible as it is on their PCs, but this isn’t necessarily the case according to new research from Xiam Technologies.

 by Helen Leggatt

 The survey of over 2,500 U.S. and U.K. mobile Internet users found that 8 out of 10 are frustrated by mobile search capabilities despite 68% of mobile users being dependent on mobile search engines to access content.

Not only do they have difficulty finding online content but they also claim to have to wade through too much “irrelevant information”, found Xiam Technologies’ survey (.pdf), with too much scrolling and clicking required to find what they want.

Content most desired and used is weather-related, followed by maps, social networking, games, music and local/world news. Significantly, respondents said that 27% of the time they were unable to access mobile content. Often this is a result of poor mobile webpage design (too large/small).

Research commissioned by Gomez earlier this year found that a bad mobile experience could turn users off a brand for good, driving them to competitors.

According to the 8-page report (.pdf) “It is clear there are serious consequences for organizations who fail to deliver quality mobile web experiences. The mobile website that fails to perform a transaction at speeds that mimic mobile behavior (e.g., waiting in line, stopped on a sidewalk, or sitting in a bus) or that doesn’t function as intended is unlikely to attract and retain users.”

URL Link to Biz Report:

http://www.bizreport.com/2009/11/8_out_of_10_mobile_internet_users_frustrated_by_search.html

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Google’s wake-up call: We don’t have SMS advertising capability November 23, 2009 Written by Pamela Clark-Dickson.

The mobile industry is buzzing about Internet giant Google’s proposed $750m, all-stock acquisition of mobile advertising network AdMob, which was announced November 9. It is a huge deal, and seemingly an acknowledgement by Google that it has not been able to sufficiently develop its own mobile advertising capabilities internally, even though it has been offering mobile display search advertisements for some time.

Given that rivals Microsoft, AOL and Yahoo all snapped up mobile advertising networks two years ago – Screen Tonic, Third Screen Media and Actionality respectively – it would seem that Google has come a little late to the party. And perhaps its lateness to the market has cost it dearly. The privately-owned, venture-capital-backed AdMob has gone from being a start-up in 2006, to become a leading provider of mobile web display and application display advertising, with an ad serving network that spans 160 countries. According to its latest Mobile Metrics report, AdMob served 10.2 billion advertisements in September 2009 across its footprint. In 64 countries, the company served more than 10 million ads, and in 14 countries, it served more than 100 million ads. That is pretty impressive.

There is no doubt that AdMob has a lot to offer Google: in addition to its extensive network of advertisers and publishers, the company is able to provide its customers with comprehensive data about their mobile advertising campaigns, which it then also anonymizes and aggregates in order to publish a monthly report on its web site. This is the kind of data that the industry desperately needs if mobile advertising is ever to go mainstream.

Still, I am staggered by the sum that Google was prepared to pay to acquire AdMob, especially since as recently as January 2009, AdMob was seeking venture capital investment. The January 2009 round totaled US$12.5 million and in all, AdMob had received $47.2m since inception – or at least, the company had publicly disclosed that it had received that amount of funding. Also, Google itself says, in its FAQ with respect to the deal and regulatory approval: “Currently we do not believe this purchase requires regulatory review outside the United States. AdMob’s business simply is too small.” It’s a somewhat arrogant statement by Google, which also seems to contradict the price that the Internet giant was willing to pay to secure AdMob.

Under the circumstances, it almost goes without saying that AdMob CEO Omar Hamoui is an astute businessman; clearly he is also a skilled negotiator who knows what his company is worth and is not prepared to accept anything less than top dollar, as it were. Google’s CEO Eric Schmidt has reportedly said that the company will buy back $750m in stock once the AdMob acquisition is completed, in order to avoid share dilution. This reportedly first-time share buy-back for Google comes less than a month after Schmidt’s statement in the company’s 3Q09 quarterly earnings call that the company would not ever consider a share buy-back.

AdMob’s investors Sequoia Capital, Accel, Draper Fisher Jurvetson and Northgate Capital must be kicking themselves at this point; they will have made back their meager-looking investments, but nothing else, unless they also agreed some kind of exit deal with AdMob that gave them a share of the profits (or stock in this case) from the sale of the company to Google.

