Projected trends for mobile marketing in the European, Middle East and Africa region –EMEA

In a study spearheaded by the Mobile Marketing Association, it was established that most of the marketers intend to increase its marketing budget significantly within 12 months. 91% of the marketers surveyed stated that they would be increasing their marketing budgets in the next 12months. This was a study that involved 378 marketers across the EMEA region. However, the budgetary allocations for mobile marketing were noted to be low. For instance, only 10% of the marketing budgets were dedicated to mobile marketing in 62% of the organisations surveyed. This is a finding which affirms prior findings that mobile marketing is unlikely to overtake traditional marketing approaches in spite of the growth in this sector being much higher.

One of the most interesting aspects of mobile marketing was noted to be location based marketing. This is where the location of the mobile phone users is used for geographic targeting purposes. The marketers will often seek to market to consumers located at a certain region at a time. The data can also be used to determine where the most potent customers of the organisation come from. It is one of the fastest growing dimensions of analytics where data is collected and analysed as appropriate. Also popular among marketers is the use of mobile video adverts as opposed to use of texts and digital posters. The mobile videos are widely expected to generate greater interest among the consumers.

The mobile trends in the EMEA regions have also been identified to include multi-screening, use of mobile payments and consumption of mobile video. The latter provides a justification for the preference for mobile videos. But the interesting feature is multi-screening. This is where the users of the mobile phones use more screens. For instance, a consumer would be using their mobile phones or smartphones while at the same time using a computer or watching television. This is a trend that strategic marketers can exploit to increase visibility. If they can get the consumers to see their advertisements on different mediums at the same time, the concentration of such consumers is captured and the message passed more effectively.

The use of mobile payments is a trend that has been very useful to strategic managers around the world. It has made online shopping to become a reality that everyone accommodates and practices. It has demystified the concept of digital cash and has also made it extremely easy for the customers to make their purchases.

The other trend that is associated with mobile marketing is the use of cross-channel campaigns. The campaigns make use of both the social media and the mobile marketing platforms. The most commonly used platform is Facebook which is exploited in 97% of the mobile marketing campaigns. Facebook is followed by YouTube, Instagram, and Twitter at 75%, 70% and 68% respectively.

The trends in mobile marketing can therefore be summarised as follows:

-          It is facing growth annually

-          Characterised by preference for mobile video and location data

-          Multi-screening is an important trend in mobile marketing

-          Cross channel marketing where social media sites are combined with mobile platforms is becoming more common

-          Mobile money is an important element