Branding made Mobile

How does Mobile phone marketing (using text messages and a common short code like 27138) build a company’s brand?

• Creates a dialog and a relationship:: Voting, polling, requests for feedback, sweepstakes, and contests all require interactivity with the consumer and the brand. This interaction through a shortcode provides valuable information about target audiences, allowing organizations to even more closely tailor their products and associated marketing to evolving marketplace needs.
  
  
• Customer and employee communications:: Text messaging is being used by companies, organizations and schools to distribute information, such as employee alerts, school closings, prayer requests, airline reservation updates, and sales alerts.
  
  
• Increasing brand reach:: No one leaves their house without their keys, wallet and mobile phone. The ubiquity of the mobile phone and its innate function as a 2-way communication tool make reaching mass markets on an individual basis an unprecedented opportunity.
  
  
• Sales lead generation:: U.S. companies of all sizes are using shortcodes in their marketing efforts to generate interest and engagement with brands, which immediately or eventually turn into sales leads. Brands have reported that potential customers who signal their product interest through text messaging are often highly motivated, which can result in higher response rates.
  
  
• Fundraising:: New donor acquisition and overall donations have seen significant declines in 2008. Nonprofits are increasingly interested in shortcodes for fundraising efforts because it allows them to reach and cultivate newer, younger audiences and provides a high ROI. MobileCause has implemented many campaigns with non-profits to receive $5 donations via text message. The $5 shows up on the caller’s phone bill and the non-profit receives $4.50. The carriers take 0%.
  
  
• Content distribution:: Because of spam and a growing number of different email addresses per user (I have 5 different email accounts!) an increasingly smaller percentage of emails are read each day. In contrast, most people have only one mobile number and they read 90% of their text messages. Conversion rates are significantly higher and the growing use of web content on a mobile phone (WAP sites) make content distribution a major focus of brand developers.
  
  
• Mobile advertising:: New mobile advertising formats are coming onto the scene, including banner ads, sponsorships, product placement and idle screens, and pre- and post-roll video. However, unlike most mobile advertising, shortcodes require single or double opt-ins. Thus, brands know consumers are interested and receptive to text messages. In fact, text advertising can be added to a text message so that the confirming message the consumer receives from the brand can also have a line of advertising in it.
  
  
• Building databases:: Information is power, and savvy organizations are using text messaging to build powerful mobile information databases on existing and prospective customers, such as what promotions they respond to, which mobile coupons they actually redeem and when, and how often they respond to mobile alerts, by integrating CSC response data into existing databases. These databases can be used to develop and support loyalty programs, coupon and direct response offers, and Internet-like experiences with media ranging from print to radio.

For more on branding and fundraising via mobile, text STEVE to 27138 and have my contact info sent to your phone. It’s a lot easier than us meeting at Starbucks, me handing you a card and you losing it in your wallet. ;o)