Maximising the dwindling marketing budget

Colin White, UK CEO of Oxygen8 Communications, offers marketers some advice on how to use mobile technology to maximise return on investment .

As marketing budgets are reduced and the marketing director comes under increasing board level scrutiny, there is a growing demand for highly measurable tools that enable direct consumer interaction without incurring a massive investment.

In recent years, traditional TV and print advertising has declined in tandem with the decline in real time viewing – indeed some 60% of TV is not watched in real time according to the latest figures from Oxygen8. Organisations have, of course, reallocated much of this budget to online campaigns which provide a greater opportunity to interact with the consumer and measure performance.

However, few marketing teams have begun to truly exploit the inherent interaction offered by the ubiquitous mobile phone. With the right, highly targeted and joined up approach, companies with a community of customers can add SMS and voice communications to a campaign to achieve unprecedented real time consumer interaction.

For example, a customer responding to the receipt of an advert via SMS by texting a short code can receive an immediate call from a sales person in the area who can not only discuss the product intelligently but also arrange a follow up – from texting a brochure to the mobile via MMS to enabling a product demonstration.

Obviously to achieve this degree of synergy, the mobile campaign needs to be tightly integrated with existing CRM solutions. This ensures that cross- and up-selling opportunities are maximised. Furthermore, by tracking the way each consumer responds – by voice, SMS, video call or web – the organisation can further refine ongoing campaigns to deliver greater value.

Critically, in a cost sensitive marketplace, the use of mobile technology in this way is a low cost route to rapid return on investment. With marketing messages rapidly delivered to highly targeted individuals, sales opportunities followed up and real time measurement of the customer response – the mobile is a perfect way of achieving highly personal marketing while reducing costs.