Brokaw Marketing

Solving Marketing problems - Creative solutions - Targeted strategy

Have you looked around lately?; Everyone is using a cell phone. We walk and text, we drive and talk, we shouldn’t but we do. We check Facebook and send tweets all while going about our normal day. Our cell phones have become a normal part of our life.

So where are the advertisers? Foreign countries are way ahead of us in using mobile marketing. Bluetooth technology allows marketers to send messages to consumers who walk by their store or even a billboard. Our phones are just getting up to speed with new technology.

AMA just sent out a Marketing News exclusive that discusses this growing media trend. I will summarize the report for you. Full details of this study can be found in the upcoming April 30th issue of Marketing News. (It just came out – lots of great information about this subject. Here are a few of the highlights.)

  • Research conducted in March 2010 by Basking Ridge, for Marketing News finds that only 9% of 1,170 surveyed respondents currently feel receptive to personalized mobile advertising.
  • Mobile users may not have a complete understanding of what they can do with their phones. Some are concerned with security.
  • Only one-third of the respondents had Internet access on their mobile phones. However, of those, 43% of them go online at least once a day from their phone.
  • This survey confirms that the younger age group was most likely to use mobile Web.
  • 32% of the mobile Web users aged 18-34 had sent a text message to receive or register for business information, while only 6% of the 55+ group had done so.
  • 59% of the 18-34 mobile users had visited a mobile Web site to gather information and 39% of those 55+ had gathered business information from a mobile Web site.
  • As technology advances and becomes easier to use, all phones will be smart phones.

The lesson here is that although we may not be seeing our competitors using this medium yet, we should be learning about it and embracing the technology. It will become another channel for us to reach our customers and build a relationship with them. It has taken longer than I originally thought, but many of our phones are still not smart.