Mobile Internet for Dummies

No, I'm not suggesting you're a dummy, dear reader. I'm just writing a short post about the new book in the 'Dummies' range from Wiley. And it's all about the mobile internet, a subject close to my heart.

Industry stalwarts and good pals, Daniel Appelquist and Russell Buckley, have contributed to the book alongside respected authors and industry experts to help normobs get their heads round and make the best use of the mobile internet.

Mobile Internet For Dummies explains how the Mobile Internet differs from the garden-variety Internet, and shows you how to:

• Find your mobile phone browser
• Use the Mobile Internet to surf, shop, blog, watch movies, and more — on the go
• Send and receive e-mail from your mobile device
• Locate other mobile applications
• Watch TV on your mobile phone
• Manage your kids’ access to the Mobile Internet
• Secure and name a mobile Internet site and acquire mobile Web development tools
• Build your own made-for-mobile Web site
• Use your Mobile Internet site to promote your business and generate revenue

With the help of Mobile Internet For Dummies, you’ll be able to stay connected wherever you happen to be, and maybe even make it pay off with a bit of income.

Get it at Amazon now in the UK Mobile Internet for Dummies (For Dummies) or in the US you can get it at this link Mobile Internet For Dummies (For Dummies (Computer/Tech))

Mobile Advertising News

So Nokia is saying 'no' to adult ads and yet the 'community' is stunned at this. I'm not really sure why they're stunned. As a brand, I can quite see why Nokia would want to steer clear of advertising erotica and gambling as it's not the brand fit they're quite looking for. Whether that will change once they work out the economics remains to be seen.

Meanwhile, Google Adsense is launching on mobile and Debi Jones wonders what impact this will or won't have on Admob over at the Mobile Messaging 2.0 blog. And not only that, but the word on the street is that Medio is ramping up to tackle the EMEA market more aggressively in the coming months. And surely it's only a matter of time before the likes of Doubleclick finally make their move into the market, now that everyone else and his wife has already done so.

But advertising doesn't solve all your marketing and sales problems. Success starts and ends with a good product or service and too many folks don't start with a good enough product or good enough service. Marketers can't hide behind their old advertising, marketing and sales tricks any more. As an audience, on the whole, we're too savvy to be taken in any more. If you have a good product or service, then advertising, marketing and sales are going to help for sure. But you need to have the basics right first, otherwise you're wasting your cash.

I recently stumbled across a new mobile video service that had gone live. Having gone to their website, I eventually found a demo buried amongst their none too coherent corporate blurb. I entered my number. About 30 minutes later, I get a text message telling me to go to the mobile internet to a specific URL. Note, I didn't get a wap push. Note 2, there was a typo in the SMS message I received. D'oh on both counts. Anyway, I click on the link, only for the wapsite to hang on me and I still haven't seen my 'free' video clip. I'm not going to name them to give them a chance to redeem themselves but I do know this company is about to do a big marketing push, but clearly the demo product isn't ready. And if that's not ready, what's the end product going to be like?

Hmm, something to think about.

And if you'd like more on which to ponder, then this Seth Godin video is well worth a look. It's not very long - about 17 minutes. And while you're at it, it's also worth having a look again at this advert for Microsoft.

Monday's mobile marketing tidbits

Blyk's delaying its launch until October. No bad thing as July and August are quiet times in retail. IMHO, Blyk should be launching in September to get the school, college and university kids signed up as they go back for the Autumn term, and that starts early September for schools and Sixth Form Colleges. Come October, we'll already be into half-term and well into silly season for Christmas which may be too late to launch something. I wonder if Blyk realises what an enormous task they've taken on? And I wonder if they've managed to sort out data charges so they can offer their customers a proper mobile content and media experience via wap or mobile internet?

Borders is extending their mobile marketing effort to provide sample chapters to customers' phones for free to promote new book titles. Details are currently a bit sketchy. I'm interested to see how this works in practice. The best example I've seen of this in the past was a poster campaign I saw at a railway station promoting a new thriller, Mr Clarinet. You texted in a keyword to a shortcode and by return, got back a link to a wapsite where you could read a synopsis of the book, part of the first chapter, find out more about the author and also click to buy the book. Perfect for whiling away 10 or 20 minutes while you are waiting for a train.

Three UK has launched 3next.mobi which is a user generated catalogue of stuff to do on your phone. A very nice idea where you can add applications and services that you like and add them in with your review of the service. It's free to join and not restricted to Three customers although it's designed specifically for Three's X-Series customers. Worth a look as an example of how to market content services. http://www.3next.mobi

And finally, Admob has now served more than 4 billion wap adverts, the last billion being published in the last 35 days. Way to go!

Random links on a First Monday

Beating congestion with mobile phones: This is nifty. In Rome, the authorities are using mobile phone signals to work out traffic hot spots over time so they can work out where the traffic jams will be in the future and therefore work out ways of keeping the traffic moving.

A very thorough article on how to monetise your mobile site with advertising including top tips on using the major players - Admob, Yahoo, Google and also some technical tips and hints. Well worth a look.

A write up by pal Tom on agency.com's buzzword take on online social networking. I have to say, I agree with him which is why I haven't written a piece on it and instead I am directing you to read his instead.

Whilst I was enjoying the Carnival that was Glastonbury, my fellow mobilists have been busy beavering away at the latest two instalments of the carnival of the mobilists... No 79 from Jag at Route 79 is rather good (well I would say that as he gives me a plug!) and incredibly thorough. And this week's, No 80, from my fellow female mobilist, Debi over at Mobile Jones., where she does a top job of rounding up this week's mobile writing.

