As a marketer, I always spend part of my day reading the headlines for the latest industry news.  I recently came across these two studies with somewhat conflicting opinions about mobile marketing.

‘Trust’ and ‘control’ are key to mobile marketing 
Almost three-quarters (70%) of consumers are happy to receive messages and more than half of consumers (55%) stated they would welcome SMS marketing messages from trusted brands with sales promotions and offers that are “of genuine benefit” 
– Direct Marketing Association UK

Good News, Bad News for Mobile Marketing
"Since June of 2008, the percentage of people who don’t like mobile marketing has increased." More specifically, 67 percent don’t like text ads (vs. 64 percent last year), 60 percent don’t like voicemail ads (up from 57 percent) and 60 percent don’t like video ads (up from 56 percent). 
– From BrandWeek based BigResearch data  – read the full report here http://www.bigresearch.com/

I’m fairly sure that the BigResearch study and DMA study aren’t really talking about the same things. The difference, in my opinion, is that one is referring to ads that show up on mobile websites, where the other is referring to SMS text messages such as mobile coupons that are sent to the user after they have opted in to receive such information from the company.

It’s confusing though, they both reference mobile marketing which is technically correct, but the two tactics are different, just like online advertising and email marketing are different. Then I got to thinking, if I’m confused, what about our customers and prospects? Do we need to do better job as  an industry and differentiate between mobile advertising and SMS mobile marketing (text messages) as we educate the marketplace about this new medium? 

Any thoughts out there?

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 18th, 2009 at 11:12 am and is filed under General. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.