Joe’s angle on marketing news you can use.Text Messages Rule Mobile Ads
August 4th, 2008 by Joe MeleTags: iPhone apps, Mobile, mobile marketing, text messages
When will mobile marketing become the next big thing?
Picture: dialaphone.co.uk
Article excerpt: Simple ad formats reaching the widest audience. Mobile advertising has been the next big thing for a while now. But although text messaging is popular among young adults, the 160-character format has yet to become a mass influencer. Still, consumers who respond to mobile ads are most likely to engage with text messages, according to a survey of mobile users ages 15 and older in the US by the Direct Marketing Association (DMA). Seven out of 10 respondents to the DMA’s “Mobile Marketing: Consumer Perspectives” study who had acted on mobile ads said that text messages for a product or service had prompted their actions. That was more than three times as many as responded to a mobile Web offer or coupon. But even text messaging is not about to replace other marketing mainstays such as e-mail or direct mail. In fact, only 1% of US Internet users surveyed in February 2008 by ExactTarget picked text messaging as their channel of choice for opt-in communications. Instead, the medium is better-suited for targeting specific audiences, and as part of multichannel campaigns.
The rest: emarketer.com
Musing: Bad data creates bad conclusions. Text messages rule mobile because they are the most far reaching in the mobile space, not because they are superior. But the solution that we should be running toward is not that text ads are the best way to market in the mobile space. I will concede that I think they have the potential to be powerful, but texts are like email – and how does email marketing compare to search and display ads? Effective, yes. But different. When phones get better, and data plans get better, and mobile browsers get better, the mobile phone will act a lot like a computer. What’s a little different about the phone is that small applications or widgets (think iPhone apps) have the potential to be HUGE on mobile devices. I think that marketers should be focusing there.
