Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing or wireless marketing refers to the practice of advertising a product or service through a wireless medium such as mobile.

It can also be defined as a method of promotion which is operated on a universal network to which users are connected using a personal device. However, there is no perfect definition for Mobile marketing.

Mobile marketing is a branch of Internet marketing as it involves various aspects web advertising. Special servers are established which send promotional messages to target audience.

Mobile marketing is more interactive as compared to other forms of internet marketing because it generates faster feedback from the consumers. Mobile marketing in a broad sense also includes local wireless network(WLAN) to communicate with audience.

Mobile marketing is done in the following ways:

• SMS Marketing: Short message service or SMS has become a popular way of marketing ever since the early 2000s.On an average, a sms can be read within 4 minutes from the time of sending making it a very effective method of advertising.
  
  Although mobile spam has been an issue with sms marketing, it still continues to yield good results with subscribers.
  
  Sending text messages to email addresses is another method of promoting a product. This is done using a short code that is unique to every company. This has its own limitations as it is valid only in a local area.
  
• MMS marketing: Multimedia message service makes use of slide-shows, images, videos and audio. Nearly every mobile in the market is MMS compatible, making it easy for companies to communicate with consumers.
  
  Organizations send promotional content to mobile subscribers via MMS. Few mobile MMS applications also sponsor a brand, making it a person to person marketing campaign.
  
  Companies send website links, videos about new product launches through a MMS sent via an internet server.
  
• In-game mobile marketing: Games downloaded over WAP usually promote a specific brand. With an increase in the number of interactive 3-D games, multi-player games and games on social networks, there is huge scope of promoting a brand.
  
  This concept of "mobile advergaming" has brands sponsoring an entire game or including promotional messages in the game.
  
  Mobile marketing through games is very effective considering the huge gamer's database all over the world. Games requiring an internet connection also download promotional content, thereby creating awareness about the brand.
  
• Using QR codes: QR or quick response code is a type of matrix code capable of storing huge amounts of data. This has gained popularity in recent years because of its fast readability, and large storage capacity than normal bar codes.
  
  With the growing popularity of smart phones all over the world, QR code readers are a default application. Offline QR codes can also be read using a mobile's camera. This coding generates information about a company or product.
  
  Every product or company has a unique QR code similar to the UPC bar-code. Companies focusing on providing integrated marketing response prefer QR coding so as to capture market sales and provide product information.
  QR code is regarded as open source technology.
  
• Mobile web marketing: Companies design advertisements that are specifically made for a mobile device. Unique patters HTML codes are created in order to feature the brand.
  
  Search Engines such as Google and Yahoo has been selling space on their mobile websites for advertising needs of companies. Web pages can also be integrated with a device that facilitated direct calling and SMS features.
  

ADVANTAGES OF MOBILE MARKETING:

• It is inexpensive compared to direct marketing.
  
• Mobile marketing is a faster way to interact with consumers as the response is instantaneous.