Mobile: Legitimate marketing medium

In 2011, Forrester Research predicts that marketers and retailers will take the training wheels off mobile programs and start investing in cohesive mobile marketing and commerce strategies.
After a record year for mobile marketing spend and success, mobile has finally arrived as a legitimate marketing medium, according to Forrester.

One of the recent examples from India can be taken of Hariyali Kisaan Bazaar (HKB), the rural retail venture of DCM Shriram Consolidated Limited (DSCL), which is planning to tie up with mobile telephone companies to provide farm and commodity advisory services to the farmers. HKB is the largest national rural retail chain in India with 275 outlets spread across Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan, Punjab, Haryana, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh and Andhra Pradesh. Each outlet has a catchment area of 15 kms and reaches out to 20,000 rural families.

Mobile has been promoted as the next big thing almost every year for the past 10 years, but today it truly is becoming the platform, the technology you need to listen to. Also if we see Product referrals from employees, customers and others are the lowest-cost and highest quality source for giving boost to the sales of a company. But they have always struggled with, how to encourage the word-of-mouth referrals. Social networks are a simple and splendid way of doing that, but companies have lacked a way to manage that activity. They do have a presence on social networks, but no good tools to exploit its power. If this concept of ‘viral marketing through social networks’ is linked to mobile technology, it can help marketers tremendously increase customer traffic create profound visibility of their brand.

With smart phones market gaining immense momentum in its growth, the biggest contributor to this trend is the social networking application content on them. Its market is expected to reach 76.7 million units and are projected to easily surpass 100 million units in 2011.

If 2010 was the year marketers tested mobile, 2011 will be the year marketers take a serious look at what they and their competitors have learned and make steps toward creating cohesive mobile strategies. Designated interactive marketers will become the first set of true mobile marketers, creating specific mobile search and display media buying plans, while scrutinizing one-offs like campaign-based apps will for providing additive business value.