“Yoo-hoo! Over here,” says Google

What is also interesting about Google’s acquisition of AdMob is that Google has highlighted the fact that it currently doesn’t have an offering with regards to SMS advertisements, on a web page detailing its competitors in the mobile advertising market. Just to push the point home about how important it regards SMS advertising from a revenue perspective, Google also publishes a pie chart illustrating that an estimated 55 per cent of mobile advertising budgets in 2009 will be spent on SMS advertising, compared to 25 per cent on applications and web site advertising, and 20 per cent on mobile search. In addition, Google has helpfully provided a list of five players it believes are major players in the SMS advertising market: 4INFO, Cellfire, HipCricket, iLoop Mobile and VeriSign Messaging. Google is already active in the mobile search display market, and has acquired AdMob to provide application and mobile web site advertising, which means that the above players could conceivably be regarded as acquisition targets for Google.

But given the nature of the companies that Google has listed under SMS advertising, it seems that the company’s definition of SMS advertising is broad, and includes all forms of marketing in which SMS is used, not just the relatively nascent market for the insertion of advertisements into the unused characters of a text message. Only one of the five companies that Google has highlighted as players in the SMS advertising market, 4INFO, is operating under this business model. Meanwhile HipCricket, iLoop Mobile and VeriSign Messaging could be regarded as full-service mobile marketing companies, while Cellfire specializes in mobile coupons. All of these companies would, however, use SMS as a delivery channel for mobile marketing campaigns that, for example, include a text-to-win component or an SMS coupon.

While I don’t doubt that Google has considered or is considering one or more of these five companies as an acquisition target, I believe that either 4INFO, iLoop Mobile or HipCricket are probably the best fits for the company, depending on whether Google is going to continue to focus purely on SMS advertising, or whether it enters the mobile marketing industry sector.

If Google continues to focus purely on mobile advertising, then 4INFO is probably the best suited, since it has a lengthy history in inserting advertisements in the unused characters of SMS messages. 4INFO has also secured venture capital from Draper Fisher Jurvetson, one of the companies that funded AdMob.

But if Google is also interested in the wider mobile marketing sector, then either iLoop Mobile or HipCricket is going to suit its needs better. iLoop Mobile has already essentially said “Pick me!” by publishing, almost immediately after the Google/AdMob deal was announced, a landing page on its own web site that highlighted that it sits squarely in the SMS advertising space that Google left vacant on its web page detailing the mobile advertising market. This landing page has since been removed.

I don’t think that either VeriSign Messaging’s Mobile Delivery Gateway mobile content business (the former M-Qube) or Cellfire are in with a chance. VeriSign’s MDG has been up for sale for some time, but had Google been interested I feel that it would have snapped this asset up already, since VeriSign is keen to sell and Google has the cash (or stock) to buy. Meanwhile Cellfire specializes in mobile coupons, and that’s a capability that HipCricket also provides as part of a wider portfolio of services. If Google is interested in mobile marketing, it’s probably going to want to be a full-service provider rather than a niche market player.

But will Google be prepared to pay as much as it did for AdMob for a company (or companies) that will enable it to access a market which, by its own calculations, is much more lucrative than the mobile search, web, and in-application display advertising markets put together? Only time will tell.

 URL Link to Telecoms:

http://www.telecoms.com/16549/googles-wake-up-call-we-don%e2%80%99t-have-sms-advertising-capability

Thanks to our partner Arendsoog, we can offer the following videos of Web Goes Mobile 4:

My opinion on the below article:

It is important to remember that what most people think are applications are actually widgets.  It is these widgets that have a shelve life of 3-4 days before being discarded.  How many widgets do you have on your computer?  Not many I expect.  However, the more dynamic true applications or web applications actually have a much longer shelve life.  The utility based apps that have an everyday purpose are the ones that will continue to be of value on a continued basis in the coming years.  Here are some examples:

Travel: Tickets, boarding passes, informational services and promotional services

