While companies seek the use of the virtual world of Advergames, there are others that are taking advantage of millions of mobile phone subscribers.  Mobile marketing provides marketers with high speed in message delivery, interactivity, great customer reach and response rates five times higher than direct mail, making it a tool that fosters and maintains strong relationships.The advanced technical performance combined with different mobile content and services has created a new context for brands as well as end users.  A recent study showed that in the US alone, 99% of 270 million US mobile phone subscribers have SMS service.  But even with such statistics, marketers still hesitate in using mobile marketing in their branding strategies without proven use.  

As smartphones proliferate and marketers move beyond experimentation, eMarketer predicts that spending on mobile advertising will gain momentum over the next five years, reaching $1.56 billion by 2013. The very personal nature of a mobile device makes interactivity, informativeness, and personalization measures that would influence the use of mobile marketing as a social media tool.

For the tool to be effective and lucrative to brands, marketers should address customer relevant, requested and interactive content. As such, perception of platforms in terms of better usability and accessibility will allow marketers to generate dynamic ongoing content and applications that are more relevant and efficient to consumers. Also, it would provide insight to the combination of social media needed to further expand revenue channels. Using demographic and psychographic variables of gender, country, city, region, birthday/age, language, consumer group and type, subscription type and status, subscription type and status, phone brand and type and MMS-activated handsets, deployed personalized display and text ads across multiple mobile channels provides consumers with dynamic content and applications, and for marketers: better, more focused accessibility to their real consumers.


Wait; there is more- Better understanding of the role that permission-based marketing plays in encouraging consumers to participate in long-term, interactive campaigns. Marketers can be more effective and lucrative for the industry participants as they focus more on customer relevant, requested and interactive content. The beauty of permission-based mobile marketing is that messages are not perceived as spam or unwanted advertisements, but rather an invitation from the brand.  So here are some questions that may be considered:

1-     Did the message target the right audience?

2-     Was it passed along to others because of its contents?

3-     How effective was the information passed to gain permission by the consumer vs. the information shared afterwards, in terms of the level of trust, loyalty (number of actions taken per information shared), social presence (the number of new subscribers generated from an original/unique customer)?

As interactive media has the potential for customization, more emphasis should be placed on person factors that influence how consumers want to receive information and how they process such customized messages. The fact that mobile phones are almost without exception used and possessed by a single person makes it possible to use the phone as a unique identifier, making it an attractive channel for targeted promotional messages. Measuring the effect on purchasing decisions and buzz generated more focus on thrilling existing customers to building longer-term relationships can further create greater brand authenticity. Based on click behavior, the marketer can observe what actions were taken by the consumer and whether they completed a purchase. Furthermore, the effects of personalized information are much easier to track.

So, should we, as marketers still hesitate?

And do we, as consumers, embrace?