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.
