Never too old
Saturday, 31 July 2004

Marketing Direct - Mobile marketing isn’t just for techno-friendly teens. SMS is being used to target older age groups. 

Think mobile phones and it’s pretty difficult not to see them as associated with anyone else but the youth. Seventy-five per cent of Britons over the age of 15 have a mobile phone, but ownership continues to be greatest among the 15-24 age group. Penetration here is a massive 88 per cent, according to recent statistics from Oftel, with no likelihood of it declining.

Yet what’s seldom reported is that it’s actually among the older age groups that mobile phone ownership is growing the fastest. Between 2001 and 2003, the percentage of 55-64 year olds owning a mobile grew from 59 per cent to 70 per cent. In the next age group, 65-74, ownership increased by 12 per cent to 53 per cent, in the same period. Even the over-75s are getting in on the act. Here, ownership grew from 13 per cent in 2001 to 24 per cent in 2003.

Statistics such as these show that marketers ignore the over 40s at their peril. Surely, the case for marketers to extend the use of SMS campaigns has never been greater - or has it? While it’s true that ownership is greater in the youth market, Peter Larsen, managing director of Enpocket, believes this perception is also partly down to how agencies present SMS to clients, often promoting it as a youth marketing tool.

He argues that marketers shouldn’t be put off employing it because older age groups use it less than others: "Of course, SMS frequency drops off when you get older, but older age groups are more likely to use it as a medium for information, such as delivery times and alerts. Companies are expanding from acquisition activity to using it to increase customer care, and to cut costs."

Mobile becomes mainstream
And through this type of service, consumers are warming to SMS. "In older age groups, there’s increasing familiarity and comfort with text, and also interfacing with brands using mobile," says Martin Copus, managing director of 12snap.

As marketers increasingly cotton on to this, more sectors are coming into mobile marketing. "SMS is growing in more traditional sectors, such as pharmaceutical companies, banks and utilities," explains Adam Mangan, sales manager of Xpedite. "They’re not necessarily using it for marketing as such, but to provide extra services."

Mobile marketing agency Mindmatics has found that this is often how new sectors enter the arena. "Companies are often brought into the market by indirect means," says managing director Anders Hakfelt. "A company develops an application such as an alert service or appointment reminder, and brings it to a niche audience such as estate agents or doctors."

Mobile agency Flytxt has discovered this too. "You get more interactive dialogue with the under-30s, but over-30s want more value-based communications," says founder and chairman Lars Becker. "They want good information and offers, but won’t necessarily reply to texts."

Organisation tool
For many consumers, it’s the convenience factor of SMS that appeals. "Mobile has become a convenient way for older people to organise their lives," says Sue Parker, executive director of Mkodo. "They can do things, such as book a car service, when it’s a good time for them."

These differences can reap rewards for those who act upon them, as some of the newer sectors to mobile marketing are finding. Pharmaceutical firm Novartis launched its Pollen-Count Alert text message service last summer through Flytxt to support its Aller-eze nasal spray and eye-drops products for hayfever. It invited consumers to sign up to an alert service that would send them personalised pollen count information, based on their location, and tips on how to manage their hayfever.

But while outbound campaigns are providing many brands with a way of offering customers value-added services and marketing targeted promotions, this isn’t exclusively how SMS is being used with older audiences. They also respond well to competitions.

Wireless Information Network (WIN) works with the Evening Standard, where much of the activity centres on competitions and most of the entrants are older, says Peter Norman, commercial director of WIN. "The paper is marketing regularly to a database of about 110,000," he says. "If you can enter a competition then and there via your phone, it’s convenient."

Similarly, 12snap ran a month-long ‘txt ‘n’ win’ campaign for Safeway last year. It was advertised in-store, and offered shoppers the chance to win the value of their shopping basket.

Building databases
"The insight was that Middle England housewives would be very interested in winning this," explains Copus. It worked as a simple lucky draw, with the option to opt-in for further promotions. "It was very successful; Safeway established a large customer database."

Mkodo has been involved in similar activity. "If someone has entered competitions by other means before, they’ll use SMS now," says Parker. She cites a campaign Mkodo ran with a women’s magazine. "Readers would normally post entries or email them in. We ran the email and text entry route and text outweighed everything else by 4:1."

But in terms of how you communicate messages, there are clear rules when it comes to older audiences. Mindmatics recently conducted research into how different age groups felt about mobile marketing, which threw up some important observations.

"There’s a higher level of suspicion and a greater potential for texts to become annoying the older you get," says Hakfelt. "Older adults are also busy so it’s about being timely as well as relevant content-wise. You don’t want marketing messages when you’re in a meeting or at home with the family."

This makes it even more vital to be upfront. "Everything has to be opt in," says Parker, "but you should also let people know how often you’re going to communicate with them. They must know what they’re likely to receive."

The wording of messages is also important if a campaign is to appeal to older audiences. "It comes down to common sense," says Norman. "If you’re addressing a young audience, using text language is entirely appropriate. With an older group, it isn’t."

While there’s no question that mobile marketing can be a valid channel for targeting older customers, perhaps the real test is how it performs against other direct channels. "How does SMS compare with a postcard or press ad as a reply mechanism? As long as it performs better than they do, it’s worth considering," says Becker.

Now it’s up to brands to try it out.

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