A fast-growing market

Peter Simpson, Chief Marketing Officer for transaction facilitator Monetise, puts it more strongly. “I’ve been in marketing for 30 years and I’ve never seen anything take off so quickly,” he says. “Our market is growing by 50% every year.”

For the mobile network operators, the advertising and marketing industries have created a vital new seam of business that produces the revenue they need to sustain growth. The margins in voice calls have long since shrunk, but users could not be enticed to use data services, especially when downloading a video on a cellphone was painfully expensive.

Mobile marketing brought respectable revenue streams to the mobile operators, while the marketing industry discovered a far more effective method of reaching people than TV advertising or online marketing. It has an attractive combination of massive reach, high response rates and an ability to personalize messages that other media can’t match.

Another advantage is the range of opportunities within mobile marketing: SMS messaging makes up 55% of the sector and is still growing, but there’s also mobile search (which accounts for 20%), mobile banners (15%) and mobile apps (10%).

This all translates into impressive results. For example, according to Dynamic Logic, which measures the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, the intention to buy is four times greater among mobile users than online browsers. Interactive SMS campaigns can be even more powerful (see panel, opposite).
 

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