I read an article today that added more weight to the fact the mobile marketing will become a huge source of customer acquisition and increase in sales.
The article stated that by the end of 2010, there will be roughly 5 billion cell phone subscriptions. That means that there are more cell phone users in the world then people who have access to the Internet.
When I first started taking an interest in mobile marketing back in 2007, it was very much in its infancy with really only the big corporations spending money on mobile advertising.
They were spending millions of dollars a year on mobile marketing for branding purposes and ROI was not really on their radar at the time.
Fast forward to 2010 and Admob.com is not the only source where you can buy mobile advertising. Dozens of the competitors have popped up that can provide hundreds if not thousands of targeted clicks every day to your ad campaign.
Mobile CPA networks have started up, giving affiliates a new platform to drive mobile traffic to mobile offers. (I am currently testing this and getting my butt kicked… obvious tweaking and testing needs to be done).
There are obvious weaknesses when it comes to advertising on mobile phones such as screen size, attention span, credit card information, etc. But with mobile marketing constantly evolving at a rapid pace, it is just a matter of time before the average person will be able to market effectively on mobile devices.
Mobile marketing reminds me of the wild west days of early Internet marketing where just a handful of people actually knew what there were doing while the technology was evolving quickly.
Mobile marketing currently out-pulls traditional marketing by 20 to 1 according to some recent statistics. I think this is because a mobile device is much more personal and it is hard for the user to avoid the advertisement as it is with other advertising mediums.
I think mobile marketing will become huge in the next few years and marketers such as you and me will be able to benefit from this advertising medium and make money.
Your thoughts?
Gauher Chaudhry
I’ve tried my hand with Admob on one campaign and got my butt kicked, so I need to do some tweaking. Traffic comes fast and furious so I can see the potential.
Gauher,
As a consultant to local small businesses, which would you recommend I use to help them? The potential is fantastic.
My name is Silho and I am an 11 year mobile marketing executive I’ve worked with small mom and pop businesses and dozens of large Fortune 500 companies. I can tell you why most people are having problems with mobile marketing and what to do as an entrepreneur to avoid those same problems.
In the US (because our market has not matured in the mobile space like our counterparts in the Eastern Hemisphere) mobile web sites should not be used to try to make money. If you happen to have a great number of users/readers/subscribers and you see the value in making an extension of your Internet web site (going mobile) then you should do it; and place ads on it. If you have time sensitive information (stocks, news, traffic) or location specific information (weather, news, traffic, movies, events, etc) or entertainment based information (news, games, apps) then it makes sense to go mobile. In very few cases you can charge real money for access to the mobile version of this information. Make money sites should only go mobile if you can offer a tip-of-the-day kind of thing in a small bite-sized chunks. Use this to strengthen your brand with your customers. You cant sell to your customers every single time you reach out to them. It’s the fastest way to alienate your list and burn them it out. And selling biz opps on a mobile phone does not fill a time sensitive or location based need so it will not sell in the mobile space.
I think everyone’s problem with the mobile space is that they want to make money right away, do not take the time to learn what mobile marketing is about. You cannot simply take your web based offer and slap it on a mobile site/mobile banner and expect the cash register ring. Many times going mobile is about extending your brand, showing your customers the value of being everywhere they are, and reaching your customers in different ways so that you strenghen your brand. If you have a large enough database that sees the value in visiting your mobile site then join an advertising network and get some ads on your site. But don’t expect your list to pull out their credit cards and buy a $97 ebook while on their cell phone. Its not going to happen.
SMS is the best way to go and the fastest way to make money in the mobile space. I’ll soon share some more information on how to get started with mobile marketing in about a week. I have a very, very, very simple but highly effective and profitable system that has made me some pretty good money with mobile marketing and I can share the same information if wanted/needed.
If you have any questions please dont hesitate to ask.
I can see Mobile Marketing over powering traditional email marketing in the near future however, unlike email marketing, you’ll only have one shot at getting your message across. Like the subject of an email, what your potential customer sees on his/her screen needs to be short and powerful enough to get their attention as well as get them to follow up. You cannot lead a horse to water but you can salt their oats. Your message needs to salt the taste buds of the consumer. An example text would be: Need WEED? Go To PotGuy.com
Yes, potential is unbelievable.
I tried to use AdMob, tons of impressions
and clicks. A lot of testing should be done.
Thanks Gauher for Info.
Hey Gauher,
I purchased Amish’s Magic Bullet system via your affiliate link last month.
However until now I didn’t get any notice about the bonuses that you promised.
Could you please check?
Hi Gauher
I know that so many people use more than one mobile, may be sometimes three or more at a time. Even if we discount duplication, this figure is way high at any rate.
Looking forward to you to lead Mobile Marketing
Deepak
‘Moble Phone’ characterizes itself being totally ‘ACCESSIBLE, READ …’ Any time, Any where, Any measure.
