Mobile Marketing



People use many technological devices in their lives. Among the technological devices, the most used ones are mobile phones. Thanks to the increasing use of mobile phones, digital marketing has focused on mobile space.

Definition and Scope of Mobile Marketing

Marketing, which is a versatile science, has developed in parallel with the changes in the technical capacity and social life of humanity. Transitioning from product-oriented to consumer and social-oriented understanding is one of these changes. In the face of the increasing demand and insufficient supply with the industrial revolution, the first thing I produce is the approach to sell, and then each supply has turned to the approach where it creates its own demand. With the change of marketing logic, marketing tools have also changed over time.For example; For example, in the 1990s, while advertising and media tools were very effective in marketing communication, today this activity has weakened relatively (Koç, 2015: 69-72).

New communication technologies that have developed in the process of transferring messages, receiving a positive response to the message, using the message as a promotional tool have created many opportunities. One of these new generation solutions has been mobile marketing. With the developments in communication and information technologies, mobile marketing can be used as an effective tool in areas such as access to the target audience, giving information, inviting, and directing to consumption. In a different source, the subject is handled as follows:

“Mobile marketing is the use of traditional broadcasting for marketing purposes in a personalized manner using individual communication technologies. Therefore, the target of mobile marketing is the individual, not the mass.” (Taşçı, 2010: 12) 

There are different definitions related to mobile marketing. These definitions vary according to the job detail and business process. Some of the globally accepted mobile marketing definitions are as follows:

1.      Mobile marketing is the use of mobile media in the marketing communication process. (Leppaniemi VD, 2006: 36).

2.      Mobile marketing is the interactive use of mobile media to create loyalty and awareness of the brand and product to improve consumer attitude and behavior (Schneider ve Ceritoğlu, 2011: 312).

3.      What brings mobile marketing to an important place in the marketing process is that mobile marketing has been proven to promise great potential with the advantages that other communication devices do not offer. (Tek, 2006:274)

4.      Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), which is a global non-governmental organization (MMA), has made a definition to minimize the diversity and differences of definition in order to use and develop mobile technologies in the advertising and promotion process. According to the definition of the association; mobile marketing is the general name of the efforts of organizations and organizations to communicate with their target audiences through mobile technologies for the purpose of marketing and promotion, sales and loyalty. (www.mmaglobal.com).

Undoubtedly, the most important factor that makes mobile marketing important is the use of the internet on mobile devices. As a matter of fact, as of the end of 2016, the number of active internet users has increased by more than 10% compared to the previous year and at the same time, internet penetration also increases(eticaretmag.com, 2016).Of course, with this increase, the areas of mobile marketing interaction also varied. The environment and interaction areas of mobile marketing are discussed in detail under the next heading.

The Environment and Interaction Areas in Mobile Marketing:

Mobile tools; provide services, the sale of goods and services to go with your advertising campaign and to keep you informed of the innovations, create brand awareness, raise brand value, in order to be an active part in the race between firms to find new customers, maintain the loyalty of customers already incorporates applications that can perform as many as. The circles of mobile marketing are as follows.

Product and Service Environment

Mobile marketing has removed the stability restrictions of devices such as personal computers and TVs with the mobile technologies in use. It is possible to sell all kinds of goods and services through mobile roads.

When it became possible to place an order on the mobile platform and pay the costs of the invoices, it changed not only the consumer-consumer relations, but also the business-to-business (B2B-Business to Business) marketing relations. (Barutçu, 2008:264-265).

Application Environment

Many applications exist in the mobile marketing industry today, and the first visual-oriented mobile marketing is MMS. This application has more moving, high visual effect, impressive and audio video features instead of classic SMS. One of the biggest benefits of applying MMS service in mobile markets is the ease of use and high image power.

In addıtıon these ınformatıon: Mobile marketing has created unique services in addition to the sales, marketing and promotion opportunities of classic goods and services. Banking services can be provided through mobile ways. On the one hand, customers have access to deposit information, while they have opportunities such as time deposit account transactions, investment transactions, money transfer, credit card information and their payment, access to billing information and their payment.

