SEARCH CLINIC

Communicating with mobile consumers needs fresh thinking and new strategies- thus businesses need to appreciate why the mobile platform is different.

The mobile internet, and associated m-commerce, has been around for over 10 years.

Technologists have been trying to persuade consumers that internet on the move is real for many years. Do you remember WAP?

But despite the best efforts of marketers the consumer remained unconvinced. They spotted that using the internet (let alone websites) on their mobile phones was an even more painful experience than the internet that seldom answered their needs.

But things are different now. The mobile “phone” has become the convergent box of technology and the computing choice of the masses.

The internet is established in people’s lives. They have become dependent on it and expectant of the services it provides. It is a trusted source of news and a conduit for communicating personally and professionally in increasingly novel ways. Consumers use the internet without giving it, or the technology, a second thought.

Technology has moved on. A device that was once just used for making telephone calls is now perceived as something quite different. Bigger, colourful touch screens, keyboards, and faster connections has resulted in a plethora of new applications that feed the consumers craving for simpler ways to enhance their lives.

In return, consumers share ever increasing amounts of information with organisations and enter into new types of relationships with them.

Whilst consumers are keen for innovation and creative ideas, many brands and organisations seem slow to respond. Trying to repurpose websites and using outdated marketing techniques is insufficient. Organisations need to realise that mobile is different, the user is in a different context and web-like experiences simply won’t do.

For why- and what to do- please see Dr Search‘s next post.

Mobile marketing is now considered to be the 7th largest element of the marketing mix after online, TV,  newspapers, magazines, radio and cinema.

So what’s the best way to approach marketing to users of mobile devices? Today and for the next few posts Dr Search will be outling your best approach.

A brief history of mobile marketing

Marketing to mobile devices is widely believed to have started during the “dotcom” boom in the year 2000 with text message/SMS news services that were free but sponsored by advertising.

This evolved into mass promotion of events and alerts with even recent claims of “more than 100% response rate” by Marc Hyatt of Txtlocal, thanks to the viral effects of users forwarding messages to others.

SMS advertising, like forms of email marketing, can often be obtrusive and annoying, with the added inconvenience of costing users money based on their mobile service’s inbound SMS rates.

As such, it remains more effective as a “pull” medium rather than a “push” one, such as a means for polling or voting for programs like American Idol or Dancing with the Stars.

Mobile applications also began appearing in 2000 from Handmark. But apps didn’t really become mainstream for in-application advertising until Apple’s App Store for the iPhone arrived in 2008.

Android, Blackberry, Symbian, along with the iPhone and iPad have advanced mobile web browsing to near mainstream use as the Q1 2010 Nielsen Mobile Report found there are now over 72 million mobile web users in the United States.

Next Big Thing or are we there yet?

Mobile has been touted repeatedly at conferences over the past few years as the next big thing for marketing years. However, most predictions were based on traffic charts and pretty graphics with gaudy numbers, while ROI and tangible mobile marketing results were often missing from these chipper forecasts.

So where does this leave marketers in getting any real value with such a limited viewing real estate on mobile devices, often less than 4 inches?

Here are some of the main services a business can use to implement a mobile marketing strategy:

New gadgets such as the Blackberry and iPhone are ruining womens’ sex lives because their husbands are too distracted in the bedroom.

More woman claim they are having less sex because of the technology

More than a quarter of women (28 per cent) claim that email and internet are disrupting their love lives, with hand-held devices particularly to blame.

Other factors which prevent couples enjoying intimacy include long working hours (cited by 55 per cent of women), tiredness (83 per cent) and being too busy (74 per cent).

The research by pharmaceutical firm Bayer also shows that many women are missing their sexual peak by a decade.

More than one in two feel sexiest during their 30s, yet two in three have the most sex in their 20s.

One in ten women say their fear of pregnancy inhibits them in the bedroom, with one in five women admitting they shun contraception.

The survey found that on average British women have sex 1.4 times a week, but six in ten women aged between 25 and 34 would like a more active sex life.

Fifty-one per cent of women believe they reach their sexual peak in their 30s, but 66 per cent say they had their most sex during their 20s.

Two in three women (65 per cent) say their partners do not make enough effort in the bedroom, however, one in three women never initiate sex and always let their partner make the first move.

Four in ten women say it only takes a compliment to put them in the mood for sex, while one in three saying having more time to themselves would boost their sex life.

Perhaps disappointingly, more than a third of women say they have not felt sexy for at least a month and 14 per cent claim they have never felt sexy.