One of the most important things you must do when planning a mobile marketing campaign is to anticipate where your campaign or message might fail, and adapt to include alternative or contingency messaging. Know how
your message will appear in the best-case rendering scenario and in the worst-case rendering scenario. Then do what you can to ensure that there is an elegant degradation between the best- and worst-case scenarios, in which limited rendering technology will cause more complex elements of the campaign to silently fail, in favor of less complex elements. Your message should always be clear and compelling, regardless of the technological difficulties.
The Changing Face of Telecom
Internationally, traditional land-line service providers, Internet service providers (ISPs), and mobile service providers are struggling to address the rapidly changing demands of their consumers. As services such as TV, phone, radio, and Internet become exclusively digital, many companies are fighting to protect their interests and expand their service offerings.
As many households eliminate land lines and switch to mobile phones and VoIP, traditional phone service suppliers are struggling to maintain their sources of revenue. Similarly, as many homes and businesses turn from copper-wire broadband Internet access to wireless broadband, traditional ISPs become more concerned that they will not be able to recoup their investment. Cable TV companies are threatened because people are accessing TV and movies on the computers and mobile phones. Even mobile networks are threatened by pressure from other carriers to decrease the cost of mobile data communication and, further, by subscribers who rely more heavily on data than voice communication. Some mobile subscribers even use their "unlimited data plans" with VoIP technology to totally circumvent the need for carrier-provided voice communication.
All of this unrest should be taken as a clear signal that the telecom industry is on the brink of major change. We are about to enter a period in which consolidation will be the only avenue that will effectively address the consumers needs. Consolidation will be good, but it will still leave the companies struggling to turn a profit, as the price for data- and IP-based communication continues its race to the bottom.
The good news for mobile marketers is that many of the key players are looking to advertising and marketing as their saving grace. Each of the different companies that provide data-based service can access subscribers' information and track their behavior. When the multitude of different companies consolidate and combine
their efforts, they will have access to a great deal of information about their subscribers' digital consumption habits. Traditional phone, broadband, and cable TV service providers are quickly realizing the power that this kind of information has for marketers and are adjusting their business models to include an advertising and content-targeting profit center.
