Indian Mobile Marketing Platform - The Fundamentals and the Opportunity!

RatanKK, Head – Global Delivery Center, Pinstorm
As digital Marketers, it is our constant endeavor to find and to establish new channels to have quality deliverables for a client engagement. Going beyond search, banners et al.

One of the channels we are striving to establish is delivering marketing solutions through mobile channel. In delivering quality mobile marketing solutions (MMS), we do the conceptualization and creation of the mobile marketing solution. And majorly depend on others in mobile solution ecosystem, to deliver and measure the performance of the MMS. In the last two years, I had more problems in executing than solutions for delivering and measuring our MMS.

When I look at the fundamentals of Indian Mobile Market, I have more emphatic facts to say that Indian Mobile Marketing Platform is much better poised than the online channel through PCs. If I were to look at all these facts, and what they mean, we can have a mobile platform (m-platform) where:

•I can sell everywhere and all the time to the mobile user.
•I have great flexibility to set up client engagements.
•A great deal of interactive advertising is possible for brand management.
•An intuitive platform for the mobile user for completing business transactions.
•I can engage the mobile user in contests for brand involvement, games and other gamut of entertainment.

In my numerous interactions with various mobile platform stake holders viz., operators, handset guys, the mobile platform guys and the content guys, I did not get much relief. They made me feel as if I am day dreaming.

If you thought that I am day dreaming too, you would be completely mistaken, as such an m-platform it is already conceptualized, created, delivered and so successful that it is taking the mobile world by storm.

So my objective today, through this article is two fold. One is to focus on seven fundamental facts about the Indian mobile user, look at what it means to me, as a marketer, and ask seven sets of questions. Two, is to introduce you to that m-platform which is exactly what I am dreaming about. It is my endeavor to sensitize all of us, to this m-platform.

Fact 4 - We all got the mobile consumer by the crotch (most of us put our mobiles in the pant pockets, don’t we?)

It means - The identity of the mobile user is real. He is unique and has his own identity.

Questions - Do we capture his likes and dislikes? Do we have any insights into his buying behavior? Do we know what his typical day is? (Isn't this the Holy Grail that most of us marketers want to know about the target audience?)

Fact 7 - He is circuit switched and packet switched. (You are circuit switched when you make a call, and you are packet switched, if you are either on GPRS or SMS).

It means - He is connected all the time to the network, wherever there is network. There are no last mile connectivity issues, like in the PCs. Almost, all the time.

Questions - Do we engage him all the time? Proactively? Do we profile him by his usage? What are things that he said Yes to? What are the things that he said No to?

(If you have been paying attention, you will notice that my facts are in no order of priority)

Fact 1 - He is multi-linguistic, given the nature of non-English speaking Indian mobile users.

It means - that we need to have MMS that are beyond English or Hinglish.

Questions - Is our content strategy good enough to keep them engaged? Why is that there is no compelling content provided in various languages?

Fact 6- Besides, voice calls, his usage is limited to only to SMS, WAP and GPRS only. Mostly pulled by him, own volition / intent.

It Means - We do not have any contextual aspects, where we can prompt him interactively. And there is no possibility of push marketing possibility.

Questions - Can there be push possibility? Can we capture his intent? Bring in a lot of context to it? (Google has become Google, just because of the Contextual nature of its ad serving infrastructure!)

Fact 5 - The mobile users are large in numbers, but they have very small screens.

It Means - In India, there are more users accessing internet through the mobile than other modes. But due to the limitations of the screen and the applications are not customized for small screen, there are huge user experience issues. (One of the biggest challenges, as I gather!)

Questions - Can we develop much more intuitive and compelling mobile applications which will give better user experience?

Fact 2 - The cost of high end phones is crashing (I am told that the price of a mobile phone with functionality of a Palm Treo 680 is to come down to 8K rupees in the next 2 years)

It Means - There is scope to have much more powerful mobile applications. There are humungous possibilities to improve user experience and provide wide variety of services.

Questions - Are we game? Do we have this planned in our implementation? If not now, have we got our plans ready for the near future?

Fact 3 - There has been huge success of premium SMS services and SMS/voice led game shows and instant bidding.

It Means - The mobile user has money to spend. In fact, he has loads of money that he can spend. A typical CK Prahlad's bottom of the pyramid opportunity. (To understand, do the math, if 2% of Indian mobile users subscribe for a service which costs him 10 rupees per month! I encourage you to do the math to arrive at the annualized revenue for the service!) Questions – Indian m-platform is a multi billion dollar opportunity and how can we act now to create it in the future? How do we, as the stakeholders in the mobile ecosystem, synergize to make this happen?

So what does that all mean to us?

It means that there is untapped potential in the mobile channel, much bigger than Google.

It means that the digital space is going to be dominated by mobile in numbers.

It means that today, we are not even at the end of the beginning. We have just begun.

This brings me to the end of my first objective.

Going to the second, the same facts that I have stated, with the meaning that I tried to indicate, a company has capitalized on the m-platform opportunity. And that is NTT DoCoMO’s i-Mode platform.

No point writing about it, as you can find all about i-mode and NTT DoCoMo on the net, probably when you are mobile? Or you can Google for it, and read up on the links displayed. To learn from the horse's mouth, you should read the last few quarter’s financial reports of NTT DoCoMo. You need to learn what i-mode is all about? How customers are engaged through it? How the business houses use the i-mode platform to keep the customer engaged? How the various applications enhance the user experience of the mobile consumer?

The facts that I have mentioned about the Indian Mobile Marketing platform are the same reasons why the i-mode platform is conceptualized, created and delivered (Remember, my m-platform dream!). The players in the mobile ecosystem have tried to answer the same set of questions that I have indicated, to synergize and made i-mode a great success. And i-mode is being replicated in many mobile markets.

Can we repeat an i-mode in Indian mobile industry? And I strongly feel, the situation is more opt and conducive in India than what it was in Japan.

What do you think?

Disclaimer: The author has no professional or personal interest in NTT DoCoMo at the time of writing this article.