Did you know?
That more people globally have mobile phones than bank accounts (IDC Forecasts 2011)
Astonishing isn’t it. Or perhaps not.
“A mobile phone is not just a phone. It’s a powerful computer which just happens to make phone calls,” said Mark Blayney Stuart from The Chartered Institute of Marketing, who was at a recent Mobile Marketing event we attended. And when you think about it, there’s a lot of truth to it.
Your mobile phone probably also acts as your address book, your music collection, your alarm clock and your photo album. These changes have crept up on us without too much of an impact, and it’s predicted that by 2020 your phone will not only be a device, it’ll be a major part of our lives and one of the main ways we use the internet. Morgan Stanley research also states that 91% of people are never more than 1 metre away from a mobile phone. It seems we just can’t live without them.
Research indicates that smart phone take up has leapt from 9% to 24% in the space of a year, and in 10 years time, there will be no perceived difference between mobile and the web. The usability and availability of apps and location based marketing has increasingly given businesses new opportunities and different ways to get their messages across. But care needs to be taken to provide information and recommendations to customers, rather than intrusive selling which will turn then away.
Mobile marketing has so much potential; it’s an exciting development for the future.