Promotional Messaging can be described as a marketing strategy developed by a business in order to promote a service or product. A promotional message can be brought to the public in different forms, such as on product packaging, in a television commercial, in a magazine or newspaper advertisement. But here we are concerned with a specific use of promotional messages through e-mail, SMS and in-app messages. Independent of its form, a promotional message’s first purpose is to get across certain information about the service or good the company is promoting.
Recent research by Forester Consulting show clearly the difference between smart phones and mobile phones. Smartphone owners are far more likely to be interested in advertising and marketing content. There are several reasons for this, of course. As there are restrictions on standard mobile phones channels, when the users always gets the same message from the same channel, they lose their interest after a while. Smartphone users on the other hand are exposed to different media sources as they receive information in many different ways. For example Facebook, Google + and Linked in streams, Apps from newspapers, or news specialists like Quartz, and aggregators like Flipboard. They have therefore a more positive attitude towards promotional content because it is less intrusive and familiar.
Smartphones are not being used only for phone calls and text messages. From Applications to social networking, listening to music, watching movies etc. the situation has come to the point that whatever you can do on a computer can also be done on a smartphone. Advertising and marketing content for phones have developed more slowly but it is becoming obvious that Smartphones will become one of, if not the, most important destination for marketing .
The development of promotional activities of phones in this way has been triggered by the development of technological capabilities. It is dependent on how many features that the smartphone has, the promotional activities available on the devices are raising. Also these alternatives have associations with SMS, email, applications and so on. These communication channels can be used together to attract the interest of users of the phone. With this variety smartphones now offer a wide market for companies.
In 2008 BMW carried out a highly effective MMS campaign. The company aimed to sell snow tires to its German customers. They used the the database which includes the customers mobile phone number, car model and wheel type. BMW especially focused on the customers who bought their car in the summer or autumn in the last one year. In the MMS campaign, BMW, customized the car model’s color with the exact same color of the customer bought with the rims it has on. Then virtually replaced the tyres and rims with the winter type ones. They waited until the first snowy day in Germany before sending the MMS. There was a link under the MMS which leads to a mobile web site where customers can choose different variations of rims and tires. That was a very successful example of doing the marketing job via messages. The conversion rate from messages sent to actual tyres purchased was 30%, and the campaign earned $45m.
Returning to the figures in the survey we can see the vast majority of smartphone users have a positive outlook on receiving more than one email per week. Improved network capacity is an essential requirement of smart phones connectivity. Not only are personal e-mails sent by smartphones, but also business e-mails. Thus, there are no boundaries of the use of e-mails in smartphones.
When an individual receives a promotional message on his/her smartphone, as mentioned above, he/she gains access to a larger information range than with SMS messages. Also with the easy use and fast access abilities of smartphones, the individual can gain information faster than by way of an e-mail received on a computer.
SMS, maintains its strength and the power of being a gradually increasing communication channel. Even though it is one of the most basic means of communication SMS still remains important on any type of phone. Because SMS is a fast, easy to use and very common way for text messaging. More than half of smartphone users who are interested in promotion are also attracted by SMS messages .
Scarcity of application support can be understood by the rate of 10% for standard telephones. Such an outcome is normal when the standard phone do not use apps. Like with SMS more than half of the participants here, claim that they want to get messages through specific applications. In the light of the rising trend of applications we can say that, there will be strong promotional opportunities in the near future.
Other figures are in fact more self-explanatory. Opportunities to emerging communication channels, developing at the same rate with how much the users are immersed in technology. As Smartphone usage continues to grow rapidly we will see a new understanding of the marketing and advertising opportunities available.
Smartphones are likely to replace laptops with extra features for communication. People are never very far from their smartphones which are high capacity technological devices. That makes the job of reaching their target groups easier for companies. Also they can get fast response and feedback from these target groups thanks to all the features of smart phones. As a result, using smart phones as a marketing channel is a clever and effective way for companies. And with the rapidly developing technologies and fast-changing user habits, in the future, companies which use smartphones as a marketing channel will receive the benefits of their approach markedly. On the other hand, they have to keep on working on new ways of influencing their target groups via these fast developing technologies without alienating or discouraging users.
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Une réponse à “Promotional messages increase appeal to smartphone owners”
The smartphone marketing is improving all the time. Companies like BMW shows us that they are really innovative and that they got smart marketers in their company.
I’ve never used programs like ad block, because in my opinion if I getting some data or information for free from Internet portals is obligatory to watch ads.
Here in France Youtube ads are a little annoying because they are putting them too much. Youtube should rethink how many ads put or start selling premium accounts.
As a smartphone user I’ve never get annoyed by ads inside the applications.