Mobile marketers need self-service platform

Mobile marketing is gaining increasing interest from organisations (MW January 5), but dependence upon expensive third-party services is significantly constraining both innovation and the development of the mobile marketing platform.

Yet, with the opportunity for highly sophisticated, highly targeted campaigns that leverage new technologies such as mobile video calling on the horizon, organisations cannot afford to be left behind in this arena

To make the mobile a successful component of the marketing mix – from competitions to promotions – companies need to take control of the entire content creation and delivery process. By using a self-service provisioning platform that can be used by anyone, organisations can rapidly introduce, test and modify a wide range of services at a fraction of the cost of third party-led campaigns.

The medium also provides a great deal of information about the consumer, information that can then inform future campaigns and enable sophisticated segmentation to refine the marketing message.

Mobile marketing is still regarded as a black art – and one with a significant price tag attached. But take away the technical delivery issues and mobile marketing is a fairly simple form of communication. Self-service provisioning is the logical extension of that de-mystification process, and will ensure that knowledge and expertise of how best to execute mobile marketing campaigns is developed rapidly across a variety of industries.

Gary Corbett

Chief executive

Opera Telecom

www.operatelecom.com