Get Ready for the Mobile Marketing Revolution

Published on Thursday, 15 April 2010 13:24

By Mark Stephens, F10 Group.

This article is sponsored by F10 Mobile

F10 were recently approached by their Marketing partners "Think Smart Marketing" about a new and exciting product and service to the mobile phone arena, called iMe. They advised us that iMe, which stands for "Interact with Me" was set to revolutionalise the mobile marketing arena and we should interview its creator, Mr Asit Sharma for Ask The Experts.

Not only did we meet with Mr Sharma and his creation, we have since decided to help launch iMe, the intelligent mobile marketing service through our joint venture, F10 Mobile.

Therefore, although this article will be difficult to write from an impartial position, we hope it is still worthy of airtime and will capture your interest as an insight into what to expect from your handsets in the future.

MS - Asit, please first tell us a bit about you and your background

AS - I am an entrepreneur and industry professional with a passion for technology, in particular how it influences and has phenomenal impact on knowledge, user productivity, general enjoyment and quality of life.

As for my background, I have an unusual set of experiences and accomplishments spanning more than 20 years in the software and communications industry. I have been involved in some remarkable leading edge disruptive technologies and worked for major market leading companies, such as Novell, BT and AT&T. Given this, I have an inbuilt desire to make things happen and to focus, not only on great products or services now, but also with a view to whether they can make money and exist in the medium to long term.

As software drives the industry, I created a software platform and technology called iMe which stands for ‘interact with Me', in which businesses could create and run their own mobile applications, under a hosted service, enabling them to target engaged customers at low or minimal cost.

MS - So please explain what is iMe and what it does?

AS - iMe is a managed service enabling clients to rapidly build and deploy their own mobile phone and Internet applications.

Clients can build dynamically and rapidly their own mobile applications at low cost and create new mobile advertising revenue streams, both areas have enormous potential and are very exciting. By using iMe they can focus their mobile marketing strategies on their customers, their products, their services, their partners and their business, whilst we focus on the technology, delivery and maintenance of the service.

MS - So what this actually means is that you can provide businesses with the tools to create their own mobile marketing services and strategy from within their own facilities?

AS - Yes that's right. Our clients can create a large number of intelligent marketing campaigns from a portal that they have in their own office, as often and at any time that they like.

MS - When did you come up with the idea?

AS - About three years ago, I was anticipating mobile phone technology would move way beyond voice, scale dramatically in penetration, and be the multimedia communication and personal device for the majority of people.

I came up with the iMe concept, around the time when I could, albeit very expensively and with poor performance, access the Internet from my mobile phone, through a web browser.

Whilst the concept seemed straightforward to me, the industry was fragmented with multiple standards, technologies, regulations and strategies at that time.

But timing is everything and now we and the market are ready.

MS - Why is it ready now?

AS - The significant recent growth of the smart phone market, in particular the phenomenal success of the iPhone, the App Store, the advent of Google's Android operating system, Google's Nexus One phone, advanced data access through mobile networks, and Microsoft's commitment to Windows mobile. All of which accelerated the development of mobile technology standards and capability, allowing us far more operational capability.

MS - How long did it take you to bring it to market?

AS - Taking a great concept, turning it into a product and business takes time, we were patient and lucky in finding the right people and partners. Over the last three years, we tested the market, ran trials, identified precise customer requested functionality, and created a ‘packaged' managed service offering, with a business model and approach that scales. We also had to wait for when the market was ready, namely when leaders such as Apple and Google decided to launch products and technologies that make it happen. In my opinion, this is their battlefield for the next ten years and more.

MS - What do you think is the potential?

AS - Not to be overconfident, it is unlimited. As a hosted service, and one that embraces the Internet and mobile phone, iMe supports many different types of customers, sectors and regions. iMe is a local, national or international white label product, and supports millions of users, so the possibilities are endless. Where do you stop, when you consider how the mobile phone provides multiple mobile extensions to technology, there are recognition systems, positioning systems, personalisation, social and business management tools, the list is endless, all of them can be integrated with the mobile phone, as operating platforms allow.

MS - Is that the wow factor then Asit?

AS - iMe is an incredibly powerful, smart, and flexible integrated mobile marketing solution. It has the capacity to link with back office functions and make the marketing experience fully interactive. It also includes integrated SMS, MMS, Email and Web functionality and has a low cost of entry and white label service model that gives clients complete control and ownership. There are also fantastic opportunities for clients to develop their own mobile advertising revenue streams and demonstrate leadership and differentiation to their customers.

The market has already decided mobile is the next big thing. That is why Google, Apple, Microsoft and all the major mobile network operators and handset manufacturers have invested billions into it!

MS - Why is it going to change the way we currently do things?

