Marketing Pilgrim

European research firm Vanson Bourne was commissioned this summer to report on 50 global brands’ attitudes toward mobile marketing. More than two-thirds expected to spend up to 10% of their marketing budget on mobile messaging campaigns within two years.

MediaPost reports that “some 28% of brands were considering implementing SMS or MMS campaigns during the next 12 months–double the 14% that had considered the option last year.”

Other key findings:

• Mobile spending: 58% said that their mobile marketing campaign would use up to 15% of their total ad budget by 2012. 32% said this would happen in the next two years.
• Action taken: Just over a third of all respondents said that they expected up to 10% of recipients of mobile marketing messages to “undertake a financial transaction.” 52% said that they expected up to 10% of recipients of mobile marketing messages to request “more information or a product sample.”
• On the consumers’ side: 46% are concerned that mobile marketing is too intrusive. Many worry that recipients will perceive messages as SPAM. 41% of those same respondents were unsure that they could target campaigns specifically enough to avoid that problem.
• Reporting: 36% would require detailed information on how the user responded to the message. About 20% would want definite confirmation that the user’s handset had actually received the message.

Is it just me or are those reporting numbers scarily small? Maybe I’m too used to online marketing, but if you have a way of knowing whether or not the message is received, why wouldn’t you want that information?

eMarketer has also released a study on brands’ mobile advertising attitudes. According to their figures, “eMarketer projects that the global budget devoted to mobile brand advertising will rise to $3.5 billion in 2011, from $123 million in 2006.”

Despite the growing interest, large SMS and MMS campaigns could obviously be taxing to mobile networks’ infrastructure. You can rest assured that mobile providers are watching studies like these with interest to determine whether an infrastructure overhaul is worth it.