Mobile News

Mobile marketing software rarely exists on its own, but is deployed in a complex mesh of applications exchanging data with each other. For example, the campaign may produce a separate subset of subscribers matching a given condition in the dialogue. This subset must then be forwarded to the call centre for follow-up activities. Alternatively, the results of a campaign, which may be newly defined attributes set on each profile, need to be examined by a separate OLAP tool supporting more advanced statistical tools. For this reason, a functional requirement of the software will be the ability to export (or import) data from (or into) the mobile marketing database. The export operation should not involve technical personnel and should support common formats available in office productivity software–e.g. CSV and Microsoft Excel. Other formats, such as XML, may be more convenient for integration with third-party software.

Two important additional requirements can be derived here:

* when importing data, a requirement is to track the origin of the data, which must be recorded on a profile level along with other information, such as the date or the recruiting operation identifier, for example. There are multiple uses to the profile owner, such as billing or improved personalisation

* de-duplication and, more generally, handling of existing entries. The software importing the data must identify existing records and provide choices to the user, such as rejecting the data, amending certain attributes with the new information, or replacing the entire record.

A common requirement in the design of mobile CRM campaigns is the support of a web site or portal running in parallel to the mobile dialogues. This can be for opt-out purposes or simply to let subscribers amend their profiles, for example. These portals can be expanded with additional services such as polyphonic ringtone downloads or account status information.