Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smart phone. Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas. One definition comes from marketing professor Andreas Kaplan who defines mobile marketing as "any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device". Within this definition, Kaplan uses two variables, i.e. the degree of consumer knowledge and the trigger of communication, to differentiate between four types of mobile marketing applications: Strangers, Victims, Groupies, and Patrons.
Location based mobile marketing and advertising provides huge opportunities for businesses, as well as benefits for consumers. Yet despite the fact that mobile marketing clearly works, most marketers today have not yet seized upon the opportunities. It allows brands to adapt their marketing message based on where consumers are geographically. By knowing where consumers are, brands are able to tap into daily habits and also encourage consumers with relevant offers and messages based on their location.
According to Greg Stuart, CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, “Nobody resists mobile today. There are inflection points where you can create great change. Mobile is part of that today,” noting that Uber and similar companies who optimize for mobile customers are growing rapidly and disrupting their respective markets.
According to a study in 2012 by e-commerce company Latitude, 61% of application users have a better opinion of a brand when it provides a good mobile experience, with the highest impact when used with location based cues. For example, one shopping mall reported over a million WiFi connections with 500,000 unique customers, and an impressive 60% opt-in for