Five things you need to know about mobile marketing

1. Clearly identify your audience and understand the mobile statistics about the countries that you target in your campaigns.

In other words before ‘media hype’ lulls you into focusing your marketing or development budget on the Apple platform exclusively, consider this simple fact - 96.5 per cent of mobile users don’t use iPhones. Today the mass market is owned by the likes of Nokia and Samsung. Even when you break down smartphone users, 84 per cent don’t have an Apple handset.

2. There is a myth that only people with smartphones can access the mobile web. This is utter nonsense as many handsets can surf the mobile web. Most handsets able to access the web are feature phones. In 2011, over 85 per cent (global number) of new handsets will be able to access the mobile web. Today, in developed countries, 90 per cent of mobile subscribers have an internet-ready phone.

3. Mobile web or app? Everyone hears about successful apps. While these sound impressive, they don’t mean much without understanding the retention rate (e.g. how many people are still using the app a second time, a week or a month later?) The download stats provide an incomplete and inflated view. High usage numbers always look great but if customers never use the app or abandon it just after a few times, those high download numbers are really part of a high churn rate.

A study by Localytics (January 2010) found that many apps are downloaded, tried once and then discarded. A web app (mobile web site) can be provided at a lower cost for a better result as it can be device or operating system ‘agnostic’. Just make sure that you work with a partner that can provide you with content or an offer that is optimised, localised and personalised for the end user. This will ensure that no potential customer has a bad experience interacting with your brand (e.g “it doesn’t work on my phone”). 

4. A standalone medium or an integrated 'bridge' to consumers in any media campaign? If you only use mobile via ad display then you will face the ever increasing problem of spam and privacy issues. If you use other channels such as traditional media, social media or promotional material you must use mobile as a 'x1 click' way to connect consumers from your media.
 
5. Does analytics matter? You need to have clear identifiable goals and a means of measuring whether they are achieved in advance of launching any mobile initiative. Analytics are today readily available and thus makes this a highly measurable route to market (e.g. what, why, when, from where and how many?).