What will drive mobile marketing in Asia?

The mobile marketing industry has seen several milestones in the past year. Industry hopes for 2010 include tech-savvy consumers welcoming rich content on mobile, engaging campaigns from a more matured and experienced group of mobile marketers, and eager brands ready to jump on to the mobile marketing bandwagon.

Mobile Marketing in Asia - A Round up:

With roughly one third of the over 4 billion mobile subscribers in the world already coming from Asia, mobile telecommunications is definitely an area that has come of age. It is anticipated that a majority of the next billion users will also come from the region.

The APAC region accounts for nearly 30% of the overall market for smart phones. Attracted by innovative smart devices and killer applications, there will be an increase of mobile subscribers in Asia joining the data use bandwagon.

The four key emerging mobile applications that are driving growth in Asia include mobile payment, mobile healthcare, mobile music and mobile gaming.

The convergence of content such as music, applications, games and growth of the mobile internet is attracting brands to mobile as a viable marketing platform. In the next five years, it will be unusual for a brand not to have a mobile presence, integrated into their existing digital and traditional media initiatives; mobile will become a dominant force in both the technology and media landscape.

Mobile delivers on the promise of one-to-one marketing with a personal, targeted conversation and a higher level of interaction. Relevant, tailored, and timely messages to a consumer’ mobile phone can translate to high conversion rates for vendors and operators. And mobile offers increasingly attractive returns on investment, especially as advertising budgets get cut and marketers look for smarter ways of connecting with their consumers.

However, higher mobile data use will raise concerns over online/mobile privacy, particularly as users share important personal information over social media. Privacy will become more important, and will be an important driver for the formation of new policy.

Common Beliefs and Facts

A scattered approach to mobile campaigns over the years has led to a few misconceptions about the channel. However, here are the actual facts:

• Belief: Mobile is best suited for the teen market.
  Fact: Though mobile is better suited for those 35 years of age and under, it certainly spans age groups. New campaigns and initiatives are focused on the older demographics and include automotive campaigns, loyalty programs, fund raising, and sports and entertainment marketing. The mobile demographic is beginning to skew more broadly. Determine your segment, and develop the campaign accordingly.
• Belief: Mobile is an extremely difficult channel to use and is hard to understand and navigate.
  Fact: Due to the commonality of standards and the adoption of industry best practices, mobile is a very easy channel to use, once you find the right partner to help guide you through the process.
• Belief: More reach means more effectiveness
  Fact: Blasting messages to millions of customers may not ensure marketing success. When it comes to mobile, relevance is more important than reach. More targeted the messages, more effective the campaigns

• Augmented reality will play a larger role in location-based advertising. Now, when you’re walking into your favorite coffee shop, the real-time mobile coupon you receive gives you instant gratification with your discounted daily grind.
• The coming years will see heightened mobile video consumption. The introduction of new ad units, including interactive and partial screen, will subsidize free content.
• Governments and safety advocates around the world warned against texting and driving in 2009. 2010 is expected to bring about technology solutions that will disable handset features when the owner is driving.
• Proliferation of standardized technology and higher quality camera phones will not only lead to increased adoption of mobile barcodes and coupons, but also offer a whole new access point to content.
• Look for aggregators to expand their businesses beyond shortcodes. Aggregation services in the areas of location, customer service and mobile commerce will begin to emerge.

So get ready to explore a mobile wonderland. It will be home to the most innovative technologies, some of the brightest new age tech and marketing gurus and millions of engaged consumers ready to embrace the next mobile adventure.