Mobile Marketing ready for Latin Alternative

There’s new research available about mobile marketing. A survey by the Direct Marketing Association finds that text messaging gets the most response. Of those who do respond (about one in four), more than 70 percent have data plans.

Consumers don’t seem to like to be charged when a marketing message shows up in their mobile inbox. Duh. The study- “Mobile Marketing: Consumer Perspectives” - was conducted online among 800 mobile phone owners in March and April. An article about the study appears at Mobile Marketer: “Costs will determine mobile marketing adoption.”

Assuming the carriers and mobile marketers can figure out how to eliminate those charges, it’s believed that mobile marketing will become more accepted and thus more effective.

Already, entertainment offers dominate present mobile marketing activity. Nearly half are related to entertaiment, music, and video.

“I would say that any marketers in entertainment, music, and video should seriously consider mobile marketing, if they haven’t already,” Ed Manzitti, vice president of research and market intelligence at DMA was quoted by Mobile Marketer as saying. “Marketers targeting teens and young adults should also consider integrating mobile into their marketing solutions.”

It would seem, according to the latest research, that mobile marketing would be a good fit for indie artists, and given that Latin hipsters are especially avid in the mobile space, Latin Alternative artists and bands might well be prime candidates for mobile marketing strategies.

So let’s say, for sake of argument, it doesn’t cost music fans to recieve a text message, for instance. (I’ll be wanting free MMS marketing deliveries as well, but let’s not get too far ahead. Walk now, run later.) It’s the cost of creating a short code that I’m wondering about now. Is it affordable for the band?

When marketing across wireless service providers using a common short code, content providers are usually large and well-known media organizations, according to the Common Short Code Administration (CSCA). Registering and leasing a designated short code costs $1,000 per month, half that for a random code. The minimum registration is 3 months. So the cheapest way in sets you back $1,500. Would that be an affordable chunk of a marketing mix for a band or and indie label that’s releasing an album, for example?

I’m not sure. I’d have to talk the numbers with the label people or the artists themselves.
What I’m considering is the creation of audio and/or video promotional media that would be sent to music fans in response to the short code. And what the heck, why not give away one track. You know the fan is interested, they’re dialing in the short code. They’re getting something free. I’m thinking the odds are pretty good that they’ll buy the whole enchilada.

Or, if you’re the marketer, and you’ve got 3 months, why not a serial of messages. Create a series of audio/video media that’s a continuing story: the band or artist telling the story of the album and its production process, what inspired the song writing, etc.

So if the fan doesn’t bite the first time around, invite them to keep punching that code in every week to get a little more of the story about that new collection of music until they’re sold on it.

You might be thinking to yourself about now, “Hey, you’re too far outside the box, Don Jose. Ay, pendejo.”
Well, I suppose I could go right back at you with, “Well, perhaps, but maybe you’re so far up your poop slide that you don’t recognize a good idea when you hear it, puto.”

But there’s no need to be vulgar or nasty here, is there? Seguro que no. We’re just rapping and looking for new ways to get the train to the station.

Time for me to disembark. Let me know what YOU think.

-Don Jose

This entry was posted on 18. July 2008 at 02:24 and is filed under Mobile. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.