Big Opportunity for Small First Movers

By Jeff

: Image via Wikipedia

Phil Johnson of adage.com writes about small agency first-mover advantages here.

Timing is key in the marketing business, as in any business. Too soon, and there aren’t enough people ready to hear what you have to say. Too late, and suddenly your the last one to come up with the idea.

The opportunity in question is that of mobile advertising. More people than ever are buying smart phones, iPads, and other gadgets that allow them to surf the net from wherever they are. He cites Mary Meeker, a Morgan Stanley analyst as projecting that the mobile web will surpass the desktop by 2015. One of the biggest uses of mobile media is social networking–facebook, twitter, etc–and the overlap is only getting bigger, says Meeker.

Johnson:

“While companies have been testing the waters with pilot programs for some time, now the infrastructure and ad networks are in place to allow large-scale mobile campaigns. Mobile advertising revenues in North America are expected to grow from $207 Million in 2009 to approximately $1.5 Billion by 2013, according to MarketingProfs, in a white paper, Mobile Marketing Success Stories.“

This is a projected increase of 724.6%. Anyone in marketing had better pay attention if they aren’t already.

Next Johnson talks about the common misconception that technology improvements only benefit the big players. I agree with him that this is not so. Especially in the communication sector, where improved technology means cheaper and faster, technological improvement is just the ticket to make small firms more competitive. Mohammad Ali’s famous “float like a butterfly, sting like a bee,” is the new business mantra. It’s all about being fast and agile, outwitting and out maneuvering the competition.

Johnson lists four areas his firm recommends clients focus on:

SMS
Mobile Sites
Content
Advertising

1 and 2 are the fundamentals. Johnson suggests that clients not get lost in “App mania,” and totally disregard the power of SMS texting short code systems. He says mobile sites will become the starting point for any web development. To an extent perhaps, but desktop web browsing is not going to disappear.

Content is king. We all know that, or ought to know it. There are several media outlets available, and they should all be utilized. All marketing needs multiple contact points, as mentioned here. The more the merrier.

When it comes to advertising, Johnson says that the rules are going to change, as must happen with the advent of a fresh communication platform. Now is the time for experimenting, and the early adopters will be the ones to figure it out first and be able to capitalize on their new found knowledge.