It is only natural that trends and flavours-of-the-month will change in the South African mobile industry, well monthly, almost. Agreed, it is a dynamic market, but comparatively speaking, still a young one.
It is, therefore, easy to gauge why industry experts have been waiting for mobile marketing to appear, to disappear.
Now that it's here, however, it seems it might be here to stay, long enough at least to change the face of the industry.
With current mobile penetration at 83% in South Africa and at a fraction of the cost of television and radio, it is not hard to see why mobile marketing has attained minor miracle status. What is puzzling, however, is that it's only the bigger corporations that are embracing mobile marketing at this stage, while SMMEs have been doubtful of its successes.
The benefits of utilising mobile marketing are endless: customers can be segmented effectively and targeted on an opt-in basis; mobile marketing is immediate and interactive; most mobile aggregation companies offer software for which no technical skills are needed and these interfaces can be accessed at any time.
There are quite a few ways in which to engage in mobile marketing, for instance in the United States loyalty-building initiatives have been very successful: advertisers found that cellphone users didn't mind receiving adverts if they got paid to view them. What this literally means is that advertising subsidises users' use of their cellphones. That is exactly what Virgin Mobile USA did last year when it launched an initiative allowing users to earn airtime by viewing advertising on their cellphones. Google's CEO Eric Smith went even further when he told Reuters: "Your mobile phone should be free."
Nice sentiment. Although we are not quite there yet in South Africa, things are definitely looking up: according to an article that Eddie Groenewald wrote for Biz Community, MMS marketing campaigns are extremely well-received and penetrate the base of users within 48 hours of the campaign rolling out; also, response rates vary between 10% and 25% and unsubscribe rates are less than 1%.
He goes further by mentioning that Web sites are fast being customised for viewing on WAP and consumers are starting to use these sites.
Norman Parkin, CEO of leading mobile aggregator Integrat, said: "We are geared to assist customers with the execution and development of their marketing strategies via a plethora of specialised mobile applications: bulk SMS and MMS services, ad-sponsored content services, WAP portals and please-call-me advertising space. It's now a matter of customers trusting the technology."
So, while we are clearly not at the forefront of mobile marketing innovation, there is substantial proof that our market is steadily growing. Oh yes, and then there's also the 2010 pie that everyone wants to get a slice of, and with Vodacom having launched its mobile marketing unit, it might just be the push that mobile marketing needs to take its rightful place in the marketing mix.
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