Opinion
Marketing through Mobile devices

Nezam

Approximately, five million people are using internet in Bangladesh. This is an amazing development. Just about 12 months ago, the number of internet users was fluctuating around 1 million. As the ARPU (Average Revenue per User) on voice is declining continually in cell phone industry of Bangladesh, operators like Grameen Phone and Citycell are focussing on data segment, providing more specific packages like 1GB data chunk, Daily Data Package. Operators are also varying their charges based on the speed of data service they provide. Citycell's "Zoom Ultra" is a land mark offer of this type.

It is evident that, internet will flourish in our country very rapidly. We have recently witnessed the inauguration of Broadband, WiMax, ADSL internet, Mobile internet etc. Among them, certainly mobile internet is contributing most to this basket. This is due to the deeper penetration of cell phone network across the country. Of the mobile internet users, there are two types, those who use, internet in their latest model cell phones and others who use their mobile phone or modem to connect their laptops/desktops to internet. It is very important to differentiate between these two types of users.

As internet usage on mobile devices grows, so does the potential of mobile screen to use it as a media of communicating news and other products. Researches are on the rise about how to best utilize the mobile phone as an upcoming means of marketing. Because mobile devices are with the target audience all the time, the chances are higher for getting more close to customers. Besides, this is a completely new media, so for market pioneers it promises long term benefits. But there are challenges too, as this is a growing technology and is quite different from desktop screen.

Current mobile marketers are now showing only half of the picture - the chance to opt-in. But consumers are demanding a "unsubscribe" button to opt-out. By deploying a standardized opt-in method, placing a "unsubscribe" button on messages and continually updating list can lower the rate of unwanted messages for customer and lower bounce rate for marketer. Mobile Marketing Association is doing a good job by managing the concerns for consumer privacy and providing guidelines for mobile marketers.

Sending thousands of emails to customers doesn't mean success. Success has to be measured with precision. On traditional web, keeping track of success of messages is an easy task as there are different types of web analytics available. Technically, the analytics services works basing java script and cookie. Web analytics for mobile version of web is yet to be developed to that scale. Mobile browsers usually have limited capability when handling java script and cookie so marketers still can't measure the success of their messages with precision. Organizations that want to expand their reach to mobile internet therefore need to address the challenges of measurement and keep track of new developments in analytics technology.

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