the dark side | sms marketing

Another reason that mobile is so powerful as a mass media is that it is always carried and always on. People have their phones with them at work, while they are running errands, when they are out to dinner, while they’re at the gym, and just about everywhere else they go. Surveys have shown that 60 percent of the population even sleeps with a phone by their beds. This is not to say that all these times are open opportunities to market to your customers; it just shows that the media is highly interwoven into the daily lives of people and makes the mobile device extremely powerful as a mass media tool. And because mobile replicates all other media, it leaves other media vulnerable to changes in use. If people can easily and conveniently replace with mobile what they currently get through other media, they will. When it becomes simpler to get the exact news you want (and none of the stuff you don’t) delivered directly to you wherever you are and whenever you want to read it, this is likely to replace printed newspapers.

The last thing that makes mobile so powerful is that a payment mechanism is built into the device. A person interacting with your company via mobile has the ability to make a purchase immediately with the click of a button. It no longer requires an extra step to get the purchase. It is quite likely that our mobile devices will become our primary method of payment.
Someday it will seem unusual not to pay for most of our everyday purchases with our cell phones.
The bottom line about mobile as the seventh mass media is that it will be integrated into the lives of consumers so quickly that we will likely be shocked at how fast. And just like generations that came before us, we are probably watching the younger folks take to it like a fish to water. After all, they don’t know life without any of these tools and without each individual having the power to be their own media outlet. As a marketer, you just need to stay on top of how to use this media channel.

As powerful as TV was to change in the world and as seemingly unbelievable as the changes were that the Internet generated, these pale in comparison to the power of mobile as the seventh mass media. Remember that mobile is not just about phones; it is about any device that can do what other mass media does but in a mobile environment. When you combine the fact that this can replicate all other forms of mass media and is the most widely owned and used media tool in the world, it becomes obvious how powerful it is.
If you consider the adoption rates of mobile, it is simply astounding how prevalent mobile device use is around the world. Over half the population of the planet has a mobile phone. In many countries, the adoption rate is more than 100 percent. In the U.S., that rate is 80 percent; in Canada, it is 60 percent. Almost everyone has a mobile phone these days.
In addition to being so widespread, mobile as a mass media is extremely personal. Everyone knows that hundreds of thousands of others are reading a newspaper and the ads are targeted only by geographic vicinity. Virtually any ad could apply to any of the readers within a metro area. Everyone knows that millions of others are watching a TV show (and probably skipping through the commercials on their Tivo, too), and the ads are targeted to the general demographic that is watching the show. On mobile, it is possible to make sure that ads are precisely geographic and specifically personal.
For example, a person who has done a mobile search for a specific restaurant in the past can see an ad for that restaurant when reading an online news story on his phone in a nearby automotive repair shop waiting area. The woman right next to him reading the same news story might see an ad from a nearby shoe store where she has a loyalty card that is tracked through her mobile device. Meanwhile, the busy mom across the room could be getting a text message coupon from a fast food eatery where she frequently takes her kids when she needs a quick meal on the go. Compare that to the TV that is also on in the waiting room. All three of these people see the exact same advertising regardless of whether it applies to them personally.

There is no other media that can reach all these people with the message that is exactly right for them at the exact time that works for them while they are geographically located close enough to take action.

The sixth mass media, or the Internet, came into play in the mid-1990s.
What is unique about the Internet as a mass media is that “it is capable of replicating all of the other five previous media,” according to Ahonen. You can read books, newspapers, and magazines online, you can watch broadcast TV and listen to radio online, view movies and listen to recordings (podcasts, anyone?), all on the Internet. All five other mass media are also available on the Internet.
Does this mean that all the other media will disappear? Of course not. Will people curl up with their laptops on the beach to read the latest novel? No. But printed newspapers are declining and will likely someday go the way of the newsreel. At some point, it will be inconceivable that we used to have 12-hour-old news printed and delivered to our doorstep just as it is to us now that people went to the movies to catch a newsreel. The content will still be there, but consumers will consume it differently, more quickly, and from a wider range of sources. Evidence of that can be seen when popular bloggers are now competing for readers head to head with newspapers and achieving comparable readership numbers. Amateur videographers are now able to produce and market their own shows that often get viewership figures rivaling some cable TV shows. Consumers have become their own media sources.

