Download monternet

Huawei Technologies
Rolling the dice of
mobile marketing
By Deng Jianhua
A
fter lunch on Friday, when
Jo h n , w h o i s a n a rd e n t
cartoon fan, was sitting in
the office and feeling a little
bored, he noticed that he
had just received a WAP Push message
on his mobile phone. Wow? It was a flash
cartoon book, Confucius Speaks: Words
to Live By, that was just sent to him by
his buddy Marry, through China Mobile’s
Monternet. John immediately clicked the
link and downloaded the file to read it.
After he finished, he was prompted to click
an attached link to buy the cartoon series
by Tsai Chih-chung, a famous cartoonist.
John was even offered snippets of some
other material to read on a trial basis. How
considerate, he thought to himself? John
immediately clicked the link and entered
the Website. After reading a few pages, he
decided to buy The Tao Speaks: Lao-Tzu’s
Whispers of Wisdom, along with The Dao
of Zhuangzi: The Harmony of Nature. John
again said to himself, “This is really great?
How nice of Marry to think of me and
send me this message, and Monternet’s
service is so wonderful?”
John’s ser vice experience reflects
the mobile marketing approach that is
currently being introduced by China
Mobile on the basis of its content delivery
platform (CDP). The CDP is a mobile
online business system and supports
mobile operators to provide businessto-customer (B2C) services based on
value-added contents. Through mobile
communication channels, it promotes
mobile value-added contents to end users.
This marketing mode is called mobile
marketing.
Mobile advertising
becomes a pioneer
To date, China Mobile’s Monternet has
acquired more than 100 million subscribers
and enjoys great success. Statistics show
that in promoting Monternet services,
mobile advertisements sent from the 1860
SMS platform were far more effective than
that on the standard media promotion of
service providers (SPs). Mobile advertising
has become an important marketing tool
to develop business transactions on the
CDP.
However, mobile advertising can also
be a double-edged sword. For instance,
if advertisements are randomly sent
to subscribers, it is much like sending
junk messages to email accounts on the
Internet. Subscribers might become highly
agitated, start complaining, or even decide
to quit the network.
Hence, an important key for successful
mobile advertising would be to comply
with the 4C model and focus on target
subscribers.
Complying with the 4C model
In a survey conducted by the HPI
Research Group on SMS advertising,
over 3,300 mobile subscribers between
the ages 16-45 were interviewed in 11
countries. The study reveals that as many
as 86% of those surveyed agreed that it
would be acceptable to receive commercial
advertisements on their mobile phones
if advertisers paid certain mobile charges
for them. About 88% of the interviewees
do not mind receiving such contents as
stock information on their mobile phones,
while nearly 31% expressed a high desire
to receive stock information and related
contents. The results show that subscribers
NOV 2007 . ISSUE 36
32
HOW TO OPERATE
Rolling the dice of mobile marketing
would accept commercial advertisements
if certain conditions are satisfied, and that
subscribers would like to have the valueless
information screened.
In summary, consumers need 4C in
order to accept mobile advertising under
the following criteria: choice - they are
free to decide whether or not to accept
any advertising message; control - they can
easily avoid unwanted sales information;
customization - they can customize the
types of information they want to receive;
and C Quid pro quo - they want some
form of pay-back from advertisers such as a
reduction in service charges and electronic
coupons that can be used in online
department stores. If these principles are
met, mobile advertisements based on the
4C model will be able to bring subscribers
a wider range of added values, instead of
irritation and discomfort.
Focusing on target subscribers
Most people need sufficient time
and effort to completely read through
a message they receive on their mobile
phones. Therefore, if the message being
received does not suit the subscriber, it will
most likely be deleted and be considered
as a junk message. Therefore, an important
step to implement the 4C model is to
target specific subscribers.
Operators also have a greater advantage
in this type of advertising since they
already know the subscribers’ basic interests
and hobbies, as well as their likes and
dislikes regarding product information.
Hence, by adopting mobile advertising
strategies, they can target subscribers and
loyal customers and send the kind of
mobile advertisements that the subscribers
might be interested in. The advertisements
sent to subscribers might also be used as
coupons. In this way, operators can avoid
agitating subscribers, while at the same
time increasing the success rate of their
advertisements.
Spanning the entire
purchase process
Mobile advertisements are very useful
for informing subscribers about products.
However, subscribers might not buy
products just because they know about
33 NOV 2007 . ISSUE 36
them. Therefore, mobile marketing needs
to provide more services than just mobile
advertising.
In the CDP, the operator sells mainly
media contents, which includes RBT,
pictures, games, and music. The process of
media content consumption is not much
different than any other ordinary shopping
process in life. Therefore, what needs to
be done first is to study the subscriber
purchase behavior model.
A subscriber’s shopping and purchase
behavior can be determined by using the
awareness, interest, desire, and action
(AIDA) model. A person first becomes
aware of a product or service, then he or
she begins to show interest in the product
or service. As the subscriber becomes more
informed about a particular product,
then he or she often expresses a desire to
purchase the product or service. Mobile
marketing should encompass an overall
marketing approach that covers the
complete purchase process.