Whenever Advertising calls for, one can immediately begin to work without division of labor, so-to-speak. It save time, effort, and COSTS, not to mention RESULTS.
without a question mate…
if you’ve been watching technology evolve over the past decade, you can see that it’s really just an evolution process… great thing is, the way we use technology as a whole is changing… with more “infrastructure” now available in the cloud, mobile usage of business applications is also on the rise… CRM’s, collaboration suites the whole kit and kaboodle… it’s sssooo exciting because we can now see first hand, how human’s communicate (we can measure & track it now’a'days!) and we’re now seeing the way we communicate change, rapidly within our civilizations on a global scale! Think of Facebook!! All this has an effect on almost every industry in almost every country, including, if not especially marketing… in the states! lol
Finally, technology itself is becoming purely people centric…?
Vish
Gauher bhai I watched your vid when you released it. But just recently started testing mobile traffic (in the past 2 weeks). Admob majorly and some others like decktrade, etc.
I did make bucks. Infact doubled the money the 1st day. Then broke even the second. And then lost on the 3rd day.
2 major problems with admob:
1- Admob doesn’t have a frequency cap.
So it shows the ad to same group of people again and again and again.
So if you target with basic demographics (sex and age), you’ll get ctrs like 5%. And then within an hour it’ll start declining. Within a day it’d be around 1%.
2- Secondly.. admob restricts us to using a small icon image and a line of text to advertise – while the rest of the area is black.
That sucks! We should be able to design it however we want. Decktrade is much slower and got other problems – but atleast there you can design the whole banner with colors and attention-grabbing elements.
Gonna keep testing new stuff until we crack the code. These really are the golden days. 5 years from now, I want to be the one telling others “oh yeah it was fun in the gold ol’ days”
You know, what’s funny is recently I opened my Yahoo UK account and those ding dongs opened a Mobile marketing account for me by mistake. So irronically I ended up in the mobile space in December for Europe, and let me tell you; I learned a lot about where they are and where we are.
Thanks a lot Silho, very good insights.
Also Howie Shwartz put out a nice 50 page pdf this week if you’re on his list. Pure mobile info.
Hi Gauher
I have watched the 1 hour seminar you did on mobiblueprint and it has definitely got me thinking about ways to monetize as an affilate.
On another note i have a real estate agent and a home loan consultant that i am helping generate leads. I think getting leads for them via this method could be very possible. Will test it out and see how it goes
Hi,
I like the idea of marketing to mobile phone users it is the next step!
Very interesting post…
Good reply Silho, I truly believe the mobile market will revolve heavily around mini micro-payments and as an extension to existing product or services memberships or even company/product follow-ups sequences.
I don’t know if anyone has already noticed this but I’ve been snooping around and I’ve noticed that just like the early days of the internet the first marketers and markets really grasping this new advertising channel is the P.P.C markets (Porn, Pills and Casinos).
Not to my surprise, I have already seen some big porn membership website extend their membership to their customers cell phone, offering a new daily video to see directly on their phones by only logging on to their website which is specifically coded for mobile devices. (The tricky part in this is that these videos will not work on Iphone devices because they do not open any type of flash videos).
It’s also going to be important to note that as a marketer you truly do have 2 ways to advertise in this channel and that is via MMS and via people that do have a 3G connection or are Wi-Fi connected and advertising via banners, etc…
As marketers we have to keep your eyes and ears open very closely around this new advertising medium, or channel and keep snooping around and be ready to “jump the gun” once we do start seeing some more people doing this successfully.
It will be very interesting to see how this new advertising channel will turn out to be for us.
Regards,
Alex
Hi Guys and Gaugher, awesome discussion here, I felt compelled to chime in. I hope some of the posters return here to discuss more. Gaugher, it would be nice if your blog had a reply to comment feature, so we can engage with some of the people who commented here. Here is my question:
For those who have done mobile marketing (I have not) I liken this early stage to the day when you did inline text ads with google. Can that format be duplicated on Admob, my feeling to make money with this is to go ahead and dynamically insert your RELEVANT offers with whatever they are reading/consuming at the time – Gaugher and ANYONE else that has tried mobile PLEASE RESPOND.
Great input from everyone. A while ago, I looked at Amazon because it is mobile enabled and they make it easy for consumers to purchase without entering credit card info with their phone. Then I read the Terms and Conditions to find that they don’t pay affiliate commissions on sales made via mobile devices. If anyone has any stroke with Amazon to change their rules, that seems like an easy entry for affiliate marketers.
If an advertiser wants to send an ad to my mobile, what kind of permissions do they have to have? Spamming will dampen the mobile ads industry until some regulations come in. Hopefully this does not take too long.
Looking forward to seeing you lead the way
It’s simple for calculation for any market. Take the 5 billion users and even if you find that your market is 1 million out of those 5 billion; having a constant revenue of only $1 per user will be $1 million!!!
Now even if 75% of the revenue account for costs; means you have 25 % profit disregarding repeat purchase and the CLV of the customer through mobile marketing!!
Would an extra $250,000/month in pure profit hurt with mobile marketing!??
Respect,
Viju Dallon
Hi
Engaging dialogue. Nice one!
Any thoughts on the possible use of mobile marketing for list building?