Maps: TomTom, Google,

Banking:  Balance, Transfers, Payments, Find Nearest Bank/ATM

Automotive: Car service updates & monitoring + promotional sales & informational

Mobile Internet Launchers: for general mobile web as openess becomes a reality

Instant Messaging/Social Media

Augmented Reality: Promotional Services

Couponing/Loyalty Redemption

Location Based Services – Social, Information and Promotional Advertising

Music/Events – Information, Ticketing, Promotional Sales

Mobile Search

Health Services

Please see the article below from the Independent website:

Relax News Wednesday, 18 November 2009

Market researcher Gartner has pinpointed the top ten consumer mobile applications consumers will be using and downloading in the year 2012. The most popularly used applications will include those designed to facilitate mobile money transfers, location-based services and mobile search said Gartner in its November 18 report. In the past, consumers purchased mobile phones based on the built-in features that came standard with the handset. With the arrival of smartphone operating systems capable of running third-party applications, consumers were freed from the phone maker’s confines and were able to customize their devices with powerful applications tailored to their own needs. Future mobile trends point to a widening of this segment, with third-party applications breaking into the mainstream mobile market and even breaking through to many lower-priced handsets. “Consumer mobile applications and services are no longer the prerogative of mobile carriers,” said Sandy Shen, research director at Gartner. “The increasing consumer interest in smartphones, the participation of internet players in the mobile space, and the emergence of application stores and cross-industry services are reducing the dominance of mobile carriers. Each player will influence how the application is delivered and experienced by consumers, who ultimately vote with their attention and spending power.” Mobile phone makers, inspired by the success (and profitability) of Apple’s App Store, have all eagerly jumped into the market, opening their own propriety application stores. Application developers too have embraced the market, resulting in the creation of hundreds of thousands of new application for mobile devices. The wide availability of applications has given consumers free range on mobile customization, but research shows that many apps are being downloaded, used once or twice and then deleted from phones. “We predict that most users will use no more than five mobile applications at a time and most future opportunities will come from niche market ‘killer applications’,” reveals Shen. Gartner predicts applications in the categories of mobile payments, location-based services, those that provide fast search results for users on the go and applications that facilitate mobile internet browsing will be among the top ten mobile applications for 2012. Gartner’s list of top ten consumer mobile applications for 2012:

 

1: Money Transfer

2: Location-Based Services

3: Mobile Search

4: Mobile Browsing

5: Mobile Health Monitoring

6: Mobile Payment

7: Near Field Communication Services

8: Mobile Advertising

9: Mobile Instant Messaging

10: Mobile Music

For more specific information about each mobile application category and to read the full report head to http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1230413.

URL Link to the Independent:

http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/mobile-application-trends-for-2012-the-top-ten-applications-1822948.html

Advertising is a promotional activity which is often geared up and put for the whole purpose of deriving sales revenue. Major objective of such promotion is to enlighten and motivate prospective customers to buy service or product. Major types of advertising include print advertising, radio advertising, television advertising, airport advertising and other types of outdoor advertising.

Many individuals may censure advertising or take as too intrusive or overbearing, but the fact is that it does work. Think, if advertising promotion was not really helpful, then advertising industry would not have been a market worth billions of dollars.

Types of business advertising

Before settling on what kind of promotion technique is apt, it is really imperative for a firm to define audience it wishes to target. Demographic details such as education, gender, income level and age help classify targeted audience. Placing messages in promotional venues concentrating on particular demographic or group is known as ‘target marketing’ and is also vital for effective advertising.

Print advertising which is done on print mediums such as newspapers, brochures and magazines, permits the company’s message to grab attention of targeted audience on page. Magazines may include images and articles doomed to lure any particular category of client.

Radio advertising and television advertising come under the category of broadcast promotion and conventional forms of such advertisement techniques are commercials exhibited mostly before movie or during any television show. Product placement ads have also become popular these days to publicize a particular product or brand. When one sees someone in movie or TV show utilizing a particular brand, it is called covert advertising or product placement.

Scrolling and pop up ads are other fine examples of promotion while pay per click method, also known as sponsored links, refers to companies paying in order to get their websites ranked higher on search engine results.

As far as outdoor advertising is concerned, it incorporates different kinds of publicity displays, from high-way billboards to transportation posters and showground placement, all intended towards conveying a specific message to common masses. These messages may be to vote for politician, take trip, purchase a product, or other charity purposes.

