Advantages of Mobile Marketing Over Online Marketing

In Frank Powell’s recent blog, he discusses five advantages that mobile marketing has over online marketing.  While I am not going to discuss each one of his listed advantages (I will let you go to his blog to read them all), I did want to share my opinion on a couple.

Improved time relevance
This is one of the biggest advantages in my opinion.  If I send you an email, there is no telling when you will read it.  Probably sometime in the next 24 hours, but even that isn’t a guarantee.  If I send you a text message, you will almost certainly read it within the next few minutes.  If used appropriately, that immediacy of delivery can be used to literally engage the consumer in a conversation and encourage them to take immediate action on the brand’s message. 

Omnipresence
While I do recognize this as an advantage, I wanted to briefly discuss it not for its advantage, but for one of the disadvantages it brings.  Omnipresence in this context means that the mobile device is always with a person.  It becomes a part of the person, a part of their location.  Frank writes

This is a powerful concept, for two opposing reasons:
• Customers can almost always be reached
• Customers can almost always be interrupted

  Frank hit the nail on the head.  The line between useful time and annoying can become blurred quickly with mobile marketing.  A constant barrage of mobile marketing campaigns would have negative effects on ALL brands that use mobile marketing.  As Frank concludes, “it is very important to let mobile consumers determine how and when to hold conversations.”