Can this really be true? This is a figure produced by BlackBerry recently that underlines the sad truth that most of the 200,000 available apps are rubbish.
The surprising nugget of information was revealed by Alex Meisl of Sponge Group and came to light as part of an excellent series of interviews by Ewan McLeod from Mobile Industry Review.
Ewan had this idea that brands were becoming obsessed with smart phones and wanted to explore the notion that too many brands assumed they had to have an iphone app. To test his hypothesis, he interviewed some mobile marketing heavyweights and sought their opinions on the use of mobile services by UK brands.
The results were very clear. The gurus agreed that many UK brands seemed to hook onto the potential for increased customer engagement via apps and largely ignored or undervalued the massive potential for more straightforward SMS services. Just 20% of UK consumers currently have a smart phones yet nearly all have a hand set capable of sending and receiving SMS.
Here are a few of the more revealing quotes from the interviews. If you’ve ever wondered where you should start in developing a mobile strategy, then these videos are an excellent starting point. I urge you to have a look.
“SMS is the killer app. Everyone has an SMS sender and receiver on their phone. As marketers, we try to use it but we don’t use it well enough.”
Mark Freeman – Mobile agency – Movement.
“SMS is one of the most underutilised channels, with its scale and the kind of click though rates and uplift in awareness that it achieves.”
John Mew – IAB (internet Advertising Bureau)
“Too many brands assume they have to have an iphone app.”
Alex Meisl – Sponge Group.
So as with most things, the message seems to be – keep it simple’. SMS is still by far the most effective tool for marketers and we ignore it at our peril.
We’d love to have a chat with you about how mobile marketing could be used in your company or organisation. Please feel free to call me on 0117 9249207
Henry Cazalet