In addition to replicating the other five mass media, the Internet as a mass media brought a threefold functionality to the world: interactivity, search, and mass ability to contribute in a significant way. Never before had a mass media allowed for interactivity so quickly. Yes, viewers could write to a TV station to express their views, Letters to the editor have been printed for years, and radio stations have fielded callers for decades. But the Internet blew interactivity wide open. From consumer reviews to article comments to video ratings, anyone can interact with almost anything that is produced online immediately. The ability to search quickly and easily through an almost infinite amount of data has certainly shifted things. I can’t even remember the last time I used the printed Yellow Pages, in which I have to figure out what category I should use to look up a service instead of just typing what comes naturally to mind. My daughter can’t even fathom doing homework research without the Internet as a resource.
Without a doubt, the biggest change in mass media with the Internet is the ability for the masses to become contributors. When Gutenberg first fired up the presses and printed the Bible, it was one of the few texts available to be printed. Now so many bloggers are blogging, podcasters are recording, videographers are creating their own shows, and people are creating their own radio programs that Time magazine named user contributors collectively as Person of the Year in 2006. The masses are the media now. We are not just sitting around waiting for whatever is sent down the pipeline to us. Through the Internet, consumers have become the media. Clearly this change is what makes the Internet so powerful as a mass media and changes the face of mass media as a whole.

In the 1950s, TV became the fifth mass media and began to shift and change the other media. In some cases, the new media completely cannibalized features of the old. For example, newsreels (short news documentaries) were played in movie theaters until TV news shows took over. Can you imagine going to the movie theater today to find out what is going on in the world? Today, in the time it takes to get in your car and drive to the theater, you can find dozens of news channels on TV for the news. TV also changed how we consumed content: We watched instead of listened.
Because there were only a few channels to watch and only one TV per household, families watched the same shows together at the same time. Advertising on network TV was successful because only a few brands were available for consumers and a large percentage of the population saw the advertising. As a teenager in the 1980s, I witnessed the birth of MTV and heard dire predictions about TV finally killing off radio. While the widespread use of TV changed how we focus on radio (we listen while we’re at work or in the car, and families certainly don’t gather around to hear a radio show), it did not wipe radio off the face of the planet. And video did not kill the radio star as the first song played on MTV suggested. But it did change how someone became a star; music videos became the fastest road to stardom, not radio play.

TV shifted the other media but didn’t really bring anything new to the table. Video images already existed in the cinema; TV changed where these images were viewed. Broadcast already existed with radio; TV just switched the broadcast from audio-only to a multimedia experience of audio and video. Even so, TV dominates the mass media. With the advances in technology, such as high-definition TV and flat-screen TV monitors, it is clear that this media is squeezing cinema even more. We can sit at home on a cozy couch and watch a movie with the family instead of going to the theater and sitting in a cold room with strangers who may talk through the entire movie. (At least you can tell your own family at home to shush.) I can see a future without movie theaters at all. Drive-ins are already gone, but that’s another story.

The third mass media was cinema, which came along in the early 1900s, making the turn-of-the-century population the first to live with three sources of mass media. The cinema brought multimedia (audio and video) to the world as well as the first pay-per-view business model. Many thought that the invention of the cinema would cause print and recordings to disappear.
But that didn’t happen. All three media forms grew and thrived.
Scarcely 10 years after cinema came radio, the fourth mass media. Radio brought “streaming” content delivery where a person has to listen live or miss the content. This was also the first media that was broadcast and received simultaneously by all listeners. Everyone who tuned in heard exactly the same thing at exactly the same time. Families gathered around the radio to listen together to the news, stories, and music. You begin to see how quickly new mass media comes into people’s lives, especially since the children of this time period are now in their 90s or have already passed on.
These folks have seen the greatest changes in technology of any generation so far.