Best Wishes from the UK.
Martin
I know that if you have an offer they can just click one time and it brings them to a call center. You could hire a company to answer the phone for you. This is the best set up for advertising on mobile.
Shilo – how are you making money with SMS,please do share
Gaugher and Groupies,
Here is a cool little site I got from a mobile dude over at Warriors. It’s free to join and as a pretty active forum full of help and tidbits, which I really need trying to figure this all out.
Check it out, maybe some one that knows a hell of a lot more than me can comment on it.
mobisitegalore.com
Darwin
Hi Gauher,
Try to load this page on my iphone and got an error message that safari can not open the page because server can not be found?
any ideas why?
sorry my previous post at 12:37 was an error on my part. my apologies, it does work
Hi Gauher
Thanks for the one hour video as ever the information was enlightening. There is a much higher take of SMS here in the UK, as three to four times as many test messages are being sent than calls made from mobile devices. There are companies here that have services that allow you to mass text SMS messages to mobile users worldwide from one platform. Regarding the comment about list building I’m looking for a way that allows the non smart phone user to send in a text reply of there contact details that can then be input into a CPA email submit form using some form of automation for a free offer. Any ideas?
Clearly the mobile market will evolve rapidly a company like Vodafone based in the UK owns 45% of Verizon wireless in the US, & globally they have just over 300m subscribers. What they do in one territory they will do in another.
The predicted 5 billion mobile phone users will use fairly standard phones, & only a small percentage of the total number will be smart phone users. However broadcasting text messages to mobile users with an automated system that allows the user to opt in on an email submit via SMS is not contingent on weather they have a smart phone & is an immediate way of driving traffic & generating revenue if the text format can be input into an automated email opt in directly from the SMS.
Of course products can be sold via mobiles but only from established vendors that the customer is familiar with, new businesses using SMS to email will have to be the bridge between the prospect & the affiliate in the near term.
The mobile companies are in a win win position when they are approached to collect revenue from their subscribers to pass on to vendors. Their revenue streams will go through the roof & so will the credibility of the vendors, who are approved by the mobile companies.
The increased revenue collected by the mobile networks can only increase their cash flow & share price, even if their profit margins reduce on increased turnover. They have a great deal to gain in the adoption of this new process don’t ignore these global businesses because they are already our partners. So we should speak to them.
The proliferation of mobile advertising in Europe is a direct consequence of a European standard of benchmarking to deliver telecommunications across the European Union with (GSM & GPRS). The telecoms delivery is a political process that 25 member states are following designed to make Europe the centre of the knowledge based economy.
The mobile companies have paid national governments Billions of $ or £ for licenses, & in the six largest countries there are over 440 million inhabitants, & the same hand full of mobile operators have interests across many nation states.
If we establish which operators in South East Asia are allowing payments via customer mobiles (as mentioned by Gauher in the 60 minute video) we are likely to find that there will be a North American or European partner who already solved the technical issues we are raising as they would have already worked out the details in the provision of revenue collection. That company & their competitors will co-operate in helping affiliates (us) in the provision of services to their existing customers over available formats if its going to increase their revenue, there is no down side for them near or long term.
I look forward to your comments
Hi Gauher!
Right in the black! You’re damn right!!! ;-D
Maurice
I have tried to sign-up for the Mobiblueprint Training but it was sold out. Will you be reopening after the first week if there are people who are opting out of the class. If so, I would very much be interested in being put a waiting list if that’s at all possible.
Thanks Gauher.
I wanted to sign up too but it was too late but I found a few other mobile marketing courses. One is Mobile Traffic Domination (the one I bought) and one by Howie Schwartz called mobile leadership but I think it’s 2k. I would have loved to get Mobi blueprint but the one I got is still really good.
What mobile advertising or marketing book/ courses do you recommend in addition to MobileBlueprint?
Please post or email Mark@ErosRx.com
hi gauher,
I really believe that the smartphone route is the one to go;
all you see is everyone wandering around looking at their phones
ALL DAY AND NIGHT LONG…
I want to get in on it and I have a mobile url already
http://www.makingmillions.mobi
I am looking for help to make a GREAT SITE …
thanks ,
john
Hi, I really like the videos where u teach newbies about making money with mobile internet. I work for a mobile ad network and yes it is true, mobile marketing is booming. People are making lots of money off their mobile web and even wap sites and we are also seeing more advertisers spending an incredible amount of budget on our network. If you like to monetize your sites/applications, here’s another option for you besides admob – do check http://www.buzzcity.com
You know my thinking on mobile is Relationship Marketing especially for Local folk.
Ok heres what I mean, you already have certain customers that come in to the store ok have a way for them to sucscribe via mobile technology and bless them every now and then with a wild unbelievable bargain, secret or something believe me they WILL tell other friends and then you will make more, have more and spread more goodwill better (to me) then intertupting mobile ads that’s like what?
Telemarketing via text Nah just think about the value of creating better relationships with your tried and true patrons and see if your business doesn’t grow.
I’mJustayyin!
Dan
I couldn’t agree more with your opinion.