SMS Marketing: Has it’s time come?

Posted At : January 30, 2008 9:03 AM | Posted By : Scott Brandon
Related Categories: Mobile Marketing
The number of text (SMS) messages sent within the U.S on a monthly basis has grown by over 200% each year for the past 3 years (over 24 billion text messages will be sent in December of 2007 in the U.S), and the median age of a text message "user" is 38, so it is a preferred method of communication for the masses, not just young teenagers. Over 75% of the U.S population owns a mobile phone and over 98% of all mobile phones are SMS-enabled. Promotions based on acquiring the customer's phone number by giving them something of value have proven to be very effective in building databases for long-term customer relationship management. SMS is here and we all need to be taking advantage of it.

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Why dotMobi?

Posted At : January 24, 2008 10:12 AM | Posted By : Scott Brandon
Related Categories: Mobile Marketing
Last year dotMobi (the informal name of mTLD Top Level Domain, Ltd.) was appointed by ICANN as the official global registry for the .mobi top level domain. dotMobi is backed by leading mobile operators, network device manufacturers and Internet content providers. Their investors include Ericsson, Google, GSM Association, Hutchison, Microsoft, Nokia, Orascom Telecom, Samsung Electronics, Syniverse, T-Mobile, Telefónica Móviles, TIM, Visa and Vodafone.

The core mission of dotMobi is two-fold, to become the most ubiquitous domain name for the mobile web (i.e. get the consumer to think .mobi rather than .com when using the Internet from their handset) and to become the critical link between mobile operators, handset manufacturers, content providers / brands and users to make phones the tool of choice for the mobile web.

A mobile device requires an entirely different user experience than that of a traditional PC or laptop. Just because a traditional website is now viewable on many phones, that does not equate to a tangible, fulfilling user experience. Unfortunately, that is exactly what many companies provide today. Obviously, the device is smaller, the screen space is limited, and the traditional QWERTY keyboard input method is not ideal. Further, the web is probably being accessed on a mobile phone while the end-user is driving, on the move, or otherwise engaged by some other activity or media device. If you currently have a transactional web site, then I strongly urge you to get a dotMobi version as well. If you don't, you will be losing business.

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The Wild Wild West – all over again!

Posted At : January 16, 2008 11:01 AM | Posted By : Scott Brandon
Related Categories: Mobile Marketing
Is mobile marketing the next big thing? Can it be as big as the Internet was in the early 2000's? Well, consider this, worldwide, there are more digital mobile phones than televisions and PCs combined. According to A.T. Kearney/University of Cambridge, more than half of mobile handsets are less than a year old and most of them have full Internet capabilities. Further, smartphone sales (Blackberry's, Palm's, iPhone's) have grown 165% this year alone in the U.S, which means that the mobile platform and the traditional wireless consumer is becoming more sophisticated and has access to better technology and a quality signal to surf the mobile web from their handset. 30 million people in the U.S will access the web from their mobile devices this year, already representing 1/5th of those consumers that access the web from their PC. The opportunities to market to this audience using SMS, dotMobi designed websites and special promotions are endless. Stay tuned as we continue to explore ways to utilize this exciting new platform.

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