Engaged with mobile
By Simon Fuller. Mobile multiplies. With Hipcricket recently hitting the 50,000-campaigns mark, it’s a sure sign the mobile sector is moving with a certain amount of gusto at the moment. The mobile marketers, who have worked for clients such as HBO and Nestle, have a few ideas on why mobile has legs right now, along with a few nuggets of wisdom – among them the notion that brands should look to integrate, not isolate, the channel.
“One lesson we’ve learned is that mobile marketing should not exist on an island,” says Jeff Hasen, CMO at Hipcricket. “Brands should often use their traditional media buys to promote their mobile initiatives, and vice versa. Adding a mobile element also makes broadcast and print ads easier to track and measure. There should be a good amount of interaction between online, mobile and traditional channels like TV, radio and print.”
Simplicity is key too.
“Mobile marketing provides unique opportunities to engage and sell because the communication is permission-based – consumers are in charge, responding as they choose,” says Hasen. “For reach, SMS is the choice because it is on nearly every phone and is an activity that includes nearly all age groups. You can create the coolest iPhone application out there, but if the majority of your target customers don’t have iPhones, what good is it? We often recommend that brands start with simple, SMS-based campaigns because they have the largest reach—230 million people in the US alone. From there, it sometimes makes sense for brands to add richer experiences like the mobile web, mobile advertising and even applications.”
Hipcricket has really tapped into SMS, with mobile coupon campaigns drawing a big response from consumers and clients alike. Any of the millions of consumers who use their phones for text can take advantage of coupons, essentially electronic tickets which can drive sales via offers and promos. And Hipcricket has developed tech to enable businesses to better measure the usage of these coupons.
So what’s Hipcricket’s New Year message?
“We are always encouraging our clients to make sure the call to action for consumers is prominent,” says Hasen. “We say it loudly – perhaps in 2010, we will raise the volume even more.”