It is important to understand how mobile is different than other marketing so that you can take advantage of the full power of the medium. As with any tool, it is best to use mobile for its intended purpose and to use it correctly As an example, you can get a screw into a piece of wood with a hammer, but it is certainly not the most efficient way to do it. If you can see mobile for what it is-the seventh mass media-you will be able to create much more dynamic and successful mobile marketing campaigns.

Understanding Mobile as the Seventh Mass Media
Probably the biggest mistake that businesses and marketing professionals make in marketing with mobile is that they don’t see mobile any differently than any of the other media they are already using to market. Many see it as a small TV or a dumb/slow computer and plan their marketing along those lines. But it is crucial for a business that wants to market smart with mobile to see it as an entirely new media: the seventh mass media. To understand that concept, we need to backtrack a bit and understand the first six mass media and how each subsequent newcomer changed the forerunners.
Again, this is examined fully in Ahonen’s book, but it is such a crucial foundation to a successful mobile marketing campaign that I’m including an overview here, with permission from Ahonen.
We’ve come a long way from the first mass media: print. In the mid-1400s when Johannes Gutenberg improved the printing press and mass printing became available, it revolutionized the world. Instead of only a handful of literate people who could participate in the world’s knowledge, literacy became commonplace. Large groups of people read the same thing, and information was shared on a wide scale for the first time. The common man found tremendous power since print allowed political influence by the masses, put religious texts directly in the hands of people that reduced the power of the church, and provided a way for literature to be shared easily.
It was not until the late 1800s (400 years later) that recording became the second mass media. This allowed music and books to be shared more universally, but it did not wipe out print as the first mass media, which some people believed that it might. This is important because every time a new media comes along, people think that it will wipe out previously existing ones; it never does. There were several generations who lived with print as their only mass media.

Multi-User
As personal as the mobile device is, its power lies in the fourth M, which is all about the community the device can help build and help the user interact with. Chat and user-generated content are the tip of the iceberg as far as this M is concerned. Multiplayer mobile games, mobile social networking, and anything else that helps users collaborate with each other via mobile
falls into this category. If there is anything you can offer that helps your customers belong to a community they wish to belong to, do it.

Money
The fifth ofthe 6 M’s is the money attribute, which encompasses everything from payment systems to let users make purchases with their mobile devices to loyalty programs and third-party payments such as employers’ directly depositing paychecks to mobile or parents paying allowance via mobile. All money-related functions in your mobile marketing campaign should be simple and secure.

Machines
The last of the 6 M’s is machines, which is all about the gadget itself. What can the machine do? From the actual buttons and knobs to the function that the machine can perform, this M is exciting. Imagine your phone as your personal remote control device to virtually everything from your TV and the lights in your home to your robot. While it is not likely you will be building or offering mobile devices, keep in mind what your customers are using to interact with you.

Examining the 6 M’s in more depth is a worthy venture.

Movement
The first M is the attribute of mobility. Movement comes into play when you consider where someone is using his or her mobile device and integrate that accordingly into your offering. This is what makes mobile web use different from desktop Internet access. A person needs a reason to go online with his or her mobile device instead of the desktop, and that reason depends on location, specifically if it is not within reach of his or her desktop computer.
The more you can incorporate where people are when they are interacting with your company via mobile, the more successful you will be.

Moment
The second M is for moment, which is all about expanding the concept of time. As it is explained in Mobile as 7th Mass Media Channel, “Moment includes catching up on past time (yesterday’s sports scores) or postponing time (putting a person on hold) as well as managing time (calendaring).”
Think about your business and how your customers can get value from your company through expanding time. What is it that they want from you as it relates to their time?

