Inside Mobile Marketing

I suspected as much, but app store data is hard to come by as Apple does not reveal insights other than  total downloads and segmented top download lists and companies like Pinch are few and far between. To date, most iPhone developers have been adding simple tracking methods within their apps on their own accord so the data available to advertisers is limited and hard to come by. Aggregated iPhone analytics is a niche “industry” whose time has come so that Media planners can get a better sense if the “channel” is working or not.  Companies to watch include -Pinch Media, Flurry, Medialets and Admob to some extent.  

From a marketing perspective, brands looking to make any real impact with an application really need to focus on the Media plan surrounding the launch of a new application to get the app ranked on Apple’s top 100 or better lists as it appears this is the make or break bar to hit in terms of a tipping point.

This brings up another issue – driving traffic to iPhone applications isn’t exactly a well known science yet.  Yes, many marketers are realizing you can deep link to an application from the Web to the iTunes page where the app resides, but others are incorrectly thinking they can buy their way into sponsoring the featured apps section within iTunes.

The emergence of application stores built around a specific handset and/or operating system will only continue to create additional complexity within the Mobile Marketing ecosystem and will certainly add to the costs of developing and promoting custom applications that run on the various platforms.

Marketers already struggling to keep up with MMA/Carrier off-deck compliance regulations, application testing guidelines and emerging technologies will now be tasked with familiarizing themselves on who to turn to have custom app work completed on their behalf.  Perhaps more importantly, marketers will also need to uncover the best ways to advertise their new apps across the various distribution outlets.  Other considerations will include;

• SDKs, SDKs, SDKs= $$$ in terms of acquiring in-house development talent
• Analytics – reporting from the various storefronts will differ – some firms provide app usage analytics.
• Accounting for the disparate revenue-share agreements 
• Application maintenance, QA and hosting costs
• In-application advertising – how it works, what it costs, etc..
• Merchandizing costs at the various outlets
• Nuances of storefront vetting process – especially with Apple.

SIDE NOTE:  I have heard anecdotally that custom iPhone app development can run into the low six-figures.  

Sounds interesting and might be worth downloading to check it out, but from a mobile marketer’s perspective let’s discuss a few things about this idea.

First of all a big HIGH-FIVE to Mobliss for scoring a very memorable 90210 shortcode to promote this game and I assume other titles in their portfolio. (Quick shortcode ownership search on the CSCA site..HERE.).

Now, I can appreciate Burger King looking for new, hip ways to build awareness, loyalty, etc..etc around their brand and the KING character that dominates their campaigns these days. However, the question that first arose in my mind due to experience working with other forward thinking brands in the Mobile Channel was - was this money well spent in terms of a tactic? Here’s my line of thinking on this one.

Let’s assume that this game is NOT prominently featured on any Carrier deck for a moment as the company’s press release did not explicitly say the game was available FROM the Carrier’s (deck), but rather “across a variety of national Carriers.” This can be interpreted to mean that the Carriers approved the distribution of this game via various off-deck methods such as a keyword text trigger and via a website. That said, Burger King is going to have to find creative ways (and invest a few dollars) to generate some serious traffic to their website where the game is featured and ensure that any in-store signage, print and possibly TV ads have a very effective call-to-action. I have no idea what volume of web traffic Burger King generates, but I think the off-web promotions will make or break this campaign for a number of reasons:

• still to this day a very small percentage of U.S. wireless subs actually participate in MO-based (aka send keyword via SMS to a shortcode) mobile marketing campaigns. The MMA’s 2007 Mobile Usage and Attitude Study pegged the percentage of U.S mobile subscribers who participated in mobile marketing campaign at slightly over 5%. (25-44 yr olds slightly higher at around 8%) – the study further claimed that these participants favored mobile sweepstakes programs (45%) and alerts (33%) over game downloads (21%).
• the required MMA and Carrier compliance language can seem daunting to consumers at the point of download
• downloading a game to a handset can be a cumbersome task to those who have not done so before in an off-deck environment. Conversion rates between the initial MO – the double optin that will be required due to premium charge and the actual download will be low.

Add to the list of adoption hurdles the fact that the game costs money – a recurring subscription nonetheless!! – and because of this fact the Company is going to have convince consumers (especially the 15-34 demo) that this game is worth it. How does the company intend to induce trial??? (Discussion for another time). Recurring premium subscription models can get messy, especially if consumers start calling their Carrier to complain about mounting fees they claim not to know anything about (wink, wink) Once complaints start rolling in, the Carriers get ancy and can threaten to turn off the program.

In closing – it’ll be interesting to see the results of this campaign in a few months time. I’m betting that the $2.99 subscription will soon be dropped.

OTHER NOTES:

Game downloads here in the U.S. have not lived up to their hype as the number of consumers who have played a downloadable game hovers around the 20% mark according to a recent MMetrics survey. PLUS, most games that are downloaded come directly from a Carrier deck. Couple this with the fact that those games that have consistently been at the top of the download charts for mobile have been casual games such as Tetris and/or an adaptation of a popular game franchise – e.g. Guitar Hero.