We may encounter different applications such as making reservations, buying or canceling tickets on mobile phones. Mobile advertising works have a lot of usage. Mobile ads, which are implemented in order to remember, inform, persuade, encourage and contribute to brand awareness and identity as a result, provide the opportunity to reach huge masses quickly.

Communication Environment

Communication is also a very important factor in marketing. “One of the main features of mobile marketing is its ability to interact with the consumer more and more effectively than other devices. This interaction stems from the fact that mobile devices can always be open and accessible. (Klein, 2014: 282). ”

Of course, the fact that the communication network is strong does not require constant messages send to customers. Özgü Gülden, a student of Izmir Katip Çelebi University, shares the following information with us:

“Delivering continuous, unqualified, timeless and remarkable messages will not provide any benefit to the company, and will also lead to the dismissal of messages to be sent in the future and to weaken the links between the customer and the company.” (Gülden, 2018, s. 14)

It is obvious that the messages sent unnecessarily disturbed the customers and affected the companies negatively. Mobile marketing is very important, as well as the impact of the environment, as well as the attitude of the actors. In the next section, information about some actors of mobile marketing will be given.

Actors in Mobile Marketing

The main elements in mobile life are; mobile consultants, content collectors, mobile phone subscribers, platform servers, access servers, content and application developers and publishers, business organizations, marketing and media agencies, and network operators. The most important ones among these are Mobile Phone Subscribers, Network Operators, and Mobile Consultants.

 

1.      Cell Phone Subscribers:

Mobile phone subscribers are among the biggest actors in digital marketing as mobile phone usage is very popular nowadays. Özgü Gülden supports our thesis that he shares the following information with us:

“They are the largest community mobile phone subscribers who benefit from or have the potential to benefit from the created mobile services. The number of mobile phone subscribers in Turkey is increasing every day.” (Gülden, 2018, s. 15)

2.      Network Operators:

Network operator providers can be defined as those who overcome many problems faced on the Internet, design and sell various services.(www.turkishtimedergi.com, 2012).

3.      Mobile Consultans:

They generally have a relationship with access and platform servers. Mobile consultants provide consulting services to companies on how to best define and implement mobile strategies. While a content developer tries to sell content in the form of a content collector, many platforms and access servers can also work as content collectors.

Mobile Market Overview in Turkey:

Turkey is a country with a large population of young people.Therefore, the use of mobile phones in Turkey is quite high. Thanks to the dynamic population, the number of 3G and 4.5G subscribers is extremely high. The data we receive from the Information Technologies Authority are as follows:

Source: BTK 2016: 39

“As the the end of June 2016, the rate of mobile communication usage in our country was 93.5%, and the number of 3G subscribers together with corporate subscribers was 28.599.109 and 4.5G subscribers was 38.597.384. Approximately 3.7 million of this consists of corporate or intermachine (M2M) subscriptions. The distribution by population is shown in Figure 1 below. (BTK, 2016: 39).”

In another graph of BTK, it handles the situation as follows:

“The most important driving force in the expansion and deepening of the mobile marketing sector in Turkey has been the transition to 4,5g'y. The number of 4.5G compatible subscribers that increase the quality and speed of smartphones and mobile communication is 20,072,104 as of the end of June 2016. The distribution of mobile device usage by age (except 0-9 age range and M2M) is shown in Figure 2 below.”

Source: BTK, 2016: 39.

“Looking at Figure 2, the mobile penetration rate was 106%, excluding the 0-9 age range and M2M. With the transition to 4.5G in the middle of 2016, the number of subscribers in this group has reached 38,597,384. On the other hand, the number of broadband subscribers that opened the field of mobile internet marketing, which is one of the most important tools of mobile marketing, reached 29.300.175, in the second half of 2016, 255.376 TByte (terabyte) and total mobile internet usage reached 255.376 TBy for the same period. This figure was realized at 4.54 on 224.945 TBytes. (BTK, 2016: 39).”

