In Part One, I shared some statistics about the ravenous appetite mobile has for gaining new followers. Here’s just one more. ABI Research (a marketing research firm in New York), estimates that mobile marketing will explode during the next five years. ABI suggests that display ad budgets will especially skyrocket, with mobile ad spend bursting from today’s $313 Million to more than $1.2 Billion by 2015.
When I learned that mobile is a billion dollar growth industry, we knew this was a prime business sector for Shamrock. And last year we invested time and capital to develop a premier mobile marketing group.
Our first step was to hire an enterprising mobile marketing strategist. Ryan Workman became a steadfast mobile fan just before the birth of his son.
Using a mobile marketing strategy, a national baby retail chain targeted Ryan and sent a promotional text message. He read the message, signed up for special offers with his zip code, and he and his wife were on their way to baby shopping nirvana. They received incomparable deep discounts on furniture and accessories at a location close to their home. They were able to make a specific appointment to meet with a sales associate. They received additional discounts for inviting friends to visit the store. All from Ryan’s mobile phone. No mail. No phone calls. One text message started a new relationship.
Ryan uses this technology, and other mobile strategies for several Shamrock customers today. With a customized dashboard, we can generate the appropriate age and zip code for a customer’s promotion, and then duplicate that message to everyone within that same demographic in mere minutes. We also have the tools to tell you who among your target audience used the promotion and how many dollars they spent.
If you can think it, we can usually design an app that is location-based, contains new customer-driven content and functionality, and provide you with ready-to-use updates (such as, advising patrons that there are only four Saturday night reservations left at their favorite local, trendy bistro down the street). I believe that mobile is limited only by our imagination.
Looking to the future of mobile marketing, we’re among a handful of companies developing a geo-targeted app that recognizes the location where the user is based and provides targeted offers. As an example, let’s say a mobile user is walking down Main Street at noon. His phone will text a lunch suggestion from the restaurant 30-feet away. He walks into the restaurant, orders the item, saves $2.00 and enjoys a hearty lunch. The restaurateur is happy, and the mobile user saved two bucks.
