Working Moms are a Prime Target for Mobile Marketing

Study by: Scarborough Research (www.scarborough.com)

Working Moms* are among the country’s highest spenders on cellular phone services, spending 21% more than the average cellular user on their wireless bills monthly. The average cellular bill for Working Moms is $94, versus $78 for all cell phone users. Further, they avidly use their mobile phone to download content. Working Moms are 42% more likely than the average cellular user to download content to their phone. These are just some of the findings in a complimentary report from Scarborough profiling the Working Mother, available for download at www.scarborough.com/freestudies.php. The data analysis examined the distinctive consumer patterns and marketing appeal of women who work full‐time and have one or more children at home, and the free study includes information on their shopping habits, media patterns, demographics and lifestyles.

“The Working Mother is the gatekeeper for purchases related to clothing, feeding and making a home for her family. Her high spending on cellular services together with her propensity to download content via her cell phone imply that mobile marketing could be an important platform for reaching her with product announcements, offers and other promotions,” said Howard Goldberg, senior vice president of agency services, Scarborough Research.

Marketers of cellular products have a particularly important consumer target in the Working Mom. Not only is this group sizable ‐ accounting for nine percent of the U.S. adult population (21.6 million adults) and 11% of all cellular users – but they also are more likely to utilize certain cellular features such as texting and downloading. Further, Working Moms are 14% more likely than other cellular users to plan to switch wireless carriers during the next year, which suggests that providers need to further establish brand loyalty within this group.

In terms of what contributes to their cellular usage, time spent in the car may be a factor. Working Moms are nine percent more likely than the average adult to have driven 1,000 or more miles during the past month.

The complimentary study from Scarborough Research, “Shopping Insights on Today’s Working Mom,” is available for download at www.scarborough.com/freestudies.php, and it covers select shopping, media and lifestyle information from Scarborough.

* Working Moms are women who are employed full time and have one or more children in the household.

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Print Publishers Readying Themselves For Mobile

Posted by Justin on Sep 25, 2009 in Mobile Marketing Watch

It’s been a long time coming, but print publishers are finally embracing new mobile technology and devices and preparing themselves for the quickly growing digital market. New surveys published recently indicate that print publishers are focusing on the mobile channel as a prime opportunity to expand their brands, reach new mobile audiences and generate much needed additional revenue.

ABC and its digital subsidiary, ABC Interactive, noting an increase in publisher inquiries about auditing and reporting requirements for e-readers and smartphones, as well as membership growth from firms targeting digital publishing markets, conducted a survey entitled “Going Mobile: How Publishers Are Preparing for the Burgeoning Digital Market.” The survey revealed that many print publishers, together with advertisers, are making huge strides to begin utilizing the mobile distribution channel.

Of the respondents, more than half believe the future business model of mobile content will be supported by both advertising and subscriptions, while nearly 70% agree that mobile is receiving more attention at their publication this year than last. Only a third, however, believe their publication already has a well-developed plan for attacking and conquering the mobile market.

Publishers have already noticed a steady increase in mobile traffic to their Website, and 56% of “senior executive respondents” said their publication has already, or will be developing an application for a smartphone within the next 24 months. Regardless, print publishers will need to embrace every aspect of mobile, well beyond simply aggregating the same content through an iPhone app.

“Although the mobile market is in its early stages, it offers tremendous opportunities for marketers to reach and interact with audiences,” said Edward Montes, executive vice president and managing director of Havas Digital North America. “With text and multimedia messaging, branded mobile apps, content sponsorships, display advertising, paid search, and location-based targeting, the platform becomes an integral component of the overall marketing strategy. It has enormous potential for clients, in my view, so it’s great to see newspapers and magazines embracing digital publishing.”

Among the conclusions of the survey, ABC interactive found that…

• It’s early, but there are positive signs. The mobile market is definitely receiving more attention than ever before. For some respondents, planning is still in the beginning stages and publishers are wading through the information and technology, trying to decide on the right strategy. For other newspapers and magazines, many mobile initiatives are well under way, supported by advertising and sponsorships.
• Mobile will drive Web traffic. Most respondents believe that mobile will be responsible for a five to 50 percent increase in Web site traffic in the next three years.
• Publishers are betting on both smartphones and e-readers and are actively exploring the vitality of both as a new distribution channel. Both devices are in the early-adoption phase but are quickly gaining momentum with large daily newspapers and leading consumer magazines.
• Early business models will be based on a combination of advertising and subscriptions. Publishers agree that the mobile market will be both ad- and subscription-supported and many anticipate that mobile will contribute to the bottom line in just three years. Publishers believe there are many opportunities for paid mobile advertising, including sponsorship, search, video, and banner ads.
• Advertiser demand for accountability will grow as ad spend grows. Respondents agree that independent third-party auditing would increase mobile’s credibility and is likely to be demanded by advertisers as ad spending increases in this area. Data should be reported on ABC statements.

Whether ready or not, those in the print publishing industry will need to solidify a solid mobile game plan to stay competitive against those who have embraced mobile since the beginning. It should be interesting to see how it all plays out.

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iPhone finally gets MMS service Sept. 25

Engadget's Chris Ziegler reports.

AT&T has just announced that MMS -- a much-ballyhooed feature of iPhone OS 3.0 -- will finally be hitting AT&T on September 25. There's still no date for tethering, though the company is holding the line that it'll be offered "in the future." Expanding on the logic behind the tethering delay, they're saying that "by its nature, this function could exponentially increase traffic on the network, and we need to ensure that some of our current upgrades are in place before we can deliver the expanded functionality with the excellent performance that customers expect." We're no network engineers, but "exponentially increase traffic" and "AT&T" are two things we don't typically like to hear in the same sentence -- let's hope the 850MHz, 7.2Mbps, and backhaul upgrades they're cranking on right now go a long way toward sorting that out. As for MMS, they're acknowledging that the release "does indeed fall a few days past the official end of summer," arguing that their support of more iPhone customers than any other carrier in the world made a positive launch experience a bit of a challenge. Of course, virtually every other phone AT&T sells (and has sold for the past several years) supports the same tech, so this feels like a pretty active admission that iPhone users blaze through data-rich features at a pace that the carrier has been ill-equipped to handle.

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