Integrating Mobile Marketing into the Marketing Communication

With the increasing growth and sophistication of mobile communications, companies integrate the mobile channel into their marketing communication and campaigns. Companies are able to execute very different and creative mobile marketing campaigns by using a wide range of mobile platforms such as Wireless Application Protocol (WAP), Short Message Service (SMS), and Multimedia Message Service (MMS). The purpose of this chapter is to review and exemplify the concepts, objectives, strategies and promotional tactics associated with mobile marketing campaigns; so that the review of relevant literature and exemplification of mobile marketing campaigns provide an insight into the nature of mobile marketing campaigns.

Mobile Business and Mobile TV

The increasing availability of affordable mobile business services (or “m-services”) across different telecommunication carriers and platform is now a reality that is changing the way customers perceive products and solutions: mobile TV, one of the latest m-services, can be now seen either as a stand-alone channel or in conjunction with other media, thus providing several levels of engagement and interaction. Marketeers are now talking about “experiential marketing” to explain how customers and businesses are now reacting to market stimuli: Philip Kotler talked about “sense and respond” in his book “Marketing moves”. Technology development is now taking a step forward enabling customers to be users and creators of products, services and brand image. This chapter provides and overview about traditional mobile marketing and mobile TV, describing how those interact and how business can be affected in some crucial areas: platform interoperability and revenue models. Some real examples of mobile initiatives are also provided.

Mobile Loyalty Programs

Mobile loyalty programs hold various advantages to companies compared to traditional card-based programs. Mobile customer cards enable companies to precisely assign advertising reactions and purchase data to individual customers. For this reason customer retention activities can be adjusted to individual preferences and the situational context. However, any successful implementation of mobile technologies in consumer contexts depends primarily on consumer acceptance. In this chapter, we begin by illustrating characteristics of mobile loyalty programs, particularly as it relates to relationship management. Following that we identify and analyse drivers affecting the acceptance of mobile loyalty programs and present our results of an exploratory survey on consumer acceptance by using a fictional mobile customer card offer.

Mobile DM Coupon Promotion in Japan

This chapter investigates the changes in customers’ responses to mobile direct mail (DM) coupons on the shop visit probability (SVP) of a beauty parlor. Two experiments were carried out to examine the promotional effects of mobile DM coupons. The first experiment, conducted in 2004, compared mobile DM coupons with postcard DM coupons. The mobile DM coupons were found to have no effect on SVP, although positive effects were observed for postcard DM coupons. The second experiment, conducted in 2005 with three types of mobile DM coupons, compared the responses of new customers with those of repeat customers. The results varied according to the settings but demonstrated stability in the same settings. For repeat customers, mail with shop’s telephone number for reservation had positive effects on SVP; however, ordinary mail had no effect, while hyperlink mail had negative effects. For new customers, all three types of mobile DM coupons exhibited positive effects on SVP.

The Impact of Gender and Age on Consumer Responsiveness to Permission-Based Mobile Advertising

This chapter investigates the impact of gender and age on mobile marketing responsiveness among regular customers of Finnish night club chain. The study develops sixteen research propositions which are tested with a sample of 8578 members of the company’s permission- based, opt-in mobile advertising list . The results contribute to mobile marketing and technology acceptance literature in various ways. First, the authors find support for four out of eight gender related propositions. Second, five out of the eight age-related hypotheses are supported. The results further show that among opt-in customers, gender and age explain various antecedents of intention to engage in mobile marketing. The study provides several theoretical and managerial contributions and outlines vital avenues for further investigation in the field.

Mobile Customer Relationship Management (mCRM)

Customer Relationship Management is conducive to providing customer information and the correct way to deal with customers. After the advent of the world-wide-web (www), which brought an increase in customer data and intensified CRM discussions in its wake, we are now entering the age of computerized mobile communication with diverse possibilities to enlist the services of mobile people. This chapter outlines the new and latest technological developments and the resultant capabilities of mobile CRM. Looking to a future in which mobile marketing efforts may become increasingly important, the erosion of personal freedom and the threat to this freedom becomes all the more significant. The findings from reactance research do not only specify the reactance conditions but also the reactance consequences. Previous research has sometimes pointed to self-determination as an acceptance factor yet failed to analyze the reactance risk more closely. This chapter will attempt to close this gap. In this respect, the initial findings of an empirical study will be presented, revealing that the acceptance of mobile services is surprisingly low and the reactance risk for mobile services is not to be underestimated, and that reactance involves the corresponding behavior on the part of the user. The plea is to consider the acceptance risk in the mobile CRM of the future and select a customer-friendly permission policy.

Supporting Marketing Practices

The concept of mobile communication has been rapidly changing all over the world and the Global System for Mobile communication (GSM) business has been evolving from voice services to value added services (VAS). The rapid growth in mobile technology enables Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) to provide a wide range of VAS to their corporate customers and these VAS change and transform companies’ way of doing business. The purpose of this chapter is to analyze the corporate VAS of a MNO, which has gained global acceptance and recognition, as a case study in order to understand how the mobile communication changes the companies’ way of doing business. The key supporting mobile technologies, services and solutions, which are provided by the case company to its corporate customers, are reviewed in order to comprehend the mobile technologies, practices, and devices that support mobile business (m-business) and mobile marketing (m-marketing) applications.

Mobile Customer Acquisition in the Swiss Health Care Industry

Applications based on mobile technologies are predicted to achieve increasing distribution as well as high potential for business processes especially with regard to customer interfaces. This chapter is going to analyze and present perspectives and approaches for initiation efforts by means of mobile technologies of Switzerland’s health care industry. On the one hand, acceptance and success factors of such mobile applications are analyzed by means of empirical studies involving customers and companies, on the other hand a prototype of mobile processes for initiation efforts is introduced, which was developed in the course of a case study.

Theories behind Mobile Marketing Research

The future of mobile communication is expected to rely on mobile services and revenue generated through mobile marketing. Marketing activities supported by mobile devices allow companies to directly communicate with their consumers without location or time barriers. It is becoming vital for today’s marketers to understand the processes behind the factors affecting consumers’ intention to use and adopt mobile marketing. One can often argue that the mobile marketing adoption is difficult to understand due to a lack of relevant research. However, much research has already been conducted on the adoption of mobile services and technology acceptance that likely can support mobile marketing research. Thus it is essential for mobile marketing researchers to get a thorough understanding of the theory behind mobile service adoption and technology acceptance. Theories in this area have been developed gradually and built up on each other. This chapter covers some of the theories and related models and shows how those could be used in mobile services and mobile marketing research.

Opportunistic Networks as an Enabling Technology for Mobile Word-of-Mouth Advertising

The growing share of people using mobile devices, that support wireless peer-to-peer interaction, offers the opportunity to build a ubiquitous infrastructure for electronic word-of-mouth messaging and advertising. This chapter introduces Opportunistic Networks as a layer for one-hop communication that opens up electronic word-of-mouth messaging for mobile devices. The reader will learn about adPASS (short for advertisement passing), a system build on top of Opportunistic Networks for digital advertisement distribution stimulated by an anonymous and tamper-resistant bonus point model. A simulation based on empirical movement patterns indicates the feasibility of our approach. This chapter concludes with a summary and provides an outlook on further research paths starting from our findings.