Mobile Marketing

Hotel mobile marketing is one of the most useful applications of this new frontier of marketing. If you consider it, those people who usually go lodge on hotels are those that are always on the go and are most likely to have a mobile phone or other mobile devices. Hotel owners can make use of this reality and implement hotel mobile marketing strategies to bring them closer to their potential customers. Hotel mobile marketing is truly an innovative way to get in touch with people who are looking for a place to stay.

There are a couple of ways on how you can conduct hotel mobile marketing. One of the most basic is of course by creating a mobile website of your hotel. Even if your hotel already has an existing traditional www website, you still have to build a mobile-friendly website for the benefit of travelers who are using mobile devices to find the nearest hotel in an area. This way your website will load properly on mobile devices, ensuring that those people will get an information about your hotel.

Another method that you can utilize in hotel mobile marketing is implementing a mobile customer relationship management and mobile customer service. Mobile marketing can be used to engage with your customers and it provides a very personalized interaction channel for both parties. Some examples of the application of this method can be confirmation of reservation through SMS, pre-arrival SMS, post-stay SMS, and notifications about the area. With this, you do not only get to send out information but you can also receive them as well through guest satisfaction surveys that you can send.

You can also create mobile opt-in lists in hotel mobile marketing where in you can send SMS messages about promotions or event announcements about your hotel. This is somewhat challenging compared to an e-mail opt-in list because people are more wary in giving out their phone numbers compared to their email addresses. However, there are certain strategies that will allow you to solicit opt-ins in your text list. You can do guest check-in or check-out solicitations, website registrations, online contests, online quizzes and polls, and many more.

Mobile marketing solutions is a great strategy to improve your business performance among your market. However, with so many providers to choose from nowadays, it is quite challenging how you can select the best mobile marketing solutions for your business. Here are some tips that you can try to make the most out of the investment when selecting a mobile marketing solution for your enterprise.

Prior to choosing a specific mobile marketing solutions provider, you need to have a plan on the marketing campaign that you want to accomplish. Mobile marketing is a diverse field and you need to have at least an idea of what you want to achieve out of the various opportunities that it can offer. Perhaps you want to send text alerts or notifications, conduct a survey, collect some data, send some information, or create a mobile app or a mobile website. In short, you need to have a clear and specific set of objectives before choosing a mobile marketing solution.

Once you have figured out what your mobile marketing goals are, the next step is understanding the various channels that can be used in a mobile marketing solution. There are many means by which your marketing campaign can reach your target audience so you need to have an idea of what they are. These include but are not limited to SMS mobile marketing, MMS mobile marketing, mobile marketing via Bluetooth, mobile marketing via Infrared, and mobile web marketing. You have to understand the merits as well as the disadvantages of each methods so you can decide whether you want to use all of them or perhaps just a few chosen ones. You also have to consider your target market and analyze which of these means are more likely to get your message across to them.

The last consideration in choosing a mobile marketing solution is the coverage of your campaign. Are you aiming for a local or a global audience? Once again, look at your target market and make sure that your mobile marketing solutions provider supports the carriers that has your potential market. You also need to inquire on the mobile marketing solutions provider on how you can manage a campaign if ever you decided to choose them. These management tools that are included in a mobile marketing solutions package are extremely important since it allows you to become flexible on your marketing campaign.

The Mobile Marketing Association or MMA for short is an international non-profit trade association that was created for the purpose of leading the improvement of mobile marketing as well as its related technologies. The Mobile Marketing Association is comprised of diverse member companies which includes hand held device manufacturers, agencies, advertisers, carriers and operators, retailers, software and service providers, and other enterprises that have something to do with mobile marketing.

Currently the Mobile Marketing Association has over 700 companies from all over the world. Its main headquarters is located in the United States and it has regional chapters in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, Europe, and North America.

There are a couple of functions of the Mobile Marketing Association. The MMA is a venue for members to meet and discuss the pressing issues of the industry so that a resolution can be provided. It functions as channel to connect various related industries on the local, regional, and global levels. They also serve as a representative for the mobile marketing industry to the various legislative institutions on different places. The body also helps in develop the industry by sponsoring researches and developing various metrics that can be utilized by its members.