AS - iMe helps clients think outside the box when it comes to marketing, they can focus more effectively on new ways to understand, retain and grow their customer base. It will have a dramatic and favourable effect on their bottom line.

MS - What stage is it at right now?

AS - We are building ‘white label' solutions for customers and have a strategy to scale the business with our strategic go to market partner, whom you know, F10 Mobile.

MS - What sort of companies will benefit most from this technology?

AS - All companies can benefit, however, those that would benefit most are those who wish to access thousands of users and want to retain, grow, optimise and commercialise their customer database and are prepared to invest in the technology that can make it happen.

MS - Is anyone else out there already doing this?

AS - Anything can be done if you are prepared to pay for it to be developed. There will be similar products coming to market if not already here, however iMe has some market lead and capabilities.

Additionally, time to market is important, individual businesses that have understood the power of mobile marketing have already started to develop their own services, take a look at Right Move, who are subsequently dominating the Estate Agency business. They have developed their own interactive mobile application service. This has helped them establish a dominant, almost monopolistic position with this offering.

I am confident within the next couple of years we will see some amazing developments as companies start to realise what can be achieved through smart phones to achieve a new level of client interaction as business's work on developing closer relationships with their customers. As a result, mobile marketing has the potentially to dramatically change the fortunes of business's that embrace it, especially for those that get involved at the very start of this marketing revolution.

Watch this space....

MS - Thank you Asit.

You can access the iMe brochure at http://www.f10.co.uk/f10-mobile.cms.asp

Contact Mark Dowling at F10 Mobile to arrange for a free demonstration of this product for your business. 0845 838 1101

Related Links

Smartphone's marketing (doc)

Mobile Advertising (web)

The State of the Industry: Mobile Advertising

A Survey of Over 100 Major Brands & Advertisers on Performance & Future Spend, performed by Millennial Media and DM2PRO.com, a knowledge base for digital media and marketing professionals results in the following findings:

News & announcement

We are especially pleased to announce that Asit Sharma has agreed to become a regular contributor to Ask The Experts and will be posting regular articles on the months hottest mobile industry news and highlighting the most interesting articles for you. He will also be reviewing new technologies and the latest mobile applications.

Owen

IMe is an interesting solution and one we can see gaining real ground in the comming years. There's no doubt that as eMarketing (eMail) comes of age and as a marketing solution it joins the ranks of (almost) traditional marketing tools, mobile marketing bridges the gap between "push" approaches of eMarketing and "pull" or community of social media sites such as FaceBook and LinkedIN. As mobile devices - phones - get smarter and more capable, more people are living through them in the same way could have been said of PCs and Laptops a few years ago. And don't fall into the trap of thinking at all this new stuff is "just for kids". The majority of Iphone Aps and Iphone users are in the 35+ category for example. Traditional brands - such as hotel chains - have now seen that as more people live and work through handheld devices mobile marketing of any flavour is going to get "eyeballs" and traction over and above more tradtional media (including eMail). Smart Thinking Brands are already looking to engage solutions such as IMe into their programmes and campaign initiatives. At Think Smart we are engineering our client campaigns to include the ability to be read on handheld devices, based on the fact that most people with decison making authority and budget spend most of their time away from their desk and therefore PC. This is very much the begining of a new wave of communication.

Mark S

Thirteen percent of consumers are either somewhat or very likely to purchase Apple's forthcoming iPad tablet device, compared to only 9 percent who expressed comparable interest in a 2007 survey gauging interest in the computing giant's original iPhone, according to a new study published by RBC/ChangeWave Research. Nineteen percent of prospective iPad buyers say they are most interested in the 16GB, WiFi-only version, priced at $499--interestingly, another 19 percent indicate their preference is the 64GB iPad with both WiFi and 3G access, priced at $829. Twelve percent of respondents favor the 32GB, WiFi-only iPad ($599), 10 percent want the 32GB WiFi/3G version ($729), 9 percent are purchasing the 16GB WiFi/3G unit ($629) and 8 percent are targeting the 64GB, WiFi-only model. A third of respondents tell ChangeWave they still don't know which version they'll purchase. Among planned uses for the iPad, 68 percent of respondents say they are most interested in surfing the Internet--44 percent are looking to check email, 37 percent plan to read ebooks, 28 percent will read magazines and newspapers, and 24 percent will watch video content. "While we do not expect feverish initial launch lines like iPhone, the data portends well for healthy initial iPad uptake," writes RBC analyst Mike Abramsky in a research note accompanying the survey. "This data, while preliminary, suggests iPad may have greater potential than expected to expand Apple's addressable PC, iPod markets and to capture a segment of the home PC market (est. 35M+ units/yr)." Abramsky forecasts Apple will sell 5 million iPad units this year, translating to revenues of $2.4 billion. For more on the RBC/ChangeWave survey: - read this AllThingsD article

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