Mobile marketing in the Middle East and North Africa is flourishing, driven by a boost in marketing budgets and a new excitement about social media. In fact, an April report released by Econsultancy (based on a survey of more than 500 B2B marketers in the region, undertaken in partnership with Arabianbusiness.com) found that just over half (53 percent) of companies are planning to increase their budget for mobile marketing.
Where is the opportunity in this rapid growth market? What is the role of the mobile operator? And why does text messaging dominate? Karim Khalifa, CEO & Co-Founder of Digital Republic, the number one digital and creative advertising agency in Egypt, provides us the inside track on developments in the region.
#DearKen: @TheMirrorTest author @JeffreyHayzlett calls people who abuse Twitter "twankers". How do I avoid being too self-promoting?
Thank you for your question. Twitter "rules", "guidelines", and "best practices" are great fun for us marketers (especially considering that the golden rule of marketing is that there are no rules). That doesn’t stop folks like Jeff and I, however, from regularly writing about Twitter do's and don'ts.
My usual disclaimer before we start to keep my company’s compliance team happy: all opinions expressed here are my own, and come from my experience running social media efforts, managing social marketers, and advising social marketing clients. Your mileage will vary.
April 28, 2011
Posted in #DearKen, Featured, Mobile Social Media | No Comments »
How should marketers approach social media marketing? What is the place of mobile in an effective advertising campaign? And why is mobile video shaping up to be the next big thing? These are just a few of the questions I explore in an exclusive podcast with Jeffrey Hayzlett, frequent speaker, Celebrity CMO, change agent and sometimes cowboy.
We also walk through the key themes of The Mirror Test: Is Your Business Really Breathing?, a must-read business book (authored by Jeff) that has been on USA Today, Wall Street Journal and Inc.’s best-seller lists.
April 28, 2011
Posted in Mobile Marketing, Podcasts | 2 Comments »
Do you - or anyone you know - really want to be targeted? Just the term conjures up images of bulls-eyes, shooting ranges and scenes from the movie Minority Report. Little wonder that we don't have a desire to be targeted. Yet targeting is core to marketing in all its forms, from creating and maintaining a database to developing an online/offline strategy.
And every so often – and it is becoming quite often -- the discussion about targeting also triggers a debate about personal privacy. Understandably, it's a volatile issue that raises as many tempers as it does questions. Case in point: the backlash when people learned the truth about Facebook's privacy policies and the company's tepid initial response.
April 22, 2011
Posted in Mobile Marketing, Permission marketing | No Comments »
A surge of mobile advertising interest and activity has made Africa the market to watch. We look at recent brand campaigns running on the Tigo Ads service. Tigo, a leading mobile operator in Ghana, has implemented the advertising solution to bring personalized mobile advertising to its over 3 million subscribers.
To increase revenues, differentiate services and reach a wide and willing audience with mobile advertising, Ghana's mobile operator Tigo has become the first in the country to introduce permission-based marketing.
48 PERCENT OF U.S. CONSUMERS RESEARCED PRODUCTS ON A MOBILE DEVICE WHILE IN-STORE in December 2010, according to research from Oracle and ATG. This represented a 78 percent increase compared to November 2009, when just 29 percent of consumers were using their mobile devices for research in-store.
Unsurprisingly, the data shows that younger consumers (ages 18-34) were the most avid in-store researchers (60 percent), up 46 percent from November 2009 (41 percent). But the real opportunity just may be a more mature demographic.
April 18, 2011
Posted in Mobile Commerce, Mobile Marketing, Mobile Research | No Comments »
