Mobile News

The first step in the mobile marketing continuum addresses how individuals will be reached and invited to participate in a mobile marketing campaign. The aspects of reach management in the context of a mobile marketing campaign solution vary according to the media used:

* If packaging or radio is used to reach individuals, the functionality relative to cost calculators, campaign calendars and resource usage views addresses the planning needs.

* If the mobile device is used as a medium to reach individuals, it implies that specific tools must be available in the mobile marketing campaign solution.

A common way to initiate mobile CRM campaigns is via the mobile by sending a number of personalised SMS messages to a target population. Generally, the functional requirement for the solution is not to restrict the types  of content that can be pushed to subscribers.

One SMS parameter not covered previously is the originating address (OA) attribute. This attribute is specific to messages sent by the gateway (i.e. push-specific) and allows the substitution of the sender number with an alphanumeric string. Depending on the support of this attribute by the gateway, a functional requirement is to have a modifiable OA attribute for send-outs.

A push of SMS messages usually requires an indication of the delivery by the SMSC, as well as by the handset. The functional requirement for this is the support, on request, of multi-level delivery notifications from the gateway to the mobile marketing campaign solution. This technique is used to update the profile database with mobile numbers that are no longer usable. Considering the volume and time delivery constraints, and the speed penalty of waiting on delivery notifications, the user must be able to turn this on or off.

For large send-outs (more than 50,000), a requirement for the campaign solution is to provide a sense of progress to the user managing the send-out. This can be in the form of messages to the user indicating certain percentages, e.g. 25%-50%-75%-done.