The Mobile Marketing Association was established in 2000 where it was still called the Wireless Advertising Association or WAA. During the year 2003, it merged with the European-based Wireless Marketing Association to form the Mobile Marketing Association in the United Kingdom and France. The membership of MMA North America back then were only about 10-20 companies until 2005, when mobile marketing became more mainstream. Additional Mobile Marketing Association national chapters in Austria, Spain as well as regional chapters for Middle East and African and Asia Pacific were founded in 2007, while the Latin America chapter was created in 2008.

Companies that are related to mobile marketing can become a member of Mobile Marketing Association. Becoming a member entitles a company to a lot of benefits. Aside from being able to network and collaborate with the industry´s top players, the company can also get exclusive access to various mobile marketing events worldwide, as well as various resources and publications that are pertinent to this kind of enterprise.

Today, many people are still wary about the effectiveness of mobile marketing, but in actuality, the mobile marketing statistics show that it is indeed the only way to go. Perhaps it can be attributed to the fact that more and more people are beginning to use various mobile devices and that the traditional forms of marketing is not as effective anymore as before. Here are some of the mobile marketing statistics gathered from various researches that just shows how relevant this new form of marketing is in this day and age.

An important mobile marketing statistics is the usage of mobile devices among people. In a study published by Accenture in October 2008, 21% of the respondents picked mobile phones as the second most preferred consumer electronics by US internet users as of December 2007, which is second only to 51% who chose laptop or desktop computers. But that is however the figure for the baby boomers generation or those who are 45 years of age or older. On the other hand, 47% of Gen Y respondents or those that are aged 18-24 picked mobile phones over the other consumer electronic devices. These figures point out the increasing preference of mobile phones as a medium among younger people. This is a rather important indicator that mobile advertising is indeed the wave of the future.

Another one of the relevant mobile marketing statistics is there is a significant improvement in recall and comfort with mobile ads. The study published by Nielsen Mobile on March 2008 suggested that people are actually becoming more okay with mobile ads. The study found out that the recall rate of seeing mobile advertising increased by 38% from 42 million to 58 million during the second to fourth quarters of 2007. In addition, 51% or more than half of mobile data subscribers responded to an advertisement that they saw. This signifies a growing pattern of openness among mobile phone users with regards to mobile marketing.

The implications of these mobile marketing statistics are huge since they all point out to the increasing trend of mobile marketing. While the data that are presented here are limited, findings from other studies can support the conclusion that mobile marketing is here to stay for a very long time.

Mobile marketing is somewhat a tricky endeavor since it is very unique form of advertising campaign and therefore here are some mobile marketing tips that can help you ensure a successful new campaigns. But before you start to conceptualize your campaign plan, always keep in mind that a mobile campaign is many ways different from the traditional marketing strategies and that difference is exactly the main key why mobile marketing has such a great potential. Without further ado, here are some mobile marketing tips that you can follow.

One of the mobile marketing tips that you should never forget is that you should never forget the medium that you are delivering the content to. Mobile phones and other devices are personal things unlike say televisions, newspapers, billboards, and other forms of traditional marketing techniques. That being said, you should always keep the content that you deliver relevant and personal. Ensure that what you deliver is something that is meaningful to the individual to make it more appealing to the receiver.

Another example of mobile marketing tips that is highly recommended is to encourage interactivity with your customers in the campaign. Audience participation is a great way to engage with your market and you can do this by allowing them to submit videos or pictures. Be creative on how you can utilize this method. This kind of strategy should be maximized in any campaigns since this kind of user participation is unprecedented since the old forms of marketing campaigns uses medium that are essentially one-sided. This unique mobile marketing strategy will help in familiarizing your brand to your customers as well as gain their trust.

Also, providing giveaways to users is one effective mobile marketing tips that you can try. You can utilize freebies such as access to relevant content, discount coupons, or exclusive information in order to make people become interested and subscribe to your content. This strategy is a great way to increase your user base and will promote the user participation in your campaign.

While mobile marketing is inherently challenging due to its targeted nature, making such campaigns a success is attainable if you follow these simple mobile marketing tips.