An airport retains a positive setting where individuals have sufficient time and often are approachable to various new impressions. In this setting, advertising can really work tremendously and act as an effective media channel. So, airport advertising is really an efficient way if one wants to get optimal business or specific product exposure.

Reference Website: – www.worldwideadvertisingnetwork.com

Is mobile advertising the next ‘big thing’ to hit marketers? Some might suggest so.

Dave Chaffey lists the potential marketing benefits of mobile advertising in his book, Internet Marketing, chart shown here:

As you can see, mobile devices offer benefits because they are mobile – always with the user, and the same user. Unlike a desktop that could be shared, a mobile device is rather private and personalized. Combining the benefits of not being fixed to a location and offering location-based services allows marketers to send consumers information based on the business they’re walking past on their way home from work. I really enjoyed this video I was shown recently; a humourous take on the ‘dangers’ of mobile marketing.

Andrea Southcott with the Globe and Mail recently reported that by 2010, 70% of the world will own a mobile device… 70%! That’s a wonderful opportunity for marketers to capitalize on this trend and personalize their message directly at the consumer they want to target, such as the woman walking by Starbucks.

Besides just retail opportunities, it’s an opportunity for marketers to engage their consumers. Southcott also discusses how Adidas used RFID technology to keep onlookers informed on marathon participants’ times as they ran over timing mats throughout the course.

These examples show how interesting and unexplored the area of mobile advertising is. TechVibes states that a company found that mobile advertising increased awareness by 24%, and augments purchase behaviour by 5%. The industries included were alcohol, automotive, consumer electronics, entertainment, financial services, retail, travel, among others. Those are some major industries to experience this type of change.

I think we’ll see, or should see, an increase in mobile marketing tactics in the coming years. It’s in the consumer’s hands, let’s put ourselves there too!

You can view/download the presentations of Web Goes Mobile 4 on Slideshare:

Comscore – Alistair Hill

Microsoft – Didier Ongena

London Calling – Andrew Grill

Pecha Kucha session:

Touring Mobilis – Steven Logghe

Netlog – Louis Jonckheere

Mobillion – Marc Schoutens

Corelio – Joris De Lannoy

MobileWeb – Danny Lein

In a recent survey report it has been found that 50% of the purchase done by consumers is based upon impulses. Now if we go to question as to what is impulse shopping we will find out that impulse shopping is nothing but shopping under the influence of advertisement. Such finding very clearly justifies the huge amount of money spent by investors on media marketing and advertising.

The most traditional methods of advertising products and services is perhaps through the print media. Print advertising lacks the gloss factor that electronic media provides but in a country like India  where the electronic media only manages to reach just about 30% of the total population print advertising has a reach almost double that amount.

Another traditional method of advertisement that has once again come back in the market in the recent past is radio advertising. The advantage of radio advertising is that this medium is not technology dependent neither it is a costly investment. Unlike print media it does not require any literally knowledge and can be accessed by the huge rural population of India. However with private investors joining the radio market the urban crowd has also started to rediscover the beauty of this beautiful medium of entertainment and communication.

After the radio and newspaper television is the most preferred medium of advertisement not only in India but also around the entire world.  Television and cable TV’s are available in most of Indian villages. The visual impact created by television advertising is more profound than radio or newspapers. It appeals both to the eyes and ears. The excitement in seeing famous personalities endorsing various products also gives television advertising an extra edge.

Besides this usual form of advertisements there is also other form of outdoor advertising which includes, banners, hoarding s, posters, billboards etc. Outdoor advertising is primarily aimed at people from all sections of the society. These advertisements are placed at strategic locations at important junctures around the city. Outdoor advertisements are necessarily very glossy and eye catching in nature because their success depends upon the attention they can draw from target customers.

The latest trend in advertising is airport advertising. Airport advertising is meant for a very niche audience mainly from the elite class business customers. It mainly comprises of advertisements through plasma televisions in airport lounges. Various glow signs, product billboards and sometimes the product itself in showcases at the airport terminal.

This advertising network has created a bridge to collaborate and win peoples mind set. Without proper and efficient advertising network it’s difficult to survive and coexist.

Reference Website: www.worldwideadvertisingnetwork.com