Marketing these days is
equally amusing and scary. Amusing because of the modern techniques used in
marketing with mostly social media and internet and Scary because
we wouldn't know which enterprise has our data with them and what kind of information they have about us. Well, it is
not scary form enterprise’s point of view. It actually make things more
effective for them. How? Enterprises today, can do targeted marketing using
inbound marketing tools such as social media, youtube, e-books, newsletters, SEO etc
which will bring customers closer to the company with less cost. Unlike
traditional advertising methods such as Radio, TV and Newspapers which are called
Outbound Marketing, Inbound Marketing will make customers walk in to the website where
the company can build an ongoing relationship with the customer.
Have you ever wondered
how Facebook, Google ..make money? When this question was raised at a workshop
in my office, the first answer was, they have a very large customer base and these
internet giants can make other companies access their customer base to do all
sort of advertisements. This answer was not really correct. It’s not really about having access to massive number of data they hold but the CONNECTIONS they have.For example, Facebook will know where you are from, where you are
working, what sort of pages you are following, who are your friends, your email
account, what are you sharing, what will you be interested, who you might know
etc. Actually Facebook will know a person better than his best friend.
If you think about it,
Facebook can nicely analyze and categorize a person. This information is useful
for other companies when they want to advertise. For example, my brother will never
receive advertisements on women’s clothing or makeup in his newsfeed. Companies these
days have the possibility to do target marketing. They can select the gender,
age group, preferences, country, etc when they want to advertise. This will
make their advertisements more responsive.
Back in the days,
businessmen had to pay extra if they are sending out too many emails. But now
it’s mostly free. G-mail gave this facility for all their users while others
questioned how they will make money. What G-mail did was they opened their
analytics for companies to do advertisements. Once again, G-mail would know
what type of mails we are following , what industry we are in etc. So It’s just
not about having massive data but knowing the connections and preferences.
Customers will
not realize that they are been piled up with all sort of advertisements because they would mostly receive what interests them.
They aren't ‘advertisements’ for us anymore but fascinating bits of information. It’s actually fair by both parties if you really think of
it.
So who else have the
ability to connect the dots using a large customer base? What about Mobile
Operators such as Orange, MTN, Dialog, Etisalat etc? They will have useful
'local' information of their subscribers which will interest local enterprises.
Actually, mobile operators have more sensitive and relevant data than Facebook
or G-mail since mobile operators can track user's activities every minute. They even know information like
whether a particular subscriber is a businessmen, housewife, in a relationship, socialized based on the number of calls , data usage, types of
applications used, amount of messaging etc. Moreover, the mobile operator
will know the type of phone you are using, your mobile bill, other bill
payments etc which can be very valuable information in order to profile
customers. Surprisingly, we don’t see Mobile Operators exploiting their assets
and data in a way that will make mobile advertisements more attractive and
appropriate. They need to think from a different angle on how their data can
be useful to other enterprises without manipulating customer’s privacy.
Concepts such as Big Data , Analytics, Profiling, Loyalty Management can be
used and mastered by mobile operators to create a new source
of advertisement platform. They have the potential to be a part of
inbound marketing where mobile marketing can be easily adapted by all
enterprises.
Mobile Operators also
have their own Mobile Wallets and Point Systems which also can be used by other
enterprises to carry out promotions, loyalty and reward their customers.
Bottom line, marketing these days have no rules. It's time that Mobile
Operators start sharing and caring more.
