Mobile Marketing: How To Develop An Appropriate Mobile Strategy (Part 1)

3-Step Model to develop a mobile strategy in order to cope with the mobile revolution.

Why Mobile Marketing?

Google and Ipsos OTX conducted a survey among 5,013 adult smartphone internet users. Some of the key findings of the survey are;

Among participants 81% browse the Internet, 77% search, 68% use an application, and 48% watch videos on their mobile devices
Among participants %39 used mobile devices while going to bathroom, %33 while watching TV and %22 while reading newspaper
%79 of the participants use mobile devices while shopping, %70 of the participants use them in store, %74 of the participants make a purchase based on a mobile device search. Nine out of ten mobile device searches results in an action (purchasing, visiting a business, etc.)
95% of participants have used mobile devices to look for local information, 88% of these take action within a day (61% call, 59% visit a business).

According to KPCB; In 2010 Q4 smartphone + tablet shipments exceeded PCs. Landlines were surpassed by Mobiles in 2012. Global mobile internet traffic reached %25 of total internet traffic at 2014.

According to Mobile TC Group when unit sold in first ten years are compared between other technological devices: when mainframe computer had sold 1 million, minicomputer 10 million, PC 100 million, Desktop internet 1 billion, mobile internet is sold 10 billion in first ten years.

All these numbers explain how important mobile marketing is now, and how it will be in the future. For instance, Google and Ipsos’ survey results showed that; mobile devices have become an integral part of users’ daily lives and their everywhere usage in different activities made them a very important shopping tool that should be analyzed.

Also, response rate and response time of users who make mobile searches show that mobile devices have an incredible power to lead their users into making purchase, in other words effect decision making process of their users. Moreover, KPCB report shows that mobile internet usage is taking over desktop internet usage which can be evaluated as a shift from using internet at home to using internet everywhere.

Lastly, Mobile TC Group’s research findings put forward that; number of mobile internet sold in first ten years show ‘the mobile revolution’. All of these numbers clearly indicate that mobile is an important tool that should be analyzed within marketing discipline.

Definition and Key Issues of Mobile Marketing

There are different definitions about mobile marketing in the literature. Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009) defined mobile marketing as a two or multi way communication that takes place between a company and its customers by using a mobile medium, device, or technology.

Similarly, Scharl et al., (2005) define mobile marketing as using a wireless medium to provide consumers with time- and location-sensitive, personalized information that promotes products, ideas and services. Shortly, mobile marketing can be defined as all kind of marketing activities (mobile advertising, mobile sales promotion, location based mobile offers, etc…) that are performed via mobile devices.

There are different marketing tools that can be used through mobile devices. Barutc?u (2008) classified these tools into four as; Mobile Advertising (SMS, MMS, MobAd), Mobile Sales Promotion (coupons, discounts), Mobile Entertainment (video, music) and Mobile Shopping (shop anywhere, anytime).

In addition to these tools; Mobile Payment which can be defined as type of payment transaction processing in the course of which the payer employs mobile communication techniques (Kungpisdan et al., 2004) and Location-Based Mobile Services which can be defined as services in which the location of a person or an object is used to shape the application or service (Duri et al., 2001) can also be classified as mobile marketing tools.

According to Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009), all mobile devices incorporate one or more of the following capabilities: audio, text/data, and video. Beside them, they put forward three key characteristics and properties of mobile devices that have key marketing implications.

Location-specificity: Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009) asserted that; many mobile devices have GPS capabilities to identify their physical location and this property enables marketers to construct location sensitive promotional offers to mobile device users
Portability: Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009) believed that; mobile devices are easily carried and thus, it becomes easier for marketers to quickly communicate with the user anytime
Untethered/wireless feature: According to Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009), because of mobile device is not connected by wires for the majority of the time that it is in use, marketers can have more opportunities to convey marketing messages.

Barutc?u (2008) identified 4 forces supported that supported the emergence of mobile commerce and marketing:

rapid growth of mobile devices,
convergence of mobile telecommunication networks and Internet,
transition to 3G (Third Generation Mobile System), and
the emergence of location applications and services

Up to this point, importance of mobile marketing, its definition, and key issues in mobile marketing are examined. In the following part of the study mobile marketing literature will be reviewed in order to detect possible subject(s) in mobile marketing literature that require managerial and research attention.

Mobile Marketing Literature

When studies regarding mobile marketing are examined, it can be told that literature has been mostly accumulated under three headings;

1- Mobile Marketing Theory

Varnali and Toker (2010) aimed to organize the literature on mobile marketing and for this purpose they reviewed 255 peer-reviewed journal articles from 82 journals published between 2000 and 2008. They divided mobile marketing literature into four headings as; theory, strategy, consumer behavior and legal & public policy.

They told that; under theory category, there are conceptual articles which attempt to constitute the foundations of mobile marketing. Most of the studies deal with conceptualizations of mobile marketing and mobile commerce (such as; Fouskas et al., 2005), differences between e-commerce and mcommerce (such as; Maamar, 2003), the dimensions of mobile market place (such as; Balasubramanian et al., 2002), and future forecasts regarding mobile marketing (such as; Denk and Hackl, 2004).

In the studies that are categorized under this heading try to identify key issues about mobile marketing and conceptualize the mobile marketing and commerce subjects.

2- Mobile Marketing Strategy

Studies in this category tried to construct a strategic point of view regarding mobile marketing and commerce. Some of the studies dealt with business models for mobile services (Haaker et al., 2006), some other deal with the results of specific mobile marketing activities such as SMS campaigns (Dickinger and Murphy, 2005), mobile web advertising (Hairong and Stoller, 2007), mobile direct mail coupons (Kondo & Nakahara, 2007). Moreover, several studies focused on firm-level adoption of mobile marketing practices (Doolin and Ali, 2008; Okazaki, 2005a).

3- Adoption to Mobile Marketing and Attitude Toward Mobile Marketing

Most of the studies in the mobile marketing literature addressed to consumer behavior issues toward mobile devices, mobile commerce and mobile marketing. Within these studies, some of them dealt with the determinants to the adoption to mobile marketing such as demographics (Bigne et al., 2005), social and peer effect (Lee and Murphy, 2006), the content received via mobile (Wang et al., 2006), context of the marketing message received via mobile (Barnes and Scornavacca, 2004), culture (Harris et al., 2005), mobile device’s usefulness and ease of use Pagani (2004), perceived risk and complexity (Kleijnen et al., 2004) .

Similarly, some other studies dealt with the factors and their effects to consumers’ attitudes toward mobile marketing such as; entertainment and information value (Bauer et al., 2005), informativeness and credibility of the message received via mobile (Haghirian and Inoue, 2007), message sender (Wais and Clemons, 2008).

In this part of the study mobile marketing literature is reviewed under three main headings, and most popular subjects under these three headings are presented. As Varnali and Toker (2010) asserted; the literature on mobile marketing is accumulating and the stream of research is still in the development stage.

Since the aim of this study is to detect possible subject(s) in mobile marketing literature that require managerial and research attention, studies are reviewed according to the subjects they were addressed. After evaluating the distribution of the subjects that were studied by scholars regarding mobile marketing, it is detected that there is a study needed to link the consumer behavior toward mobile marketing and mobile marketing strategy construction.

To fill this gap, in the following parts of the study a conceptual model will be put forward.

Conceptual Framework

In order to construct the appropriate mobile marketing strategy, customers and their attitudes toward mobile marketing and mobile marketing tools should be analyzed carefully. For this purpose, in this study a-three-step road map will be presented as can be seen from figure 1.

Figure 1: Three-step strategy construction