Mobile Marketing: Meaning

and Types
 

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel, digital marketing strategy aimed at reaching a target

audience on their smartphones, tablets, and/or other mobile devices, via websites, email, SMS
and MMS, social media, and apps.

Mobile is disrupting the way people engage with brands. Everything that can be done on a
desktop computer is now available on a mobile device. From opening an email to visiting your
website to reading your content, it’s all accessible through a small mobile screen. Consider:

 80% of internet users own a smartphone.

 Mobile platforms, such as smartphones and tablets, host up to 60% of digital media time for
users in the U.S.
 Google anticipates search queries on mobile devices to surpass desktop searches by the end of
2015.

Effective mobile advertising means understanding your mobile audience, designing content with
mobile platforms in mind, and making strategic use of SMS/MMS marketing and mobile apps.

Types of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing has proven to be effective as now, the consumer has an increased control over
the kind of advertisements that are sent to him. There was a time when most messages sent to
consumers were not very useful, posing a serious threat to mobile marketing.

Corrective actions, both by corporations and network providers have helped to weed out
unscrupulous elements, making mobile marketing an ethical way of promotion and publicity.
Some types of mobile marketing are as follows.

1. Short Message Service (SMS)

Short message service initiated the concept of mobile marketing and still is used to promote a
variety of products and services. Although, it has been put to a lot of abuse, regulations in the
past few years have meant a revival of this form of mobile marketing.

The biggest advantage of SMS marketing is its reach and the low cost of marketing. Every cell
phone has an ability to receive an SMS, which essentially means a larger target audience for
corporations.

2. Multimedia Message Service (MMS)

 Multimedia messages score over SMS as being a more effective form of marketing as it provides
the user with images, audio and video. MMS can also be used to run advertisements as one gets
to see on a TV, and offers a more efficient way of marketing a product, however, the cost of
sending an MMS is more than that of an SMS.

3. Mobile Applications
Mobile applications have proved to be a great tool for mobile marketers, as these are innovative
and offer the user a host of features. There are certain widgets that are displayed on the home
screen of mobile phones, allowing the user to directly log into them, and advertisements can be
placed on these applications to promote a product.

4. Bluetooth Mobile Marketing

This type of marketing helps in customizing the type of advertisements a user will receive, and
most of it is based upon the geographical location of the user. This is an effective form of
marketing as it helps in delivering relevant information to the user, and helps in filtering the
advertisements which may not be useful for the user.

For example, the probability of a person enrolling for a dancing or a yoga course is more if the
venue is closer to where he stays. This is the prime reason why Bluetooth mobile marketing is an
effective tool for serving custom ads to the user.

5. Mobile Internet Advertisements

When you are online, you might have seen several advertisements popping up on your computer
screen. Mobile Internet advertisements work in the same way, and deliver high-quality content to
users. These are mostly built for smartphone users who have a reliable Internet connection.

Apart from the general consumer advertisements, mobile marketing has also helped
entrepreneurs to expand their business and network with people. The QR (quick-response
barcodes) allow interested parties to know more about a business project.

Today, iPhone is equipped with Near Field Communication, which allows users to buy stuff
online, as one does from a computer. Truly, there are more exciting times ahead, and innovations
in technology can provide some magnificent options to corporations as well as consumers.

Customer Relationship
Management (CRM):
Meaning/Introduction
  

Customer relationship management (CRM) is the combination of practices, strategies and

technologies that companies use to manage and analyze customer interactions and data
throughout the customer lifecycle, with the goal of improving customer service relationships and
assisting in customer retention and driving sales growth. CRM systems compile customer data
across different channels, or points of contact between the customer and the company, which
could include the company’s website, telephone, live chat, direct mail, marketing materials and
social media. CRM systems can also give customer-facing staff detailed information on
customers’ personal information, purchase history, buying preferences and concerns.

Components of Customer Relationship Management (CRM)

At the most basic level, CRM software consolidates customer information and documents into a
single CRM database so business users can more easily access and manage it.

Over time, many additional functions have been added to CRM systems to make them more
useful. Some of these functions include recording various customer interactions over email,
phone, social media or other channels; depending on system capabilities, automating various
workflow automation processes, such as tasks, calendars and alerts; and giving managers the
ability to track performance and productivity based on information logged within the system.

