Growth In Mobile Marketing

We've heard about it for years, but it seems that 2011 might be the year that mobile marketing finally grows up and plays with the big boys.  Over the past year, growth in mobile marketing has risen dramatically on many fronts. With apps, mobile search advertising and now retail, the mobile marketing space is delivering the numbers (and revenues).

In today's guest post, Pavel Webb from TextMagic gives us some global insights into mobile marketing.  If you're not using mobile as a marketer just yet, consider how quickly this marketing channel is moving.

Let's have a look at what's happening in mobile marketing.
Everywhere you look you see more on the power of mobile marketing.  As a field, mobile marketing has been growing faster than almost any other marketing segment from both a user and advertising standpoint.  Until now yo may have been considering mobile marketing but haven't yet integrated it into your marketing mix.  There are a number of ways to get started and the best way is to see what industry leading brands are doing.

Brands are creating their own apps
With over 300,000 apps developed in the last three years and with a predicted 29 billion app downloads this year alone, the demand for apps is rising and is expected to peak around 2013.  Brands have realized the power of being able to push their content out to mobile users with many well-known retail companies, utilities and restaurant chains jumping onto the handset with their own branded apps.

Mobile advertising
Mobile advertising spend worldwide is expected to break US$3.3billion by the end of 2011 and is predicted to rise to a massive US$20.6 billion by 2015. The main gainers here are in mobile paid search advertising and local mobile ads. In the US, over half of all mobile ad spending is on local search ads.
Of course, Google is at the forefront of pushing this growth, recently announcing that mobile website quality is now a ranking factor in their AdWords mobile ad ranking. They have even gone so far as to invest in a whole site dedicated to helping businesses 'go mobile' (HowToGoMo.com) by optimizing their websites and advertising.  Interestingly, in Germany mobile web advertising remains the most effective form of mobile advertising.

SMS marketing
2011 marks a banner year for SMS, with over 8 trillion SMS messages predicted to be exchanged by the end of the year. For marketers, SMS remains a popular choice, especially as it reaches nearly all the 4 billion handsets out there.

SMS marketing is most effectively used as a way to engage customers by offering a level of service via reminders, notices and coupon codes. As well, various countries show a preference for opt-in SMS marketing, especially the UK and France.

Retail now biggest growth category
Although not specifically advertising, we thought it was worth mentioning the massive change in user behavior, because this is where the advertising spend in 2012 will likely focus. According to eMarketer, mobile retail use over the past year has risen an astonishing 95% rise among US mobile users.

What's more important for retailers and marketers to pay attention to is why those users are visiting mobile retail sites. The same study revealed among mobile users visiting retail sites:
-  46% are researching prices 
-  36% are looking for coupons or promotions 
-  28% are researching new products 
-  13% purchased a product
No doubt that tablet use, like Apple's iPad, are pushing these numbers upwards and it's not going to slow down any time soon as mobile internet use is predicted to surpass desktop internet use some time in 2014.


About the Author: Pavel Webb is the affiliate manager at TextMagic, a company based in United Kingdom, which provides SMS API for businesses and developers.