Mobile News South Africa

Use mobile marketing this festive season

Clickatell has published its 2009 Festive Mobile Marketing Handbook online, to help large and small businesses conceptualise, implement and monitor effective mobile sales, mobile marketing, and customer relationship management campaigns this festive shopping season, using the power of SMS.

Released yesterday, Monday 23 November 2009, the handbook is designed to offer ways to take advantage of mobile marketing for immediate reach, reduce campaign costs, gain high customer satisfaction, increase traffic and get higher profits. Clickatell is one of the global leaders in mobile communications, reaches more than 815 mobile networks across 220 countries and serves more than 10 000 customers including several of the Fortune 500, leading government agencies and some of the largest communities globally.

“The mobile phone adds an incredible marketing tool to the mix - it's highly cost effective for businesses to implement - and customers want to receive information and special deals before, during and after they shop, conveniently to their mobile,” said Pieter de Villiers, Clickatell CEO.

'Phenomenal potential'

“Given the tremendous popularity and ubiquity of SMS, the potential for mobile marketing is phenomenal. Recently, the CTIA reported that 4.1 billion are sent daily. This, combined with research that says text messages are read within 4 minutes (compared to 48 hours for email), clearly, mobile is the way to reach customers. We're just starting to see the power of what can be achieved via mobile; location-based marketing, couponing and contextually relevant communications are just the start of the possibilities to connect with customers via the mobile phone.”

Nielsen reports, “SMS marketing is on the rise as most consumers are permanently attached to their mobile phones. It's no wonder text marketing is on the rise, as marketers make the most of being able to communicate with consumers (with mobile coupons, viral games, reward programs, etc.) while on the go.”

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) confirms in its Annual Mobile Attitude and Usage Study that one-in-four mobile users express strong interest in mobile marketing. With Clickatell's easy to use SMS Gateway, retailers can get started in less than a day and begin sending SMS messages to reach consumers instantly - especially as the holiday season approaches.

To download a copy, click on Festive Mobile Marketing Handbook.

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