The Digital Platform we have decided to appraise is Mobile. Our decision was based on the success of this platform and the increase of the number of people who own a mobile over the past few years. It has been stated that users are now spending 2 hours and 42 minutes per day on mobile devices (TechCrunch, 2014), meaning that it is an effective platform for advertising and marketing techniques. Furthermore mobile apps are becoming increasingly popular, for example, over 100 billion apps have been downloaded from the app store since June 2015 (Statista, 2015). It is important to consider that this digital platform could easily be used to form the basis of any marketing campaign.
One technique associated with this digital platform is: social-location based marketing, through mobile. We have created tools which give users the choice of sharing their current location. If mobile users choose to enable their current location status, businesses can then use proximity or location-based marketing to distribute messages and offers on products to potential consumers (Chaffey & Ellis-Chadwick, 2012). This feature helps companies collect data about buying behaviour and consumer preferences. Businesses can offer benefits to consumers when they check-in at the services that the business provides; consumers can win competitions/prizes in some cases from doing so. It would be wrong to suggest that this technique is only used by corporate giants, creating a location-based marketing campaign on a social network can cost next to nothing, it certainly does not require high capital investments to high-priced ad agencies. One benefit of using this technique is that once it is set up, it is easy to maintain (Chacos, 2012). A potential drawback of incorporating this technique is, if customers don't do the work for you, your location-based advertising campaign will be non existent.
An example of a company which has proven to be successful through the use of social-location marketing is AJ Bombers, a burger joint in Milwaukee. Its Foursquare page has had over 6,000 check-ins. Consumers who add a tip to the page receive a cookie, free of charge, when they show this tip to a waiter or cashier. The restaurant saw a 110% percent sales increase with over 161 check-ins on Feb.28. (Heine, 2010). This example shows that if executed effectively then businesses could see huge sale increases. However, the rewards, if to be included, need to be tailored specifically to the individual business.
Many companies across the world use the mobile application platform in an attempt to promote their brand to a much wider audience. A company which has specifically excelled in this area is KFC. They introduced the ‘KFC colonel’s club’ App in November 2014 (KFC, 2015) and has ever since been a huge hit with many of their UK customers, this is shown through its five star rating on the ‘App Store’ itself (2015). The App is relatively simple; KFC’s consumers download the application and then register themselves. Once this has been completed they can then collect their ‘chicken stamps’ when they spend £3 or more at any ‘participating restaurant’ (KFC, 2015). Consequently, customers build up a collection of the ‘stamps’ which they can then use to be rewarded with free food and drink. The reason for the use of this application was to primarily drive sales and engage customers through the use of a reward scheme. Given that 76% of UK adults now own a smartphone (Deloitte, 2015) the mobile App platform was a good choice in terms of aiding KFC’s campaign to success, as it allowed customers to get involved at the click of a button. In June 2015 the App managed to reach second place in the App download charts and has ever since stayed in the top ten downloads; this shows just how successful the campaign was and currently still is (Searchman, 2015). This evidence suggests that the use of a mobile app to communicate with customers is very effective, due to its simplicity and functionality.
Although there are many benefits with mobile marketing, it must be noted that there is a small list of negatives associated with the platform. Some of these disadvantages include small screens showing restricted content; a limited amount of web sites and poorly designed mobile sites (Chaffey and Smith, eMarketing Excellence, 2013). Poorly designed mobile apps and websites means that navigation on a mobile phone may get difficult for the user, even if it has a touchscreen. In such a case, most ads may go untouched, as the user may find it too tedious to look in detail through each one of them (AboutTech, Mobile Devices). Another issue with mobile marketing is privacy concerns, consumers don’t like the feeling of being tracked and with the advent of location based marketing some feel as if there phones are tracking their movements. Other issues with mobile marketing are as simple as consumers choosing to use desktop devices; their 3G is too slow and problems seeing the small screen.
As a whole, mobile is a reliable and effective digital platform which can be used to communicate with a specific target audience. Many techniques can be applied and used on a mobile platform. Social-location-based marketing, allows companies to reach a wide variety of audiences and communicate messages about their products. This technique has proved to be successful, with the evidence presented earlier, stating a 110% increase in sales at AJ Bombers due to a large amount of checkin’s on their mobile marketing app. The success of a mobile digital platform in relation to apps has further been reinforced by KFC, which engages customers and drives sales through the use of a reward scheme. To conclude, we feel that investing in a mobile digital platform will be very beneficial, considering the innovative and simplistic features that can be used to communicate with customers, eventually driving sales and increasing awareness for the company.
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