 Marketing Automation: CRM tools with marketing automation capabilities can automate

repetitive tasks to enhance marketing efforts at different points in the lifecycle. For example, as sales
prospects come into the system, it might automatically send the prospects marketing materials, typically
via email or social media, with the goal of turning a sales lead into a full-fledged customer.
 Sales force automation: Sales force automation tools track customer interactions and automate
certain business functions of the sales cycle that are necessary to follow leads and attract and obtain
new customers.
 Contact center automation: Designed to reduce tedious aspects of a contact center agent’s job,
contact center automation might include prerecorded audio that assists in customer problem-solving
and information dissemination. Various software tools that integrate with the agent’s desktop tools can
handle customer requests in order to cut down on the time of calls and to simplify customer service
processes.
 Geolocation technology, or location-based services: Some CRM systems include technology
that can create geographic marketing campaigns based on customers’ physical locations, sometimes
integrating with popular location-based GPS apps. Geolocation technology can also be used as a
networking or contact management tool in order to find sales prospects based on a location.
 Workflow automation: CRM systems help businesses optimize processes by streamlining
mundane workloads, enabling employees to focus on creative and more high-level tasks.
 Lead management: Sales leads can be tracked through CRM, enabling sales teams to input,
track and analyze data for leads in one place.
 Human resource management (HRM): CRM systems help track employee information, such as
contact information, performance reviews and benefits within a company. This enables the human
resource department to more effectively manage the internal workforce.
 Analytics: Analytics in CRM help create better customer satisfaction rates by analyzing user data
and helping create targeted marketing campaigns.
 AI: Artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, such as Salesforce Einstein, have been built into CRM
platforms to automate repetitive tasks, identify customer buying patterns to predict future customer
behaviors and more.

Brand Sponsorship
Brand Sponsorship
Brand sponsorship is a marketing strategy in which a brand is supporting an event, activity,
person or organization. Everywhere we go we can witness sponsorship investments: music
festival, football games, beneficial events and so on. Sponsorship allows big, medium and small
brands to partner with other companies as well as event agencies in order to generate a
relationship that aims to economically gratify both the sponsor and the sponsee.

Well-known scenario is when a global brand (let’s think at Coca-Cola) spend a lot of money to
become official sponsor of the World-Cup. What are the benefits coming from this investment?

 Increase brand awareness/visibility: Whether you are a newborn brand or a well-established

company, sponsoring is an activity that can help you gain awareness or increase your visibility
addressing a broader target.
 Increase your sales/acquire customers: This is the ultimate goal for every business. Getting to
the top of the mind of new or existing customers not only increase awareness but can also directly drive
sales, according to how the sponsorship is coherent with your marketing plan.
 Gain publicity: Can you imagine a startup that gets to be the sponsor of an important event or
sport club? Seems like a natural consequence that media will talk about this. Furthermore, people will
share news on social networks. As a result, you can gain good exposure – all this for free!
 Differentiate from the competition: If you find yourself in a very competitive and profit-
shrinking market, being the sponsor of a big event or organization can give you the chance to stand out
as a leader in your field
 Increase brand loyalty/premium prices: True especially for sport sponsorship. In fact, it is
statistically proven that, for example, fans of a particular team are more willing to buy from the sponsor
than from its competitors. This leads to brand loyalty, which leads itself to customers being less sensitive
to premium prices
 Increase your CSR reputation/brand image: Finally, sponsoring a charitable event or a
foundation can enhance your brand image as a caring company. As a result you will be able to witness a
profit increase on the long term.

A sponsor can enjoy a wide range of benefits from a carefully selected sponsorship, which can:-
 Raise brand awareness and create preference
 Create positive PR and raise awareness of the organization as a whole
 Provide attractive content for a range of products and services
 Build brand positioning through associative imagery
 Support a sales promotion campaign
 Create internal emotional commitment to the brand
 Act as corporate hospitality that promotes good relations with clients.

Before sponsoring an activity, the sponsor must feel sure that the event/organization will be
successful; has a proven track record, good prospects and generally be aligned with the sponsor’s
brand and business objectives. Sports sponsorship is the most common and can range from
international to regional and local events.