Why do firms keep using Mobile Marketing while everyone hates it?

 What is mobile marketing? 

Mobile marketing is basically a type of promotional strategy in which the marketing staff will advertise their goods and services to the customers through mobile phones. It is noticeable that most of the offerings are related to real estates and insurances as the cost is relatively cheap compared to the commission earned per an order.  

 

 

According to the survey in the USA in 2021, there are approximately 298 million mobile phone users (Figure 1) whose average spent time is more than 4 hours (263 minutes) per day and this number is continuing to rise (Figure 2). From the statistics, we can see that there are great opportunities for marketing agencies to target this segment for their main operation. 

 

 

Figure 1: Number of Smartphone users (in millions) in the United States from 2018 to 2025, source Statista. 

 

 

Figure 2: Time spent with nonvoice activities on mobile phone every day (in minutes) in the United State from 2019 to 2023, source Statista.

 

 

What are the types of mobile marketing? 

There are 3 types of mobile marketing that will be covered in this section namely SMS marketing, In-game advertising (IGA) and Telemarketing.

 

SMS marketing:

is a technique the marketers will send short text messages to the user’s mobile phone to advertise about the products or services that they want to offer. In most of the cases, SMS marketing causes distraction for the mobile phone users. 

 

We are attacked by marketers with a significant amount of spam emails, calls and messages in the digital world, and it is more likely to be a privacy invasion rather than a marketing campaign (Marketing Eye 2021). 

Figure 3: Scandal of Gia Dinh University (HCMC) in sending spam SMS messages, source Kenh14.vn.  

In addition, organizations and businesses should not apply this strategy if their programs or applications have glitches frequently. In 2020, there was a scandal with many spams’ mobile messages in Vietnam with the content translated as: “Your university entrance exam scores are very low, do not hesitate, apply to Gia Dinh university now to be approved soon” (Figure3) that were sent to the senior students.

 

 

As a result, the school reputation dropped significantly with the extremely low on new admission forms. This is one of the reasons people hate SMS marketing as some messages might include inappropriate content. 

 

There are some recommendations such as block the spam messages and avoid taking unknown calls (unless that phone number appears more than 2 times) to alleviate the situation.  

In-game advertising: 

is a technique that game producers input real-life brands into the game so as to enhance the animations. The games are available on an emulator like GTA 5 and Star Wars, or on mobile phones such as SimCity but keep in mind that nothing is free. 

Figure 4: Nissan Leaf Charging Station in SimCity 5, source EA Answer HQ. 

 

From figure 4, the new update of SimCity 5 is significantly better compared to the previous version with a new Nissan’s charging station that transforms solar power into electric for the vehicles. There are other designs that will make the animation more attractive which is a “game changer” as it can bring more gaming experiences for the players, especially the new ones.   

 

The innovations can stimulate more city planners and potentially the in-game experience can be useful in real life (Roy 2019). However, there are many disagreements from the players stating that the new improvements are only for Pay-to-Play (P2P) only. It means that players have to convert actual cash into in-game coins in order to purchase the item. Another explanation for this circumstance is that the game raises all players’ awareness on the client brands but only a small segment can be able to obtain the new model.  

 

Agreeing that the variable cost might surge if the update is difficult as it requires more time and effort so the programmers can charge the customers slightly higher (Burke 2020), but from my perspective, they should have created an event with the rewards being the new items. Not only can it increase interaction, but the satisfaction level will also be enhanced due better animation value.  

 

Telemarketing:

is a direct marketing method which was usually executed by marketers in the past but commonly the work is done by automated phone calls (robocalls) in recent years in order to connect more customers with their company or clients. Generally, calling too late with programmed voice is a big minus for this strategy. 

 

Imagine receiving robocalls during rest time, maybe 8 or 9 in the evening, and the process is duplicated with the frequency a few times per week. From figure 5, in 2018, the majority of robocalls in America are spams (32.1%) and frauds (25.5%). So, the reactions are most people will feel apathetic (48%) while some of them tend to act aggressively (25%) as they are being disturbed by the robocalls (Figure 6). 

 

 

Figure 5: Average robocalls received in America in 2018, source Statista. 

 

Figure 6: Differences in Customer Attitude and Perceptions of Telemarketing, source Research Gate. 

 

Companies should be more aware and try not to make the consumers aggressive as eventually, they are the ones who make the purchase decision (Maulana 2015). In addition, decreasing the consumers’ interest on your brand is also a way to help the competitors in gaining more market shares (Chaffey 2021). In conclusion, following telemarketing technique is understandable but try to establish some criteria such as only calling a person twice a month to ensure awareness level. 

 

 

 

Why do firms keep using mobile marketing?

 

Figure 7: Activities that millennials and boomers do while using mobile phone, source Smart Insight. 

 

Mailing, texting and making phone calls are favourable by both millennials and boomers as the average time spent is approximately 35 minutes per day (Figure 7). Although the effectiveness of mobile marketing is ranked second after social media marketing but expanding to multi-channels can result in better outcomes. Generally, mobile marketing is usually associated with mobile purchase, and online selling can return higher profit due to lower stores’ rental cost (Meyer 2017). 

 

Figure 8: Mobile marketing statistics, source RAANGE.com 

When firms apply SMS marketing, the effectiveness is significantly higher than the traditional method. According to the data, read emails are 5 times higher with 20% of mobile survey responses (Figure 8). Since there is more interaction between the marketers and the customers, it would be beneficial to understand the consumers’ behaviour to deliver the correct products.   

 

Source: Connections of purchase intention with brand familiarity, source Global banking and finance review. 

 

The last reason is that consumers tend to purchase a brand that they have already known or heard before. For example, when Romano - a type of male’s shampoo, is mentioned many times, consumers will likely purchase that brand instead of X-men or AXE. Therefore, firms are predicted to keep using mobile marketing as higher awareness can result in higher profit (roughly 50%).  

 

 

 

Conclusion: 

There are many benefits for businesses when using mobile marketing. However, they should have considered the customers’ feeling by less intervening into the personal life. The result can be better if businesses can reduce the frequency of incoming calls for the consumers to be comfortable and eventually they can have a better impression on the brand.