Marketing and Communications: Why Mobile Marketing, why?

Marketing and Communications: Why Mobile Marketing, why?: The development of mobile marketing is something marketers should not ignore. Mobile marketing will turn out to be the most effective way of...

Why Mobile Marketing, why?

The development of mobile marketing is something marketers should not ignore. Mobile marketing will turn out to be the most effective way of reaching marketer's target audience. I  am certain that mothers can attest to this claim. The children of today including their modern parents are so clued to their mobile phones like there is no one else in this world but them and their mobiles. Marketers who will leverage on this habit will be sure of meeting their marketing.

Research has found that these days we spend almost half of our time daily on our mobile phones. I can further elucidate on this fact by saying that of all the time we spend on our mobile phones, plus minus 90% is online. This gives strategists a different angle on how to formulate their strategies. Albeit, one should bear in mind that there is no better marketing strategy than an integrated marketing strategy.

 

Although people may be spending most of their time on  social networks and mobile phones, they haven't really given up on traditional media and other platforms where marketers used to reach them. Therefore, marketers are required to have a knack for allocating all their marketing efforts in a relatively scrupulous manner on their integrated marketing strategies.

Is Digital Marketing different from personal selling?

These days there is a huge emphasis on the marketers tailoring their messages according to the needs of their consumers. It is assumed that messages that had been personalized have this great impact to die for. Well that is in fact, true actually. But this is not something that is new, it has been there for as long as marketing has been. It is just that it was then given a little emphasis, if any at all.

Personal selling has been around as one of the marketing elements for a while. This marketing element has some characteristics of the now digital marketing. Remember the time when you are one on one with a friend trying to persuade them to do something for you? That is an act of personal selling. You are in a way also enabled to 'ask' in a way that would be appealing to your friend. That is the same to digital marketing which has received much interest as it enables users to tailor their marketing content according to the needs of their target audience.



Just as with personal selling where you would visit a place where you think that the people over there have an interest in a certain activity. People tend to subscribe to things that are of interest to them and that gives a digital marketer to identify niche market by so studying the subscribers' interests. After establishing these markets, a typical content producer would then compose the message according to the perceived needs and interests of their target audience. This enables marketers maximize the impact of their marketing messages and therefore achieve more Return On Investments (ROI).

With this said, these two marketing elements are not different. The only variation there is would be that with digital, the marketing costs are very low whereas we cannot say the same with personal selling. The element of time consumption on the side of personal selling is also a concern. However, both elements are able to close the deal, i.e, drive a prospective customer to a desired action.

Does digital_migration mean the demise of traditional media?

Technological industry has seen profound developments over the past decade which one may see as posing a threat to traditional media. The traditional media on the other hand, have adopted some of the new media characteristics in order to remain relevant in today's world. Newspapers have their online editions, radio and TV as well have online platforms wherein they put updates on what is on and what is to follow. Therefore, rather than asking the question, how long will they last by always being reactive to the current media developments, ask instead, What is the basis of all media?

Credibility of Social Media vs Traditional Media

Traditional media is under no threat from the new media because, for news to have that credibility, they should be confirmed by the traditional media. News from all social networks have less value compared to those from television, radio and newspapers. Similarly, when a reporter sees breaking news on social media, they do not just go ahead with reporting the story. They first look for corroboration of such news story then decide whether the facts are enough to publish the story or not. That is just how credibility of the traditional media is perceived and achieved!

An example of online version of traditional media

In conclusion, however proliferated the social media may appear to be, they will always need the traditional media as their pillar of strength. This is to say, traditional media will never fade from the face of the earth and an online publication is also not credible enough if it does not have a traditional background. It is important to note however, that traditional media should also promote their presence online to remain relevant.

Move to digital age!

It makes no sense that an institution of higher learning still relies on manual way of doing things. We have to move to a paperless society and that means doing everything digital. Tests, Assignments and all other forms of assessments should be done electronically.

I have moved from an intitution which still relies on manual way of doing things to a more digitised institution and I found that a first entering student in a digitised institution is more relevent to today's job market than a postgraduate honours student in a manual relying institution.

Wake up people, let's move!

#everythingdigital