A REPORT ON MOBILE MARKETING

Submitted by
Aatish Khemka

INTRODUCTION

Mobile marketing is marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a cell phone. 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.
Mobile marketing can also be defined as “the use of the mobile medium as a means of marketing communication”, the “distribution of any kind of promotional or advertising messages to customer through wireless networks”. More specific definition is the following: “using interactive wireless media to provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas, thereby generating value for all stakeholders".
Mobile marketing is commonly known as wireless marketing, although viewing advertising on a computer connected to a home local area network is not considered to be mobile marketing.
Mobile Marketing involves communicating with the consumer via cellular (or mobile) device, either to send a simple marketing message, to introduce them to a new audience participation-based campaign or to allow them to visit a mobile website.

Some of the tools of the trade and a few of the concepts that will be featured in this Mobile Marketing 101 series are:

* Short Message Services (SMS) * Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS) * Unstructured Supplementary Service Data (USSD) * Bluetooth, Wireless and Infrared * Mobile