Putting Mobile Marketing At The Center
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The Turkish mobile market is one of the most dynamic in the world: a population of over 70 million with mobile penetration growing from 52% in 2005 to 100% today.<\/p>\n
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Turkcell<\/strong> is the largest mobile operator in Turkey, with 37 million subs. They have been very innovative in the area of mobile advertising and marketing, with their “Tone and Win<\/strong>” service winning this year’s GSMA award for “Best Mobile Advertising Service<\/strong>“. <\/p>\n \n In this interview, Chief Value Added Services Officer Cenk Serdar<\/strong> talks about the Turkish market and why Turkcell has put mobile marketing at the center of their business.<\/p>\n \n \n \n Turkey has the second largest population in Europe, and it is also a very young country. The average age is only 28, and over a quarter of the country is aged 14 or younger. <\/p>\n In general, the Turks love their mobile phones and new mobile services are rapidly adopted. However, although the population is generally tech savvy, many people do not have much disposable available. So in the past, Turkcell has found that it can be difficult to earn much money if they charge for a service.<\/p>\n \n At the end of the 3 months, the promotion finished and the price went to 6 YTL (less than $5). Cenk described the situation, “People knew the service, they had downloaded it, they liked it, they had used it. You would think that someone would be willing to pay for this.”<\/p>\n However, when the promotion ended, Microsoft Messenger users fell from 1.5 million users to 25,000 – a drop of over 98%!<\/p>\n Cenk concludes, “Customers are so price sensitive, there is a huge difference between charging nothing and charging even a couple of dollars.” <\/p>\n \n Cenk believes there are some other fundamental long-term reasons why mobile advertising and marketing will have to become a major business for operators. He points out that the current trend is that everything mobile is moving to broadband, even voice services, and gives the example of the growth of Skype<\/strong> in the mobile space: it has been pre-installed on some 3-UK<\/strong> handsets for awhile, Nokia<\/strong> just announced a deal to include Skype on their handsets, and a Skype application for iPhone<\/strong> was recently released. <\/p>\n So these are the underlying reasons that have driven Turkcell into mobile advertising: the need to offer free or low cost services, and the eventual erosion of other revenue streams. <\/p>\n “A year ago, we started putting mobile advertising and marketing very much at the center of our business. These are the reasons why we put a lot of our energy and resources behind it.”<\/p>\n \n Turkcell’s plan is to launch a lot of innovative services, knowing that some will fly and some will not. You never know ahead of time, so it is important to experiment.<\/p>\n
\nThe Turkish Market: Young and Tech Savvy<\/h3>\n
… and Price Sensitive<\/h3>\n
As an example, Cenk talked about their experience with Microsoft Messenger<\/strong> service. The available target market in Turkey is the 4 million handsets that run Windows Mobile OS. Turkcell did a 3-month, free promotional launch of the service, and within the 3 months had signed up 1.5 million active users. This was cited by Microsoft as one of the fastest launches of messenger anywhere.<\/p>\nEverything Will Be Data<\/h3>\n
“In the long run, customers are not going to be paying for voice separately – it’s all going to be a data package and voice will be included. And actually, the next step beyond that will probably be that the data charges will also be paid by someone else (e.g. paid by a brand through advertising).”<\/p>\n“Tone and Win” (Tonla Kazan)<\/h3>\n
One new service is “Tone and Win<\/strong>“, which takes advantage of one of a mobile operator’s basic assets – a voice call. <\/p>\n
<\/a>This service has been very successful, and Turkcell has great plans for it in the future. “Tone & Win” also recently won the GSMA’s “Best Mobile Advertising Service”<\/strong> award.<\/p>\n
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Turkcell of course never shares individual information, but they will do profiling and targeting to setup a specific target group for a brand, sometimes as small as 5,000 to 10,000 people. And the returns are great, with response rates usually running from 5% up to 25%.<\/p>\n
He cites the example of a real estate development firm that ran an outbound “targeted IVR” campaign (another service offered by Turkcell) and managed to sell 18 apartments worth a total of $5million. The campaign investment was less than $100,000, so it was a very successful effort.<\/p>\n
“When I look ahead, I see lots of opportunity. Instead of people complaining and talking about why mobile marketing doesn’t work, they should come to countries where it really works. There are so many ways to do this if you really understand the customers’ needs, and then combine it with your mobile assets.”<\/p>\n
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