Cell Phone Marketing Barriers - By: ArticleSubmit Auto

You've been hearing how hot mobile marketing is and you're about to jump in with both feet, hold on-not so fast.

Although marketing to mobile phones IS the hottest marketing concept to come down the pike since the invention of the home computer; it still takes due diligence to understand the differences between web and mobile marketing to ensure success.

Recently one of my clients called me for coaching on mobile marketing-we'll call him Mike for the sake of anonymity. Mike spent over $400 to run mobile ads on ad servers and got skunked. I can't remember the last time I got skunked. Actually once I understood the need for research and testing-and retesting I was able to navigate any environment I was about to advertise in.

Unfortunately Mike didn't check out the mobile environment he began. He believed the 'pie in the sky' emails he received daily that promised a boat-load of cash if he just dipped his marketing fish-pole in the mobile water... just what he did He began promoting Click Bank products. Not a bad choice on the surface but what Mike didn't know was that there are buying barriers between mobile phones and the many mobile unfriendly Click Bank products.

He also didn't realize that mobile phone users are trained to purchase small items that are charged to their phone bills. He also didn't consider the physical barriers. Typing on many mobile phones is a daunting task-a huge physical barrier that leads to shopping cart abandonment. Normal size fingers typing in credit card numbers and other required information on the small window mobile phone usually results in a lost sale. It's easy to understand why buying abandonment statistics are 80% for such products. (Android X by Motorola now has a huge 3x4 screen which makes typing easier).

I tell my students to think "right thumb" when choosing a product to promote or in creating your own mobile product. Statistics show that 80% of all mobile users use their right thumb to navigate, so it stands to reason that important buttons and links be placed on the right side of a mobile site.

If Mike would have done his due diligence he would have learned that Europe, especially Germany and the UK, are excellent geo-targets for mobile phone products. Europeans are far ahead of the United States. They have been using mobile phones for many years due to the lack of land line availability. As a matter of fact mobile phones in Germany are nicknamed "throw aways."

Mike should have done his homework. He should have researched the product to remove all of these and other barriers. If he would have, he would have recognized the difference between web and mobile-ready products. If he did he would have tailored his campaign differently.

After our lengthy conversation Mike realized what he needed to do.

Here are the fivesteps he took for his very successful second try at mobile marketing.

1. Put together a goal
This simply means to define your target audience. Mobile marketing requires it and it's easy to do. Check out the mobile blogs and forums in addition to Googling "mobile marketing."

2. Define your target
Target demographics, age, platform, brand and country and finally define your run time, including dates and times. Success only comes when you know what path you want to take since mobile offers many options.

3. Find the appropriate product.
If it's mobile publishing identify the type of product that is proven to be effective on mobile. Once this has been determined it's easy to plug in the right ad server, phone platform and demographics.

4. Choose the ad serving platform
Ad serving platforms are a dime a dozen. Not all are all good and not all are all bad, they vary in offerings and of course if you've chosen one that won't fit your needs your results will suffer. Choosing an ad server is easy once you recognize the portals where your ad will be served up. Learn this before you run any campaign.

5. Run the ad and track the results
Running and setting up the ad is easy, the hard part is in the tracking. Mike didn't believe in tracking and that's bad. If you don't know the history of your run how would you know what to tweak the second time around?

Summary
Compared to normal Internet Marketing, Mobile Phone Marketing can be outlandishly profitable when properly resourced and implemented.

About the Author

http://MobileCashSecrets.net of of the most informative mobile marketing sites. Check out the mobile blog-with tons of mobile information in one place and it's updated regularly.

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