Me
Me is the third M and refers to the personalization and customization of the phone. From the moment users choose a ringtone, they are personalizing their mobile devices, and this customizing never seems to stop. From the accessories chosen to the choice of applications used to the sites accessed, mobile device use is about one person: me. Anything you can offer that is personalized or specifically customized has a better chance of being well received than anything that is designed for everyone.

While many blogs in the mobile marketing genre include information about mobile marketing, the technologies that power mobile, and the philosophies behind marketing with mobile, I have stayed focused on how to carry out a mobile marketing campaign. However, there are some important concepts about mobile, specifically as they relate to the value provided to the consumer that may be helpful for you to know as you proceed into mobile marketing.

The 6 M’s
To fully understand mobile as a marketing tool, it is helpful to consider a broader view of the mobile industry and how companies develop the tools and technologies that consumers use. Mobile giants including Ericsson, Orange, Motorola, Nokia, NTT DoCoMo, T-Mobile, Vodafone, and others adopted a service creation tool called The 6 M’s that was introduced by Tomi T Ahonen, Joe Barrett, and Paul Golding. These six attributes are important to users in their mobile experience. The 6 M’s are important to you as a mobile marketer because these are aspects of mobile use that the industry players are using to make product creation decisions and evaluate mobile service concepts. The 6 M’s are what virtually all mobile applications, services, and devices are built around and how they are compared.
Even though it seems a bit technical, it is worthwhile to understand this foundation concept from these industry leaders.
The 6 M’s (according to Ahonen in Mobile as 7th Mass Media Channel) are the following:

1. Movement
2. Moment
3. Me
4. Multi-User
5. Money
6. Machines

All major players in the mobile industry build billable services for mobile using the 6 M’s theory. It is the only comprehensive mobile service development tool, so you should be familiar with it. The basic concept is that each application, mobile service, or mobile device has each of these attributes in varying degrees. It is a recipe or formula for mobile success based on including each of these 6 M’s in a certain proportion. Let’s examine each of them briefly.

Mobile marketing encompasses so many strategies, ideas, techniques, and tools, and I wanted to include as many of them as possible while still providing enough depth and information. It was also difficult because of all the new enhancements to technologies and the many innovative offerings from vendors (even the carriers were starting to offer unlimited packages) that occurred while I was writing. Frankly, there were days when I thought that writing articles about mobile marketing campaigns was an impossible task. And, of course, none of these wonderful improvements will stop.
By the time you read this, more exciting things will have happened in mobile marketing. However, nothing will change the fundamental principles covered in this blog. Customers will always need to find value in engaging with mobile marketing. Mobile initiatives will always need to be integrated into other marketing mediums to succeed. Campaigns will need to be launched and tracked with the attention to detail that mobile requires. Your choice of what to do in mobile is only limited by your creativity and your willingness to try something new.
The unlimited pricing packages now hitting the U.S. will surely help expand the mobile market. As people begin to sign up for those allencompassing plans, they will want more powerful mobile devices to take advantage of what they are paying for; they will also expect to find plenty to do. This is where you come into the picture. Give them something meaningful to do with their new devices and all-inclusive plans. You’ll be glad you did.
On that note, I urge you try mobile marketing, see what happens with your customers, and find out what works and what doesn’t. Until you try mobile, you will be missing out on the newest and most powerful marketing tool of our time. It is up to you to dive in and make something happen. You may be surprised at the great response you get. Since you will have read all the blog, you’ll know how, and you’ll also know who can help you. I am certainly one of those people.

Through the Online Resource Guide at www.mobilemarketinghandbook.com and my blog, MobileMarketingProfits.com, I will keep you updated on what is new in the industry and give you access to fresh ideas in mobile. Feel free to contact me with questions, offer suggestions, and share your success stories. You can email me directly at kim@mobilemarketing handbook. com, and I will be happy to point you in the right direction and/ or offer solutions for your needs.
Thank you for coming along on this journey through the world of mobile marketing. It is only the beginning for both of us. Go forth and market with mobile. Keep me posted on how it is turning out for you.