3. 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

STEP 1 – Analyzing/Understanding Determinants to Mobile Adoption

In order to talk about mobile marketing first step should be having customers who adopt using mobile devices. That’s why in constructing an appropriate mobile marketing strategy first step should be analyzing and understanding the drivers of mobile adoption.

Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009) dealt with the ‘adoption of innovation’ subject while examining the drivers of mobile marketing adoption and asserted that the key drivers of adopting a mobile device or service include the relative advantage of the innovation, the innovation’s fit with existing usage patterns, the perceived complexity of the innovation, the ability to try out the innovation, the perceived risk related to adoption. Similarly, Henderson et al. (1998) found that the usefulness and enjoyment derived in using an innovation will likely lead to increased loyalty and future use.

Besides adoption to innovation, most of the scholars dealt with directly mobile marketing adoption.

• Merisavo et al. (2007) indicated that the utility and relevancy of mobile advertising messages affect customers’ adoption to mobile marketing.
• Pura’s (2005) survey showed that conditional value (such as context), commitment, and monetary value had the strongest influence on behavioral intentions to use mobile services.
• Pagani (2004) found that perceived usefulness, ease of use, price, and speed of use were the most important determinants of adoption of multimedia mobile services.
• Kleijnen et al., (2004) found that perceived risk, followed by complexity and compatibility were the most important drivers of adoption
• In their study, Nysveen et al. (2005) demonstrate that the intention to use mobile devices can be driven by perceived enjoyment, perceived usefulness, and perceived expressiveness. They also asserted that; the strengths of these influences varied across four mobile service areas: person-to-person interactive text messaging, contact services (which extend text messaging to a larger social network), payment services, and gaming services.In addition to drivers to mobile adoption, some authors also mentioned about the barriers to mobile adoption.
• In his study, Barutc?u (2008) put forward that; main barriers to mobile marketing are the mobile web browsers, technological skills, perception of risks and traditional shopping culture, lack of awareness of the benefits provided by them.
• Fenech (2002) asserted that security, tangibility, and the lack of experience are also main barriers of mobile commerce
• Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009) believed that low penetration of mobile devices’ video capability and lack of trust in mobile marketing are the major hurdles for mobile marketing.

To sum up, after evaluating the results of different studies regarding mobile adoption, it can be told that; drivers and barriers of mobile adoption changes from person to person, device to device, application to application, channel to channel, service to service, etc… Mostly drivers like utility, relevancy, context, ease of use, price, usefulness, speed of use, perceived risk, compatibility, enjoyment, and expressiveness are being mentioned in the literature.

Also, perception of risks, lack of awareness of mobile benefits, lack of experience in using mobile devices and services, low penetration of mobile devices’ extra feature capability and lack of trust are presented as the major barriers to mobile adoption in the literature. In order to construct an appropriate mobile marketing strategy, marketers must understand major drivers and barriers to mobile marketing adoption as a first step. It shouldn’t be forgotten that these drivers and barriers vary among customers, devices, services and channels, so marketers should analyze these drivers and barriers in their target market context.

STEP 2 – Analyzing/Understanding Attitude Toward Mobile Marketing and Role of Mobile Marketing in Customer Decision-making

After analyzing and understanding determinants to mobile adoption, customers’ attitude toward mobile marketing and role of mobile marketing in customer decision-making should be examined by marketers.

Like determinants to mobile adoption, findings regarding customers’ attitude toward mobile marketing also vary in the literature:

• In their study, Bauer et al. (2005) asserted that; developing a positive attitude towards mobile advertising leads to the behavioural intention to use mobile services.
• Barwise and Strong (2002) suggested that being simple and inexpensive develop a positive attitude towards mobile marketing.
• According to Barutcu (2007) price-consciousness and more involvement provide attitudes towards mobile marketing tools overall.
• Haghirian and Inoue (2007) believed that informativeness and credibility of the advertising message have the greatest impact on consumers’ attitude towards mobile marketing.
• Wais and Clemons (2008) found that; customers perceive marketing message positively if it came from another person than if it came from a company.
• Shankar and Balasubramanian (2009) examined role of mobile marketing in customer decision-making and asserted that marketers should affect each of consumer decision making process (need recognition, information search, alternative evaluation, purchase and post-purchase) by mobile marketing initiatives.To sum up; findings of the studies regarding customers’ attitude toward mobile marketing show that up to know several factors that affect customers’ attitude toward mobile marketing were detected. On the other hand, just like findings regarding drivers and barriers of mobile adoption, factors affecting customers’ attitude toward mobile marketing vary among customers, devices, services and channels. For this reason after analyzing drivers and barriers of mobile adoption in their target market context, marketers should also analyze factors affecting customers’ attitude toward mobile marketing according to their target customers’ characteristics and mobile marketing tools that they offer to their customers. Shortly, as Barutc?u (2008) claimed; in order to successfully market products and services via mobile, marketers understand mobile phone users’ attitudes, perceptions, characteristics, and shopping patterns. Then, marketers should construct their mobile marketing strategy according to these attitudes, perceptions, characteristics, and shopping pattern. Step 3 will deal with this issue.

STEP 3 – Develop an Appropriate Mobile Marketing Strategy in Accordance with Step 1 – 2

When a firm analyzed the determinants to mobile marketing adoption and factors affecting attitude toward mobile marketing as a third step, firm should construct its mobile marketing strategy according to results/findings that is obtained in step 1 and 2. Figure 2 shows an illustrative strategy map that a firm may use in constructing a mobile marketing strategy.

Figure 2: An illustrative strategy map

Figure 2 represents an illustrative strategy map that can be embraced by any firm in order to construct an appropriate mobile marketing strategy. It consist of five strategies and each strategy should be constructed by each firm according to their target customers, products/services they offer, market structure in their sector, mobile marketing tools they offer, and etc… In other words this illustrative strategy map should differ from firm to firm to embrace the best practice.