Report: Make mobile more interactive and location specific

If you're thinking about a mobile campaign you need to be aware of two things first: the campaigns should be highly targeted according to location and should be quite interactive. According to a report from Professor Fareena Sultan, Associate Professor of Marketing at Northeastern, mobile phone users are interested in interactivity and want location-specific information when they log on.

by Kristina Knight

Professor Sultan presented her findings called, "Brand in Hand: Global Research for Mobile Marketing", at the Mobile Marketing Symposium in Boston.

What location-specific and interactive means for marketers is that a mobile campaign targeted to a general zip code may not be enough. To really engage the user, marketers need to know about the users' neighborhoods and favorite haunts so that the offers are location-specific.

Other hints from Professor Sultan's conference include cross-promotions. Mobile users are open to clicking through to ads, being sent to a social platform or other platform to receive more information, a better coupon or a different offer. So give them what they want: cross-promote between online and offline venues, point mobile subscribers to social networks; these actions will create a broader awareness of the brand.

At the same time, don't endanger the users' privacy. Mobile users are open to ads and want information but they want their private information to remain private. Marketers should focus on permission based promotions and offers at this point in the mobile marketer field rather than blasting ads to all and sundry consumers.