Mobile search marketing is an important aspect of mobile marketing. The term refers to the use of various search engine optimization and search engine marketing methods on mobile search engine sites to promote the search result ranking and the visibility of a mobile website. Mobile web is a relatively new field and therefore mobile search engine themselves are not as developed as their traditional website counterparts. This makes mobile SEO and SEM quite challenging. However, this should not be a reason to stop you from taking advantage of mobile search marketing especially it is still considered in its young stage.

Currently, the top search engines in mobile web today are Google XHMTL Mobile Search from Google Mobile, Yahoo! Mobile, MSN Mobile Search, AOL Mobile Search, Nokia Mobile Search, Technocrati Mobile, and 4INFO Mobile Search. These are the most important mobile websites that you should always keep in mind when conducting mobile search marketing. Basically you want your mobile website to attain a high search result ranking on these engines so that people can easily find your site and drive more traffic to it.

When implementing mobile search engine optimization as a part of your mobile search marketing strategy, one useful practice is using 100% valid XHTML 1.0 code. This will optimize your website for the future since the WML will be likely to be phased out soon. Also, using a valid code is important so that mobile search engines will not have any difficulty processing your site.

Another mobile SEO method that you can use when conducting mobile search marketing is making your mobile site accessible to any type of platforms. Remember that mobile web users are very diverse so make sure that your site has covered all the bases so that you won´t be alienating specific type of users on your site.

Of course, you still need to follow the traditional SEO practices even on mobile search marketing as it is already a tried and tested formula. When putting up a mobile website, make sure that it is keyword-rich and those keywords are in key places such as title tag, H1, body text, anchor text, and so on. Do not forget to submit site on major mobile search engines to ensure that they will truly index your site.

Small business mobile marketing may sound like an impractical strategy to improve a business. Why would a small business want to have anything to do to an unproven and relatively young market when it could be focusing on the main battles at hand? Actually, this exact same reason is what makes small business mobile marketing a great opportunity for companies that do not have that much resources. Small business mobile marketing is an exciting new way to reach out to new customers and improve your business performance. Here are some reasons why mobile marketing can be good for small businesses.

The primary reason why small business mobile marketing is a good idea is because of the sheer amount of mobile phone users today. In US alone, there are over 70 million US consumers who utilize their mobile phones regularly. Meanwhile 95% of new mobile phones that are sold nowadays have web browsing capability. In addition, in 2007, the majority of the 18-24 age group (47%) chose their mobile phones over their desktop and laptop computers as their most preferred consumer electronics. These figures undeniably show the trend towards mobile web usage. What small businesses can learn out of this is that they should establish themselves as early as now while mobile web is still young, since the competition is still not as tight.

There are a couple of methods on how a company can conduct a small business mobile marketing. One of the most popular ways to do this is through third party mobile applications. Your company doesn´t necessarily have to develop its own mobile app as you can simply tie up with other companies that already have significant visibility in mobile web, or capitalize on free mobile tools and websites that can help spread your brand to other people. For example, you can list your business on Google Maps and Yelp since they already have a huge amount of user base. Such mobile sites can help make your small business noticeable to other people. Another method that you can do is ad placement on popular phone applications. Of course, this will cost you money but if you choose the apps correctly, you may just hit the jackpot and make your brand popular on your intended market.

With the economy down and at the same time more and more people are starting to use a variety of mobile devices, the benefits of mobile marketing has never been more apparent. This is because mobile marketing is one of the best methods to boost your business in these hard times. Companies must find new ways to reach out to their potential markets so that customers can become once again responsive to their sales pitch and there is no other logical way to go but mobile marketing. Here are some mobile marketing benefits that can help you decide whether it is best for your business.

The first and foremost of the benefits of mobile marketing is that it is a cost-effective way to create promotional campaigns that can be accomplished even on a short notice. Today, people have become oversaturated with the traditional forms of marketing messages in the form of advertisements, telemarketing, and email spam, to the point that they are not that much effective anymore. Mobile marketing are relatively much cheaper than these aforementioned traditional promotional campaigns and you can totally control who will receive these marketing messages since they are targeted. This way, what you will spend on a mobile marketing campaign will not be wasted.

