Consumer Responsiveness to Mobile Marketing
Research Provided by:
Marketing messages delivered to cell phones (“mobile marketing” or “MM”), represents an outstanding opportunity to interact with customers. This is due to the ability to individually reach consumers with highly-personalized messages in a timely manner. The potential downside of MM may be consumer response to privacy invasion, which can lead to a negative consumer reaction. This raises the issue of what is the likely consumer acceptance/effectiveness of MM as a new marketing media. In this Paper, the researcher’s advance that measurement of MM’s effectiveness should be grounded in understanding consumer responsiveness to the message received. Responsiveness is defined as a consumer’s willingness to receive and respond to the marketing message delivered. Their mythology to measure consumer responsiveness encompasses both consumer perceived relevance to the content of the marketing communication (the degree to which the message is focused upon and retained following exposure, shifts attitudes and/or intentions, and the consumer’s response to the message), and the consumer’s disturbance/acceptance of the marketing channel (how, when and where the consumer receives the message). Applying this methodology, the researchers conducted a study to ascertain consumer responsiveness to MM versus several other forms of marketing communication. They found that consumer response to MM was lower than that found for direct mail and commercial e-mail. However, they also found that a certain segment of consumers welcomed such messages. MM is a new marketing channel, and its implications are not yet fully understood. This Paper did not consider responsiveness to MM’s delivered to consumers while in-store. Yet this can represent an outstanding application for MM. As MM is considered to be more personal than other channels, messages must be highly personal and of high interest. In a store, such personalization may be achievable.
