One of the leading players in the entertainment distribution business has stepped into the mobile marketing space, working with mobile business and marketing solutions provider Ventell. The entertainment distributor sees the mobile channel as a strong emerging marketing application that will form a fundamental component of its overarching CRM and marketing strategies.

Top marketing brass tested and proved the mobile channel provides significant and tangible results for the business. Building a customer community that they can communicate, interact and transact with when and wherever customers want was the key objective.   

A phased and measured approach
Taking a phased approach to the adoption of the many facets the mobile channel has to offer, the company’s first step was to integrate texting into on-pack promotions. This was a simple but critical step to test the efficiencies and effectiveness of the technology.

The distributor says its philosophy is to implement best practice solutions, and by working with a seasoned business and mobile marketing solutions company like Ventell it knew it was getting a robust and future-proofed solution.

Ventell’s core competencies lie across the mobile internet in its entirety, so it offers a broad and deep strategic partnership in the space.

The entertainment distributor’s initial mobile promotional case study invited consumers to register online or by text to win a $10,000 cash prize. It was simple and effective campaign which used the introduction of a high profile DVD as the vehicle to communicate the promotion. 

This type of promotion using web-only registration has been successful in the past, but by simply integrating text as a channel for competition entry and registration the response rate was increased by a staggering 500%. Text response out stripped web based entry by 2:1. Furthermore opt-in agreement rate was 92% via mobile text versus 73% opt-in agreement via internet website. The distributor was understandably pleased by such an impressive increase.

The results of the promotional campaign were immediate with 1,624 entry texts received in the first day.

The immediacy of the mobile channel enabled the company’s marketing director to see straight away that the campaign was working. Previously with web-based registration he had experienced lags in response, which was a product of customer inertia. Using the mobile channel has eliminated those barriers and enables ease of interaction - that is the real power of the medium.

The future vision
For the distributor these response results are significant not only on a tactical level but as a core contributor to its long term objectives. According to the marketing director the entertainment industry is a ‘high involvement purchase’ business, not because of dollar cost, but entertainment value. Collecting information on customers is therefore paramount to enabling the distributor to model and match their preferences to existing or new products. The company aims to build a customer community it “understands” and provide channels so that customers can communicate, interact and transact with the organisation easily. The collection of data is the first phase, and the mobile channel enables the distributor to expedite this process.

The marketing director says that in the medium term some key mobile internet initiatives will involve new DVD previews, discount coupons, and preview tickets – all housed on its mobile internet and available for customer access. It’s hardly surprising that the distributor sees the mobile internet opening up a range of new opportunities and as such is a key future channel for the business.

The partner solution
Ventell managing director Debra Northmore says her company is seeing more and more big brand companies moving into the mobile space. “The advent of 3G and the many applications it offers are enticing organisations to embrace this cost effective and innovative channel. The speed of 3G makes the use of mobile very palatable.”

“Texting as a mobile option is becoming more mainstream, but it’s the applications the mobile internet enables that is the really sexy stuff,” she says. “Everything that can be done on a traditional website or intranet can be done on a mobile internet site enabling staff, customers and stakeholders to have a 24/7 interaction with your organisation, products and services. The mobile internet is a logical extension of an organisation’s online strategy.”

Northmore says there are some fundamental rules with the mobile internet that organisations must heed. “There are limitations with mobile hardware and data transfer that make a traditional website with its graphic rich content unsuitable for use on the mobile phone. Also a traditional website is made for viewing on a computer screen which is multiple times larger than a mobile screen - a mobile internet site has to take into consideration the hardware and data limitations. As with any media channel, content, applications and functionality must be created specifically to work in that media environment. The mobile media is exactly the same.”

Northmore’s vision for the mobile internet is clear. “There are more mobile phones in the world today than there are TVs and radios combined,” she says. “This makes it not only a personal and immediate channel, but also the largest channel to market in modern history. Mobile marketing is true convergence as it combines the wide reach of TV with the precision of direct marketing, and the tracking potential of the internet – it shouldn’t be ignored”.

For more information
Ventell
Debra Northmore, Managing Director
Phone: 09 368 7333
Mobile: 021 332 007
Email: debra@ventell.com

November 2006