| Founders Note: Mobile Marketing Success Hinged on UX |
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As someone who has been helping global technology firms implement their mobile strategies for nearly 10 years, I consider it my duty to educate companies on what truly works, and what does not. Mobile is not as new as you might think; it is now picking up steam in the United States. The reason for this is because it took longer for US carriers to reach market saturation. Thus, until recent years, there were less pressures to promote more data services (high margin) over their networks. Now that we're reaching new subscriber saturation, you're seeing competition amongst carriers to poach subscribers and now the incentive to promote data services to increase the ARPU (average revenue per user), a key indicator on Wall Street. This is evident in the "unlimited" plans you see from Sprint that spawned competitive offerings from AT&T, Verizon and now Boost Mobile's aggressive "un Wrong" push. Europe and other countries got there much sooner so we can take a few pages from the books of others and not make the same mistakes, or at least minimize them as much as possible. For example, in 2001 I was working in Helsinki Finland and I could send a text message to a short code of the soda vending machine in my office - out came the soda and it would just show up on my mobile bill that month. We still aren't there in the US (8 years later) but are catching up now in leaps and bounds; you'll see similar with parking meters sprouting up in some markets. One thing that readers must consider is the buyer experience (or user experience [UX]) before considering any solution. Many solutions will suffer in consumer (buyer) adoption not because they aren't cool, but because of how consumers interact with their mobile device and their surroundings. Otherssimply do not reach critical mass for a consumer-focused solution because they are too platform-specific. Ask yourself if that solution will show up when voting on American Idol or The Apprentice and you'll have your answer - no. To reach the masses the answer is obvious: it has to work on the most devices, users, and networks. Walk a mile in their shoes is what I tell people, and of course, Keep It Simple Stupid (KISS). Many mobile solutions make the mistake of trying to duplicate the interactive web experience of browsing and searching on the device. This is why uptake and ROI is painfully low for consumer-based marketing campaigns. Instead, keep it simple and take a UX approach to solution design. Buyers are often walking down a sidewalk, at a stoplight, or pulled up to a curb when a sign, billboard, or banner catches their eye. Buyers in these instances are not "surfing" their mobile device; they desire information instantly - we call this point-of-interest marketing. For over 5 years now, top VC firms in Silicon Valley, Boston, Europe, and Israel have tried to find that killer "mobile search" startup and they're still floundering. Contrarily, SMS (text) messaging has nearly saturated the global market because it gives consumers what they want - quick, instant results. M:Metrics, the leading provider of global mobile metrics, reported that 13.2% of subscribers used mobile web and of them 6% used mobile search (2008). These numbers continue to creep up. Compare this to a staggering 72% using SMS (text), which has grown exponentially. Do you ignore 85% of potential buyers and only seek out 13-15%? Location-based tools will flourish in time; they are still years out from reaching enough critical mass to add value to sellers. GPS may solve common issue with search: not knowing the address of where you are standing, stopping or parked, or the time required to browse through various pages of listings on a 2-inch screen. Europe has faced this for years and there are cost, device, and consumer privacy issues that slow adoption considerably. Popular social network tools will smooth over privacy issues, but it will still take considerable time before the market is ready. The key here is to see metrics on the application download rates in a market for such tools, and compare with those that already have built-in apps like SMS (staggering gaps yet again). I hope at least my insights give "food for thought", and I'm happy to answer anyone's questions over the mobile landscape. For many, we'll see you at the various shows this year. For others, we're a blog post, tweet, text, email, or call away. The bottom line when considering mobile is User Experience (UX) so walk a mile in their shoes and ask what experience is ideal. ;-) Here's to a prosperous 2009 everyone! Mike -- Mike Sparr, CEO http://www.GoomZee.com "Connecting buyers and sellers" |