Phase of awareness
In this phase, the operator should
Huawei Technologies
utilize various methods for the purpose of
informing potentially valuable customers
about value-added contents.
In addition to mobile advertising,
mobile marketing measures employed in
this phase would include: word-of-mouth,
ranking, flexible product display, crossselling, and a search engine.
Word-of-mouth: This is a measure
whereby various products are promoted
among subscribers. For instance, if
subscriber A likes a product and thinks
that subscribers B, C and D might also
enjoy having it, then A might recommend
the product. In this article, the flash
cartoons sent to John by his friend Marry,
through Monternet, serves as a typical
example of word-of-mouth promotion.
The operator needs to determine who
the first 100 subscribers (seed subscribers)
will be before star ting the product
promotion. This type of community
forwarding mechanism, which is based
on a broadcasting effect, is not only legal,
but also avoids incensing subscribers, and
moreover, it enables a higher success rate.
In general, the operator can implement
i n t e r - s u b s c r i b e r re c o m m e n d a t i o n s
together with the preferential score
method. Recommenders can be awarded
preferential score by operators for their
recommendations. Hence, the operator,
recommender and receiver can all help to
form a triple-win situation.
Ranking: Since value-added contents
are highly diverse, it is often quite difficult
for subscribers to select just the right one.
In this case, operators can rank various
products from different aspects, such as
ranking of new songs, ranking of the most
popular games, and ranking of the most
beautiful scenery pictures. In this way, the
operator can help guide subscribers in the
selection and consumption process.
Flexible product display: The display
of various commodities in supermarkets
can directly influence our consumption
habits and interests in life. Therefore, the
display of products is very important in
terms of product sales. As the CDP is a
software system controlled by the PC, it
can flexibly place products according to
subscriber groups and interests.
Cross-selling: This purpose of this
measure is to create links for products
related to the sales contents, in order to
indirectly guide the consumption. For
example, when a subscriber is in the
process of buying pictures of Michael
Jordan, the CDP can also offer the
subscriber other products about Michael
Jordan such as “Video Clips of Michael
Jordan” and “NBA Songs”, to further
arouse the subscriber’s desire to purchase
these items. In this article, after John
finished reading the flash car toon,
Confucius Speaks: Words to Live By, he
bought related commodities through links
that were attached to the cartoon.
Search engine: The tremendous success
of Google clearly illustrates the huge
demand of subscribers for active search
engines. Operator can also offer a mobile
search engine, through which subscribers
can more easily and conveniently find what
they want. Undoubtedly, this measure will
become much more successful over the
coming future.
Phase of interest and desire
In this phase, to attract subscribers,
the operator can release product packages
that are specifically oriented to different
subscriber groups. For example, for
high-school students, freshmen, and
s o p h o m o re s , o p e r a t o r s c a n re l e a s e
“American hip-hop video package” which
includes pictures of hip-hop stars, hiphop music, and hip-hop videos. For whitecollar workers, operators can release “leisure
at noon package” which includes cartoons
by Ron Chu, crossword puzzles, and block
games.
In addition, the operator can let
subscribers experience a few types of
contents for free, in order to cultivate their
interests and desires to purchase these types
of contents. The principle employed here
is, “a subscriber can find out more about
a given product after taking advantage of
the free trial, but the subscriber will not
be able to download or obtain the entire
product.” For example, the operator can
let subscribers try out different contents,
but the times or duration of each trial
is limited. In a game, operators can let
subscribers see typical game scenes and
download a limited trial version. Other
methods might include providing free
directories of consulting reports, and a few
news titles for free.
Phase of action
Mobile marketing can be implemented
even in the phase of action. For instance,
the operator can refer to the shopping
score scheme of supermarkets for the
purpose of encouraging subscribers to
buy more products. Another method is to
encourage subscribers to send gifts to each
other. Operators can pack value-added
contents into gifts so that subscribers
can buy and send them to others. This
is considered an important marketing
measure. A good example of the successful
application of this measure is described
in greater details at the beginning of this
article, when John received flash cartoons
sent by Marry.
Phase of after-action
For subscribers that have already
purchased products, the operator can set
up a “VIP customer club”, which gives
the operator the opportunity to deploy
continuous mobile marketing. In this way,
the operator can organize a few customer
care activities. Moreover, the CDP can
actively send product recommendation
messages to subscribers upon subscriber
authorization, in the event that an
upgraded version of the product is released,
or in case there happens to be strongly
related products that the subscriber might
be interested in.
In this modern society, mobile phones
have become a necessity for many people.
The consumption of contents through
mobile phones has now become the latest
fashion. Hence, value-added contents
provided by the CDP will become more
and more popular among subscribers in
the near future.
In the complete purchase process, which
includes the phase of awareness, phase of
interest and desire, phase of action, and
phase of after-action, mobile marketing
can cultivate more pleasant shopping
experiences by utilizing more humanistic
marketing measures, in order to bring
content products closer to subscribers and
set up a win-win relationship between
subscribers and operators.
Editor: Xu Ping [email protected]
NOV 2007 . ISSUE 36
34