Mobile marketing: building blocks for mobile content marketing to add value and relevance for mobile users

Abstract

Optimal communication with a target audience from a mobile platform remains elusive, particularly as a result of evolving phone technology and users’ privacy concerns. Since it is standard practice now for consumers to access the internet via mobile phones, messages should not address a general audience but unobtrusively blend with the individual user’s daily life. While many mobile marketers rely on the “push” technique through mobile messaging, various studies indicate that pushing messages is not always efficient and can alienate mobile users who prefer unique forms of brand-related engagement. The view informing this article is that barriers hampering mobile marketing such as perceived untrustworthiness, irrelevance and low value could be eliminated through mobile content marketing, and in particular through unobtrusive pulling techniques using patrons as proposed in Kaplan’s (2012) classification. Based on the results of a directed qualitative content analysis of industry white papers on mobile marketing, this study is centred on a proposition that a content marketing approach should be promoted for mobile marketing communication.