Some older news but worth noting anyway...

Pandora launches personal radio for mobile. A great step forward, but until we have proper flat rate data plans, this ain't gonna fly which is why the launch is with Sprint so I can't test it to tell you what it's like.

Borders are doing mobile couponing in the UK and it appears to be an unqualified success. Although I'd love to see a comparision with other similar couponing activity they may have done and I'd also like to take a gander at the point of sale materials. The fact that it's mobile is possibly not the critical success factor here and I expect it's a combination of things.. can anyone give me any more info?

Mobile advertising - all hype?

I ran a session for the Institute of Direct Marketing last week and shortly after the session I got an email from one of my students who'd picked up on this article from Simon Mansell of TBG London. Said student thought it was quite amusing and a juxtaposition of what I'd been talking about for two hours that morning.

The article's not particularly well written so, to give Simon the benefit of the doubt, maybe it was a rush job, or it was heavily edited to fit the page or maybe Simon isn't exposed to the world of mobile [yet]. Or any combination thereof. But the facts just aren't straight.

The gist of the article is that mobile advertising has failed to deliver, the example being that the Google search interface is incompatible with mobile. And to some extent I agree - at least with the mobile search issues. I don't think that problem has been fixed yet, but it will be, over time. And actually mobile search is still a very small part of the mobile advertising, let alone mobile marketing, mix.

However, Simon really missed the elephant in the room and that is wap and the related wap advertising. You may think that wap is cr@p and isn't working and is expensive and at times, I'd have to agree with you. But we are seeing flat rate data plans from the network operators, including Pay As You Go customers, and the opening of the walled gardens from the operators with T-Mobile's web 'n walk for example.

But things really are moving with wap and wap advertising. The latest M:Metrics statistics show that 89.5% of UK mobile subscribers have a mobile phone with a web browser and some 44.8% of active users access news/information at least once a week and about a third of all UK subscribers browsed or downloaded from wap in the last month. None of that is to be sniffed at. And if you look globally, active usage is very much higher in India and South Africa, where data charges are almost nil. This is a ripe environment for wap advertising.

Add to that, that big brands are using wap advertising (think Coca Cola, The Times, Adidas), and that the GSMA has launched the first mobile advertising standards in conjunction with the MMA and that Admob has already served almost 3.5 billion wap adverts in its short existence, plus the acquisitions of Screen Tonic and Third Screen by Microsoft and AOL respectively, this is becoming major league.

Wap advertising is just one element of the mobile marketing mix but it's already an increasingly important one. It occurs to me both as observer and participant in mobile marketing and advertising that this wap advertising thing is really really happening and those who choose to ignore it do so at their peril.

top tips on increasing the click thru rates of your mobile ads

I'm just wading through my emails and backlog of things to do and spotted this from the guys at award-winning Admob, the largest wap advertising network globally and is growing at a pretty fast and furious rate. I thought it was advice well worth sharing. I've added my comments in italics.

5 Tips to increase the Click thru Rates of your mobile adverts

1. Change ad text frequently. Keep your campaign fresh and get the highest ROI (return on investment) by frequently changing ad text. Customers are more likely to click on ads that they haven't seen before. [People get bored, so it's not *that* difficult to expect to have to come up with new stuff is it?]

2. Use relevant links. Be sure that the click through URL takes your audience to a relevant landing page and that the product you are promoting is easy to find. [The right landing pages are crucial on web or wap. But get it wrong on wap and it's even worse as you don't have the space to play around with navigation on a phone for someone to bother finding the right page.]

3. Customize your advert. Include the user's phone model into the text of your ad, making it more relevant and dynamic. You can do so by inserting the %phn% tag into the text of your ad. For example, "Share pictures on your %phn%" would become "Share pictures on your RAZR" to a user viewing that ad from a RAZR. [This is particularly important for mobile content providers, and probably not so relevant to non-mobile brands]

4. Be timely. Reference hot products, sales, events and holidays. Be sure to update your text once time sensitive events are over. [Don't do a T-Mobile and send out a message promoting England football mobile content a) to a non-football fan and b) the day after England lost their Euro 2004 match!]

5. Experiment often. Try new ad text and targeting. Experiment with the Run of Network offering to attract more global traffic. Continually trying new things will help you to determine what works best for your business, as well as to ensure your ads are fresh. [I would add to this that you need to monitor closely to work out what is effective and what isn't. Define what success looks like and work backwards from that and measure. What you measure will vary from brand to brand and campaign to campaign, but unless you measure, you'll not be able to compare like with like.]

Mobile Advertising Guidelines published

If you're reading this blog, then the chances are that you have some kind of interest in mobile advertising. In which case, it's worth checking out the Mobile Marketing Asssociation's Mobile Advertising Guidelines document (pdf). It's US focussed but most of the rules apply over here in the UK and Europe. There are tips there about the different type of banner or click through campaigns you can do and some examples of how you might use them so well worth a look.

I've been using mobile advertising successfully for some of my clients in the last 6 months or so and I've been impressed with the results and conversion rates. Why not try it for yourself here with Admob who are one of the largest mobile advertising firms.

And finally, if you're after some new case studies to check out, then it's worth you have a look at the 2006 MMA Annual Mobile Marketing Guide in Association with Advertising Age (pdf). It was published in December 2006 so the information is still recent enough and it covers case studies from across the world, not just the USA.