These data we can make the following comments regarding the mobile marketing in the light:

"Turkey is argued that in mobile marketing grows three times per year. On the other hand, 89.3% of the total subscribers are individual users and this shows how big the mobile market is. (Www.itnetwork.com.t is, 2015). "

Through games, the market can provide access to the consumer audience from all walks of life and spread through advertising in the game content. “The fact that the worldwide mobile game market was 13 billion dollars in 2014, the fact that this figure could reach about 70 billion dollars in 2017 supports this claim (Yeniova, 2016).”

It is stated that this intensity in the mobile game market will be seen in other parts of the sector over time:

“Although 60% of the market is game-based, online shopping is expected to turn to the mobile market in the future. The rate of mobile shopping in our country has increased by 60% in recent years. According to MMA (Mobile Marketing Association / Mobile Marketing Association), which guides the global development of mobile marketing, it is estimated that mobile investments reached 300 million TL and mobile premium display investments reached 120 million TL in 2016(www.xtrlarge.com,2016).”

Özgü Gülden in the master's thesis includes the following information:

"IAB Turkey's adex-TR Research report released in April 2016 by the scope of digital advertising investment rose 21.3 percent in the first half of the year approaches in Turkey has reached 927 million. Impression or Click Based Advertising Investments took the biggest share in the display ads category with 427.7 million TL. (Gülden, 2018, s.22). ”

To summarize, mobile marketing takes up a big place in the world.Within the scope of digital marketing, it is estimated that mobile marketing will be the largest share in the transition from traditional marketing to digital marketing.If we look at BTK data in Turkey in the future, and mobile marketing will be actively used countries. Since mobile marketing has a large share, it also has different marketing methods. In the next part of our study, we will share information about mobile marketing methods.

 

Mobile Marketing Methods:

Among the mobile marketing devices; There are opportunities such as SMS, game marketing, location-based marketing, Wi-Fi marketing and mobile internet marketing.

1.      Mobile Marketing by Game:

Mobile games; As the social networks became popular after the Nokia Snake game started with mobile phones, daily games such as 'Farmville' caused new markets to form. In addition, mobile marketing with games is a structure that both entertains and has instructive functions and can be presented with a tool that people always carry with them. While influencing people's desire to spend time, there is a trend towards many different game and marketing options by creating place-based games and similar constructions thanks to tools such as Bluetooth.

2.      Mobile Marketing over Mobile Internet:

One of the most popular services from mobile internet services is 4.5G technology. With this technology, voice-speaking is beyond the scope of wide-range wireless phone calls, video calls and wireless data sharing for mobile users, which facilitates many marketing opportunities.

3.      Mobile Marketing by WiFi:

One of the mobile advertising branches is the advertisements made with Bluetooth and Wi-fi. Companies broadcasting advertisements in certain areas send messages to their mobile phones in the coverage area and instantly receive campaign information. (Barutçu, 2008:48).

4.      Location Based Mobile Marketing:

Location based mobile marketing; to determine the exact location of the consumers, to find the mobile device and to determine the local location of the user. Marketers can clearly identify the location and send content in the right need, at the right moment, so it is possible to influence people's purchasing decisions. In this system, it is also easier for the consumer to notify the company where the service is received. Thus, the closest and easiest service provider can be reached. (Bauer vd. 2005:65).

5.      Marketing by Mobile Code:

The code system has been implemented for many years in order to keep the jobs such as production, marketing and distribution healthy. A QR Code developed by a Japanese company called Denso-Wave, is a two-dimensional barcode technology. The label placed on the poster of a cinema movie, Mobile Code scanner on the mobile phone, the movie's lounge / session information, interviews with the actors or behind the scenes can be accessed.

 

Email Usage Rates:

As the table shows: it is possible to reach people using Email technology.Most people are also reached via smartphones. In the age group reached through smart devices, the younger age group has a slice of 81%.Öztele companies are able to reach people via e-mail and young people are the majority of this group.