In simple terms, direct marketing relies on the availability of our target market to receive and understand our marketing message directly, so mobile marketing falls neatly into this category of marketing. When compared to other types of direct marketing, the mobile phone offers a greatly expanded opportunity for our target market to receive our direct marketing messages. It has drastically changed our perception of availability, and this has changed how we market our products and services. Mobile marketing enables us to tap into the true essence of direct marketing as never before.
Direct marketing with mobile devices offers a lot of advantages over other types of direct marketing. It is particularly useful because it has these characteristics:
• Cost effective • Interactive
• Scalable • Immediate
• Targeted • Measurable
• Personal • Effective
• Shareable • Actionable
• Portable • Repeatable
• Flexible • Fun
Mobile marketing also has the power to convert traditional marketing efforts into direct-response campaigns. TV or radio commercials that were previously just oneway broadcast messages—with minimal opportunity for a direct response—can be made interactive and trackable when combined with a mobile call to action.
Instructions telling potential customers to interact with your brand become more powerful when people can act on them immediately—and because most people keep their mobile phone with them at all times, mobile calls to action are more compelling than simply including a Web address or phone number and hoping the viewer will remember it later. When mobile communication calls to action are included, we close the loop and shorten the gap between us sending the message and recipients acting on it. The mobile phone is such a capable response mechanism that all types of direct marketing are lifted to the next level of effectiveness.
