by Will Lion
According to the web analysis fast, eMarketer, there are over 405-million mobile web consumers internationally. Projections see this figure reading over 800-million in 4 years. Staggering indeed, and an exciting chance for web marketers, specifically in Africa where mobile represents a much greater penetration than fixed line Internet connections.
It’s additionally an exciting chance to engage with clients because it allows marketers to communicate with them right at their touch-point with all the web, right in the palm of their hand.
Handheld equipment are becoming more and more enabled, and this mixture of PDA, camera, email, MP3 player, web browser so forth is just serving to result in the penetration and dependency on these equipment more and more prolific.
Clearly, with mobile and WAP websites, the mobile web brings a modern dimension to ecommerce as well as the technique purchases are performed.
How WAP differs from conventional web
WAP websites should be easy and appropriate for the small screen size. Additionally to the shape and technical considerations when placing together a WAP website, marketers should consider that the reasons or aim of the mobile web consumer are possibly different to a individual sitting in front of the computer.
WAP consumers tend to choose goal-driven services that offer rapid answers to certain issues. Examples include acquiring the closest hotel, a towing service or weather predictions. Other uses for WAP include entertainment-focused services for consumers that are seeking to kill time.
Overall, WAP services could target consumers with immediate context-driven content.
Mobile services today include everything from SMS to podcasting and video-on-the-go, thus the chances to advertise are almost unlimited.
The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) introduced a whitepaper in April 2008 which presents an review of mobile advertising as it stands.
The mobile channels that are defined include the mobile internet, downloadable applications, mobile messaging and mobile movie. Each channel presents a quantity of advertising solutions.
Mobile Web
The many apparent channel is maybe the mobile internet. On the mobile internet, advertising solutions include banner advertising, text advertisements and branded mobile sites.
Here, advertisements are generally available on a CPC or CPM basis. It can be done to set up advertisements in a quantity of formats in the mobile internet channel, but these are many commonly banner and text advertisements.
Mobile Messaging
These days almost every handset, regardless how rudimentary, can send and obtain Brief Message Service (SMS) and to a certain but more limited extent, Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS). These form the basis of mobile messaging.
SMS is limited to just text characters, while MMS will include pictures, sound and video content. There are a quantity of solutions for advertisers through the mobile messaging channel – these include text commercials, branding though splash pages and animated pictures.
Downloadable Applications
Downloadable applications pertains to software or particular content that consumers download to their mobile device, that then remains found on the telephone – these services could include games, ringtones and life-style tool applications. These application downloads are just accessible to people consumers with suitable equipment and information plans.
Advertising chances in the downloadable application channel include advertisement location in the apps, and branded applications.
Mobile Video
The final channel is mobile movie. This pertains to movie that is transferred via a mobile phone operator network to a handset’s embedded media player.
Mobile videos are either streamed live or downloaded either within the mobile internet, or as element of a MMS.
Ad location here is as pre-, post- or mid-roll adverts. Marketers might include static pictures or provide branded videos particularly for this channel.
What are the expected results?
These advertising solutions is beneficial as element of the broader CRM approach, for branding, direct sales as well as for driving consumers to a mobile or WAP website.
Many mobile advertisers report reaction rates of between 10 and 25 %, meaning that targeted mobile advertising is a effective tool. With the predictions indicating a excellent adoption rate and fast expansion in this location, the mobile arena is 1 that cannot be neglected with regards to broader web advertising techniques.