It seems that everyone these days is so incredibly fascinated with their mobile phones. Who can blame them really?
With the ever increasing number of applications on them, these various handheld devices occupy an ever increasing amount of our time.
From popular Facebook and Myspace apps, to practical ones like iWant (which direct you to nearby banks, gas station etc. using GPS) to the trivial (WeatherBug, which gives up to date weather feeds on locations in the United States), there are endless things that can keep you glued to your mobile phone.
Combine this with the increasing proliferation of new functional handheld devices like the Blackberry Bold, Samsung Instinct and the G1, and we can expect this phenomenon to continue. As marketers, this would seem to provide us a chance to extend our brands’ reach further into the lives of our consumers.
There is a major caveat here, however. In the rush to get on board with the emerging mobile marketing platform, marketers need to be aware of its limitations as a media platform.
This holds true both in terms of its physical (small screen size, lack of a functional mobile internet) and economic (cost of SMS campaigns in North America, cost of using mobile internet, etc.) limitations, and in terms of how receptive customers are to receiving mobile marketing messages.
Given the continuing development of mobile marketing platforms, it is vital that marketers get on board with this rapidly evolving marketing form. In order to do so, it is important to ensure that mobile is a platform that makes sense for reaching and engaging your customer base.
In order to ascertain whether the mobile platform is right for them, companies need a way to test the effectiveness of mobile marketing. The logical step is to find a way to bridge the gap between the platforms that their customers are comfortable and familiar with, and the newer evolving ones (in this case mobile marketing). But the key question is how?
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