Optism™

For an in-depth look at mobile marketing opportunities in Africa, check out MobileGroove this week and Peggy Anne Salz’ conversation with Jonathan McKay, Creative Director at Praekelt. According to McKay, mobile is an ideal channel for approaching Africa, and people are ready and willing to opt in to engage with brands that offer them “accessible, affordable and relevant content.”

Feature phones greatly outnumber smart phones in Africa so creative SMS campaigns are usually the best approach, according to McKay. Also, given the diversity of African audiences, marketers need to develop campaigns that can be readily adapted to local requirements, including multiple languages. Most importantly, McKay believes brands should think long term, “With every single campaign, we are looking to attract consumers, to involve them and then to sustain an ongoing relationship with them.”

Check out the complete article at MobileGroove. There’s a lot of great information in here.

Optism provides permission-based, mobile marketing services. Providing the opportunity for mobile subscribers to opt-in to advertising messages based on their preferences is the core tenant of our service. Our blog series Permission Marketing in the News has been highlighting mobile and other permission marketing news for the past year. The leading proponent of permission marketing is Seth Godin who coined the term in his book Permission Marketing in 1999. To celebrate our one year anniversary, we are running a series of blog posts summarizing his book chapter by chapter and analyzing how changes in the mobile and advertising marketplace have impacted the recommendations in his book.

Here are our summaries of Chapter One and Chapter Two.

In Chapter Three of Permission Marketing by Seth Godin, it’s time for a little history.

For anyone born after around 1940, it’s hard to imagine a world without omnipresent advertising. After all, industry experts estimate that we are bombarded with between 3000 and 5000 marketing messages a day (Seth estimated 3000 in Permission Marketing; more recent estimates have that number much higher). But as we learn in Chapter 3, it wasn’t always so. Read the rest of this entry »

With the Mobile Marketing Association’s New York Forum just wrapped up, it seemed a good time to shine the spotlight on mobile marketing in the United States.

For an interesting take on the MMA’s New York Forum, check out Mobile Commerce Daily’s article by Jeff Hasen, “An industry exec’s perspective on last week’s MMA Forum.” Jeff notes that the need to provide “101-level” information for those who are new to mobile marketing can be frustrating for those hungry for meatier content, like “case studies that include learnings and repeatable actions.” But as Jeff points out, the reality is that marketers’ experiences with the mobile channel vary widely. While “mobile ads are expected to generate around $3.3 billion worldwide this year…only a third of marketers have a mobile strategy.” Some marketers are achieving excellent results from their mobile strategies, some are finding mobile isn’t meeting their expectations. Still others are failing to take advantage of the measurability of mobile campaigns. Jeff’s advice for now? “Mobile veterans will need to pack patience along with their charging cords” for a little while yet. Read the rest of this entry »