Self-Promo Alert! Here is an article I wrote for Mobile Marketing in which I talk about the challenges companies face in launching mobile campaigns in this tough economic climate. Justifying the investment is just the first hurdle. If you can successfully get past that, you have to consider other issues which I talk about in the article. So, click on the link to read it and then come back and let me know what your take is.
Mobile issues to tackle in tough economic clime
September - 24 - 2008 - Wednesday Comments Off
Obama teachs marketers how to execute a mobile campaign
August - 26 - 2008 - Tuesday Comments Off
The Obama team had made a big deal of notifying the supporters of his VP candidate via text message. Though the traditional media were able to break the story earlier than the text message, this truly was a mobile campaign done right and the numbers prove it. According to Neilsen Mobile, approximately 2.9 million subscribers received the text message from Obama campaign announcing his VP choice. It clearly shows, according to Mr. Nic Covey, Chicago-based director of insights at Nielsen Mobile that “mobile marketing is here and now.” Also, with the additional information that the campaign asked the subscribers, they now have a database of supporters for other election activities like fund raising, organizing Election Day get-out-the-vote drives, etc. While these numbers were not confirmed by the Obama campaign, it still is a mobile marketers’ dream reach and marketers everywhere are salivating at reaching the approximately 115 million active text message users in US. So how did they do it?
First they effectively tied the web site and mobile short code OBAMA (62262) to allow supporters to sign up in multiple ways. Then they generated a tremendous amount of viral buzz by proclaiming that Obama would annouce his choice first to the supporters who subscribed and asking them to forward the message. They also kept the media guessing by controlling their message and minimizing the leaks. Clearly the campaign had a game plan on how to execute this announcement which they manage to implement in few months without much of a fuss. And finally, they waited until 3 am EDT to make the announcement. Much has been written about the timing of the announcement, but it was orchestrated to ensure that they would be able to deliver on their promise to the supporters.
This campaign was already headed for case study in political studies, however, with the fantastic execution of the mobile campaign, I believe it will be a must read case study for all would-be marketers soon.
