Smart phones can be used as marketing strategy: research
Mobile solutions can help leverage market strategy for fast-moving consumer goods whose target customers are teenagers and first-jobbers, to facilitate and entertain consumers while encouraging them to purchase.
According to the latest annual study of Global TNS, a market research called "Mobile Life 2012", smart phones are playing an important role across businesses in marketing strategy, especially as the penetration rate of smart phones drives people to use their device for all kinds of daily activities, including entertainment and shopping.
Fiona Buchanan, technology and digital development manager at Global TNS, said that Mobile Life 2012 studied people’s behaviours on mobile-phone use. It found that people are spending more time on their mobile phone, especially smart phone. And, they are likely to use more of their mobile phone for more activities apart from voice communication, therefore businesses should be aware of this trend and develop their business and marketing strategy via mobile phone.
This study researched on 48,000 people across 58 countries, which included 1,000 people from Thailand. In Thailand, smart-phone penetration rate is around 18 per cent and most of the respondents said that the next mobile phone they plan to purchase will be a smart phone as they expect more features on the device to make life easier by allowing them to be able to do more daily activities at their fingertips.
Fiona said there are five-main points that a business should consider when rolling out its mobile marketing strategy. They are: convenience, independence, relevance, transparency, and experience.
"Mobile phones now present substantial business opportunities that transcend industries. If a brand is invited into in an individual’s mobile world, huge benefits are available. Within an individual’s personal mobile world, the brand needs to provide value that they need," said Fiona.
Normally, the use of a mobile phone on the path to a purchase starts with online research while at home, reading independent product reviews, checking what others are saying about the products via social networks, receiving a special deal by interacting with an advert such as taking a photo or winning a competition, and then going to the store.
She said in Thailand, brands were not yet utilising the benefits of smart phone to build an in-store environment such as redeeming a mobile coupon, scanning the QR code to receive more on the product, scanning the barcode to pay for the product or touching the phone against a sensor to pay for the products.
"In Thailand, there is less usage of the mobile phone as a wallet to pay for the product. This is because devices that support these kinds of payments are not available widely yet. Thai people use their mobile phone to search for a deal or do online research while they are in a store and they often use the mobile phone to compare the price," said Fiona.
She said the two main driving factors to raise the number of mobile phones in purchase activities are the availability of 3G network and a near-field communication-enabled handset.
Moreover, Thai people love to use social network, therefore, if brands connect their brand marketing strategy with social network, they will have a lot more opportunities.
