What's Hot, What's Not - in Mobile Marketing

By Mark Helfen

Marketeers seem to have a wealth of new ways to reach their market. In fact, so many ways that the technology seems to be well outpacing a clear marketing understanding of how to use the tools and the data. And how to spend money wisely.

Last month the topic was social media engagement via Facebook, with a presentation by Justin Kistner of Webtrends.

This month's MarketingSIG meeting - Monday November 14 - will be a panel on using mobile technology to reach your market. And as you will learn, the abundance of new tools, channels, and information sources is only matched by the new questions that are raised.

The panel discussion is titled What's Hot, What's Not - in Mobile Marketing. I spoke to moderator Giovanni Rodriguez. Rodriguez has the title Chief Marketing and Strategy Officer, Deloitte Postdigital Enterprise , and is a contributor at Forbes.com. You can see his latest blog posting here.

Rodriguez listed four questions that the panel will address:

Trust:
Mobile devices give businesses the opportunity to collect lots of new data. As two examples, smart phones add location data to the mix of other types of information a company will know about you. Advertisers can also develop applications that supply value to customers, but also collect data at the same time. For many people, they're smart phones are always on - people even sleep next to them. Maybe even more so than a laptop or desk side system, smart phones seem to be a personal part of people's lives.

People are continuously being sensitized by news stories about how much information about them is being collected and how its being handled, or mishandled. Rodriguez believes that this issue has become visible and of concern to the general public.

If advertisers want to communicate on mobile devices, they need to set up a trust relationship with customers, or potential customers.


Privacy and security:
It's not just collecting the data, its what do you do with it. Over time, a large amount of data can be generated. Once you have it, how do you protect privacy, secure data, and keep the promises you made to earn your customers trust.

In addition, making use of the data requires some level of analysis. You need to make it useful, but be sensitive to how putting together disparate pieces of data to form a more complete picture of a customer can violate privacy and trust.


Budget:
Developing iPhone or Android apps, collecting data, storing and protecting it, all cost money. As each new mass-market advertising technology has come along, methods to understand if the money is being well spent are developed. For mobile advertising - a technology in its very beginnings - measurement is just starting. The panel will discuss some ideas of how to understand if you are getting your money's worth.

The in-store experience:
One of Rodriguez' focus is the "in store experience" - when the customer finally shows up in your store what experience do they have. He rates the Apple store as an example of a great experience, which is a result of careful thinking, not an accident.
The panel will discuss how mobile advertising and interaction can improve the in-store experience.


PLEASE REGISTER IN ADVANCE for What's Hot, What's Not - in Mobile Marketing on our meetup page.

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Mark Helfen is a freelance writer, journalist, and marketing consultant.

He can be reached at: mhelfen@wordpixel.com
Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/markhelfen
Facebook: facebook.com/mark.helfen
Follow me on Twitter: twitter.com/mark_helfen

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