Get Your Viral Marketing Mobile

    Where will you be going today?  You’ll always find yourself out and about for one reason or another.  How did we ever get things done when we had to “stay by the phone” because of that terrible CORD?  Everything today is “on the go.”  We are no longer a society that stays located in permanent locations while performing our daily tasks.  Mobile devices, mobile phones and PDA’s are one of the last great frontiers of viral advertisement opportunities. However, we have become experts at filtering everything, our air and water, our e-mail and pop-ups, and our mobile devices as well. We are good at filtering, blocking, or just ignoring things that seem to upset us.  Regardless we find ourselves always wanting to be "connected", just in case something develops that we do not want to miss.

     However, the very idea of unwanted advertising streaming through our cell phones is abhorrent to some people. Mobile devices are the ultimate opt-in medium and, therefore, a great way for marketers to connect with users…if that’s what the users want. “WANT” is the key word here. How should marketers approach the medium?

     There are three main ways to achieve this. They are:

1.         Offer exclusive content. Anyone can offer ring tones. It’s the unique content, such as exclusive mobile images of new brand concepts, that drives interest and calls them out in other media like e-mail campaigns, newsletters, websites, etc. So a wireless campaign is most effective when it offers exclusive content for wireless devices.

2.         Make it useful and timely. Think about what would be handy and helpful to have on a mobile device. What do you think would be helpful to you?  In the past, for example, Food Network enabled Sprint customers to download shopping lists for their Thanksgiving dinners. There was a lot of “Sprint-envy” going around among non-sprint customers.

3.         Clearly define objectives. Usually, one of two business objectives drives successful mobile experiences: incremental revenue of brand intimacy for example. On the intimacy factor, a text message usually takes priority over almost any other form of communication. Why? Because we haven’t yet been saturated with mobile spam, and this is what causes us to prioritize wireless messaging over voice or to perhaps even begin to “block” certain numbers on our phones.

     Mobile marketing has been out there for a while but we marketers have new territory to explore. Video offers fantastic opportunities for engagement. Consumers already bypass their filters for highly useful or entertaining content and will do so for rich exclusive, compelling content.  If you haven’t begun to use this marketing media it may be one you want to look in to.  You may be surprised at the success of your efforts!

QUOTE TO CONSIDER

THOUGHTFUL GEM

"If you truly want to 'get away from it all',

you can't take your phone with you!"