Believe it or not, mobile marketing isn't the answer for some companies—at least, not yet:
• Companies without the resources—The mobile marketing industry is still coming together and remains in flux. Companies that don't have the financial resources to test campaigns and possibly fail should consider waiting until the channel is more solid and predictable. In fact, for some companies, it might be best to wait until there are more tools to simplify the mobile marketing process. Mobile marketing is not for the faint of heart. It requires planning, money, and manpower. Companies should always be prepared to fail and should understand that it might take a couple tries to get it right.
• Companies without an objective—The mobile phone gives every marketing medium the potential for a direct response, so having a specific call to action is crucial to the success of a mobile marketing campaign. Calls to action can encourage anything from responding to a print or TV call to action, to signing up for text alerts, placing a call from your site, or requesting directions to your store.
Calls to action highlight the conversion events in your campaign. Viewers "convert" when they take some action that you suggest or offer. Multiple conversion events should be tracked with each initiative, and each conversion event should be assigned some monetary value to help you determine the return on investment for the campaign. Without a
clear call to action, gauging the success of your campaign will be more difficult. Mobile marketing is new and exciting, but that shouldn't be why you initiate a campaign. Your marketing efforts must create some type of value or return on investment to be successful. Always set clear objectives and targets so you can evaluate your success.
• Companies without the technical resources to handle the response—
Nothing is worse than having a good response to your marketing campaign and having technology fail. Even your first mobile marketing campaign has the potential to be fantastically successful and highly viral, so you must plan for that, too. Before you launch a campaign, make sure that you have process-tested and load-tested all the back-end technology. This includes anything that you will be using to send or receive text messages, take calls, provide downloads, or spark any other conversion events that your campaign might include.
Not only can a technology failure waste time and money, but it will eliminate all the value you created in the communication. Technology failure can cause long-term damage to your relationship with customers, making it much less likely that they will respond to your mobile calls to action in the future.
• Companies without the human resources and inventory to handle the response—Determining what the response rate of a mobile marketing campaign will be can be difficult, but it is important to plan for both extremely good and disappointingly bad response rates. If your mobile marketing campaign includes in-person aspects, such as creating foot traffic to a brick-and-mortar establishment, it is important for the location to be staffed and ready to handle any surge in customers.
In some cases, such as with Bluetooth and WIFi broadcasts, when your restaurant or venue has reached maximum capacity, your message can be throttled or stopped completely. In other cases, such as with billboards or banners near your brick-and-mortar store, you have less ability to update the messaging. If you are trying to drive foot traffic into a store for a specific item and you run out of that item, you are in a similar pickle. Basically, if you don't have enough inventory or availability, you should rethink mobile marketing until those are more secure or until you have a very good understanding of the response rate you can expect.
