Chris, CEO of Mobilitrix, encourages companies to “look beyond the SMS competitions” that are most often favoured when it comes to Mobile Marketing. As is pointed out on their website:
“The new generation of media consumer wants to interact with all forms of media and advertising in real-time and on their own terms - and the mobile phone provides the perfect tool to do this.”
By allowing people to interact on their own terms, brands can avoid being invasive and rather harness the possibilities of mobile interaction. (It helps no one for example, that I am one unsolicited SMS away from moseying into a certain retail store and setting a mannequin on fire). Chris encourages brands to rather consider how they can make their offline advertising interactive.
“[brands] don’t understand that you can use anywhere that you advertise as your mobile launching pad…they think you can only send to a group…but just put a number on a billboard and see what happens.”
By placing a channel to more information on a billboard you can both provide people with an option for further content, and learn about who is actually looking at said billboard. “What we really try to push about mobile is that knowledge can be measured.” Mobilitrix have a number of products that can, among many things, elicit feedback, manage databases and send selected content to mobile phones.
Mobilitrix will soon be launching analytics for mobile, where their partners and clients can measure the success of their campaigns and learn how to better them.
I asked Chris which campaigns have recently been successful for him, and he immediately suggested that ones using USSD, or Unstructured Supplementary Service Data, are the most exciting in the African market. USSD is what you use when you check your balance or send a “please call me”. A USSD code goes along the lines of *number number number #.
USSD offers a range of interaction options, doesn’t cost a lot (especially relevant in the African market) and it is already familiar to users.
In markets like Japan or Germany, where bandwidth isn’t an issue, you’re more likely to work with multimedia content on a mobile phone. In Africa, however, which is Mobilitrix’s target area, USSD is the way to go.
Through one of their products, Mobilisurvey, Mobilitrix facilitated a recent survey for Shoprite. By targeting people on their existing database, Shoprite managed to get responses from 2500 people, which was a 15% conversion (which is pretty high).
If you're based in South Africa, I can give you a live demo right now - just input the following numbers into your phone:
*120*33009*8888#
For those who can’t, the idea is that you can respond to questions by choosing options and sending them in. The possibilities for alleviating pressure on call centres are quite interesting. Chris told me of another client who could use USSD for emergency services. By collecting information that can separate the critical calls from the non-critical ones, service could be optimised.
The key really seems to be in understanding how you can use mobiles to reach people, in a way that is useful more than invasive, but to embrace the medium while you're at it. Chris says that the greatest mistakes brands make is to leave mobile access points off of their offline advertising. Spending money on a print campaign is increasingly worth it if you can get some idea of how many people want to interact with it. I must admit I'm a little bit sceptical about response rates offline, but that comes only from being uneducated, so as more campaigns are run I'd love to see the data that is collected on how people really interact with brands through their mobile phones.
Did you enjoy this post? Why not check out:
- Getting Mobile Right
- Friday Fact Box - Mobile Use
- 5 Tips for Running an Effective Mobile Marketing Campaign
- Online Market Research - Is it Useful?
Disclosure: Mobilitrix is one of Quirk's Commercial Partners.
