The Web 2.0 phenomena came about around ten years ago and now it represents the Internet as we all know it: Youtube, blogs, social-networking sites, wikipedia, peer-to-peer networks and so on. People completely embraced the idea of being participants in this collaborative effort, which might be the biggest one since building the Tower of Babel.
It produced a great layout for doing marketing and business. Social networks like Facebook and Twitter have several millions users. On top of that, we have services like Flickr and Youtube, where all content is user generated and shared with real enthusiasm.
The era of Web 2.0 marked the global prevalence of the Internet. To the point where virtually everybody is involved. From a 10-year-old to a 99-year-old. To some, its refreshing to know that their grandmother has her own Myspace account and is proficient with google and surfing the net. Marketers, on the other hand, find it more and more difficult to address message to their potential clients.
Indeed, with such a mixed audience it often happens that a teenager gets a Mercedes-Benz ad, while an executive is recommended to buy a designer handbag. No surprise that social networks continue to see low returns on ads. Moreover, they are now experiencing privacy issues for sharing members’ information with third-party companies. The very same companies that are eager to sell Mercedes’ and handbags.
So, the next question will be – were do we go from here? The right answer is – make personalization more personal and intelligent.
Everybody in the world owns a mobile phone. It is something that nobody leaves home without. Yet, the strange fact is – only about 6% of companies use mobile marketing.
Mobile advertising pushes personalization a little bit further and allows you to deliver much more targeted advertisements. However, it shouldn’t be considered just another method of delivering spam. The exciting thing about it is that it serves as a convergence point for traditional media and provides a channel for measuring the effectiveness of the whole marketing campaign.
How mobile marketing can help you to earn more money?
Scenario:
1. Traditional media advertisements (TV, radio, billboards, magazines) include a customer service number so that if the reader is interested in the offer, he/she can dial the number to receive information about the product or get a discount.
2.The interested customer can now subscribe to your new offer or news. This is an important point as he or she is doing so voluntarily, and it opens a marketing channel with customers, thus avoiding any legal issues.
3.Users are now engaged, and you start to collect data about them to deliver targeted ads. Not only their preferences can be recorded, but also their geographical position.
4.On top of that, it gives you the opportunity to measure the efficiency of your advertisement in traditional media, as now you can see how people react to it.
More and more companies are looking to jump on the mobile marketing bandwagon. Studies show that 56% of companies plan to increase budgets for mobile marketing in 2010. Hopefully 2011 will be the year when mobile marketing will really blossom.