Gartner has recently come out with a research study on the top mobile trends. The report says that the marketers must now focus more on barcode marketing, mobile coupons and augmented reality.
According to Sandy Shen, Research Director at Gartner “Understanding how consumers are using these devices is an important element of understanding mobile’s benefits and risks. Mobile technology is the vehicle of immediacy, putting mobile marketers in the critical position of being masters of timing – knowing when and how to drop the right offer at the right time.”
According to the reports, the factors like –
- Mobile Social networks,
- Mobile Application Stores,
- Location – based Services,
- Bar Code Marketing,
- Mobile Coupons, and
- Augmented Reality, are the top mobile trends.
Mobile social networks-
According to the research report, it has been proven that now most of the people have access to social networking sites via mobile phones. Currently it is 15 percent, but is expected to attract about 1 billion people by 2014. And by 2015, the market would completely be a social mobile networking market, which is in fact expected to affect certain sectors like education, retail, government and healthcare.
Mobile Application Stores-
To focus more on the mobile application stores, with better distribution outlets is an advice from Gartner as it is a better platform to have good advertising support, user review, etc.
Location – based Services-
The location-based services are an area completely plotted for the future growth. Making advertising the major contributor, Gartner predicts revenue of US$13.5 billion by 2015. With the ongoing convergence of location functionality, the research reports depict an expectation of 800 million location based worldwide users.
Mike McGuire, Research Vice President, Gartner is of strong belief that, “Aided by a recovery in overall ad spending, the mobile advertising category has accelerated its evolution during the past year, despite lingering issues, such as privacy, metrics and standards. We expect the mobile advertising market to be more than double during the next two years and to increase 12-fold by 2015 to US$ 20.6 billion worldwide, or about 4 per cent of total ad expenditures.”
Bar Code Marketing-
Predictions made by Gartner regarding bar code marketing also gives a lot of insights. Barcode is very common irrespective of the store size. The use of barcode marketing in direct marketing is expected to gain momentum in the coming few years.
Use of bar code has helped in creating brand loyalty and the “cutting-edge” brand image. Report says, “Barcodes are increasingly being used in mobile ticketing and check-in applications in the travel and entertainment industries.”
Mobile Coupons-
News….news…news… Smartphone users are on the edge of adopting mobile coupons. The research study has given an advice stating that, “Digital marketing leaders can kick start their mobile coupon offerings by leveraging lessons learned by retailers currently using mobile coupons and by using specialized technology providers to test alternative approaches.” It is something which has to be learned from the leaders.
Nowadays smart phones like Apple iPhone also has got applications supporting mobile coupons. Forecasting the future, Gartner has a small advice which states that mobile coupons must be considered as part of the multichannel e-coupon strategies, which are easily accessible through various channels.
Augmented Reality
Augmented reality, being virtual reality, was predicted to reach its peak in 2010. The study states that, augmented reality has a long term potential to enhance the experience of users as a logical extension of location based and context aware interactive mobile.
