Mobile Marketing in India

For, Indian companies are increasingly opting for ‘Net-to mobile’ marketing techniques to promote their brands. With over 50 million people digitally connected in India, Internet analysts expect to see a huge growth in adspends on both the Internet and mobile medium in the next few months. By fusing the two, brand-owners are now targeting a wider audience. For instance, Coca-Cola India has extended its Net promotions to mobile phones to woo cellphone users. Likewise, HBO, L’Oreal India and CNN are extending their Internet promotions to mobile phones to reach out to a diverse target audience.India is one of the fastest growing mobile market in the world and with that brings immense mobile marketing opportunities for branded consumer companies. As Indian operators increase their sophistication and gain a better understanding of the demographics and usage statistics of their subscriber base, a scenario will emerge where the operator will sell this information to marketers. This is no different from a television network or radio station collecting ratings data and viewing habits for its programming, which enables it to sell commercial time for sponsors. The continued success of SMS marketing in India depends on the willingness of the Indian marketing and advertising establishment to adopt wireless as an accepted vehicle for campaigns. SMS Marketing is only the beginning and as operators upgrade their network to 2.5G/3G, MMS will allow marketers to develop even more sophisticated campaigns.
As for the reason behind these integrated marketing efforts, Internet analysts point out that Internet and mobile phones together are delivering ‘humungous reach’. “For instance, in India we have 20 million active Internet users and 35 million mobile users. It’s quite possible that 50 per cent of them are common—it still means that the two new medium can address almost 35 million users,” says Contests2win.com CEO Alok Kejriwal.According to Mr Kejriwal, the most common way of staying in touch these days is ‘send me a mail’ or ‘sms me’—which means that the two are part of everyday life. “The two new medium allow innovation, interaction and feedback. And brand-owners are having a huge party. Basically, both are ‘on-the-go’ medium. You cannot carry your TV or PC anywhere you go. But with GPRS facility, you can browse the Net on your cell phone,” he elaborates.


Clearly, the growing trend is of Mobile Marketing Mobile 'Media' Marketing as both reach the end-user instantly and has the highest conversion rate compared to the others.