Another one of the benefits of mobile marketing is that it is more likely to work more than traditional marketing due to its nature. In mobile marketing, people have to opt-in to a subscription to get marketing messages. What this entails is that you only get to send messages to people who are actually interested and have a high probability of buying your product.

You can also include in the benefits of mobile marketing the fact that it is an utterly measurable endeavor. This is really crucial in any business as it takes the guesswork out of the equation. You actually get to see the results of a campaign in real time, with instruments that are accurate. The implications of this are huge since you can immediately take necessary actions to adjust the campaign based on the consumer response, to ensure that your investment will never be a wasted one.

In order to truly understand the concept, you have to be know the definition of mobile marketing. Mobile marketing, when loosely defined refers to the marketing strategy that utilizes mobile technology such as mobile phones. The definition of mobile marketing could also refer to the type of marketing that is conducted in a moving manner for instance, technology road shows or moving billboards. However, these mobile marketing definitions are very vague and doesn´t quite capture the basic gist of the concept.

However, during November 2009 Mobile Marketing Forum, the Mobile Marketing Association announced an updated mobile marketing definition, to include more comprehensive details to help make people understand the term better. The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) is the number one international non-profit trade association that was created to lead initiate the growth of mobile marketing and advertising as well as their related technologies. It has a 700-strong member companies from over 40 countries around the world. The association´s headquarters is located on the United States but it also has respective regional chapters on North America, Europe, Latin America, Middle East and Africa, and Asia Pacific.

According to the Mobile Marketing Association, the definition of mobile marketing refers to the set of practices that allows organizations to communicate and connect with their audience in an interactive a well as pertinent way by making use of any mobile device or network. This improved definition of mobile marketing by the Mobile Marketing Association entails two further explanations for its meaning.

The first is that these “sets of practices” can be enumerated as follows: institutions, activities, industry players, processes, advertising and media, standards, promotions, direct response, CRM, relationship management, loyalty, customer services, social marketing, and all the other aspects of marketing. The second is that to “connect with their audience” implies to initiate relationships, acquire, generate activity, stimulate social interaction with organization and community members, and being at hand during the moment consumers express their needs. In addition, this connecting or engaging with the consumer can be started by the consumer in the form of response or click, or by the marketer.

The rationale of this update of mobile marketing definition, according to Mike Wehrs, President and CEO of MMA, is to provide a more accurate description of this ever-growing field of mobile marketing.

While mobile marketing is usually referred to as the commercial process that is done on various mobile devices, it can also literally mean a marketing procedure that is done in a moving manner through mobile marketing vehicles. While the latter is still considered a traditional form of marketing compared to the former, it is nevertheless an innovative way to promote and sell products. Mobile marketing vehicles are often used on marketing events or as a moving billboard, thus providing a unique way for businesses to reach out to their markets.

There are a couple of ways on how to make mobile marketing vehicles. The most common is by using vehicle wraps. A vehicle wrap is a method of putting graphics in a car with a self-adhesive vinyl, so that it appears as if it was just painted on the body of the vehicle. A full vehicle wrap can cost about $3,000 and the most popular companies that offer such service are Avery Dennison, 3M, and Arlon. The function of these kind of mobile marketing vehicles is just to familiarize people with a specific product.

Another type of mobile marketing vehicles are those that custom-built promotional trailers. The purpose of these vehicles are not only to advertise a specific product, but also to bring a service that a company provides to a particular events or functions. Some examples of these kind of mobile marketing vehicles are exhibit trailers, hospitality trailers, kitchen trailers, and gooseneck trailers. Through these mobile marketing vehicles, one can showcase hotel room service, restaurants, exhibits and many more in unexpected places.

The main key to the effectiveness of mobile marketing vehicles is through experiential marketing strategy. Sure, a moving mobile marketing vehicle can be just considered as a billboard on wheels that is just as mundane as other traditional marketing strategies but some studies have found out that these mobile marketing vehicles have a whopping 87% recall rate.

However, that is not the main purpose of a mobile marketing vehicle and it just serves as an additional benefit. Mobile marketing vehicles, particularly the custom-built promotional trailers, allows potential customers to actually experience a product or a service. This is quite different from advertising where in you are just telling people how good your product is. With mobile marketing vehicles, you can actually demonstrate and prove to them how good your product is.