Study Finds Mobile Marketing Outperforms Traditional

BEDFORD, Mass. -- Mobile marketing delivers a higher return-on-investment (ROI) than traditional marketing programs, according to new research findings from Luth Research, a research partner of the Mobile Marketing Association.

"With mobile marketing budgets and consumer adoption increasing, it's time for companies to align the mobile channel to every phase of the customer lifecycle," said Roseanne Luth, president of Luth Research. "The touchpoints provided by mobile marketing are critical in customer acquisition, retention, engagement and care. Building a companywide mobile strategy is vital..."

Luth Research surveyed key marketing executives at companies ranging from $100 million to $1 billion or greater in annual revenue across the retail, consumer package goods, travel and hospitality, media and financial services industries.

When asked about mobile marketing ROI compared to traditional initiatives, 52 percent of mobile marketers said mobile returns were higher, while only 15 percent stated their returns as lower. For those reporting results, the average ROI was 32 percent. As a result, nearly three-quarters of marketers are increasing mobile marketing budgets and/or shifting budget to mobile from other marketing programs by an average of more than 20 percent.

Respondents identified three major benefits of mobile marketing solutions:

• Quantifiable: mobile marketing provides measurable increases in revenue and purchase frequency.
• Personalized: enables more targeted, relevant programs -- driving higher response rates.
• Immediacy/real time: the ubiquity of mobile leads to more timely offers and better results.

According to the research, adoption of mobile marketing by major brands will be approaching 100 percent by 2013. This adoption is the result of initial mobile communication programs and trials, and will be paving the way for deeper usage and more robust, complex programs. With the majority of mobile consumers now owning smartphones, mobile has become the ultimate convergent device with SMS, voice, e-mail and web all easily accessible and frequently used.

"Consumers' rapid smartphone adoption is an absolute game-changer," said Mark Friedman, executive vice president of the Mobile Services Business Unit of Bedford, Mass-based SoundBite Communications Inc., which commissioned the study. "This survey proves that those that invest in growing and managing mobile marketing databases in an intelligent and compliant manner have a tremendous opportunity to reap the rewards with high ROI marketing programs."

Despite this success, marketers continue to express concerns about technology constraints, access to mobile marketing expertise and consumer consent issues, including:

• Building internal expertise on using mobile as a marketing channel;
• Building and managing large opt-in databases and properly communicating with consumers; • Identifying technology solutions; and
• Combating mobile perception and consumer receptivity challenges.

SoundBite Communications is a provider of cloud-based customer communications.