VietNamNet Bridge – The increasingly high number of mobile devices in use and the rapid setback of the traditional marketing methods have both paved the way for the development of mobile marketing.

According to Nguyen Hoang Hai, Head of the Business Division of VinaPhone’s Added Value Service Center, Vietnamese businesses have realized the importance of mobile marketing in their business plans, while mobile network operators have been aware of the increasingly high number of clients, who can bring fat profits to them.

A report showed that the number of mobile subscribers in Vietnam is equal to 150 percent of the population. Mobile devices, in the era of technology convergence, has become an inseparable thing of people.

“Therefore, mobile marketing services, especially SMS marketing service with the low costs, obviously is an effective solution for businesses which want to cut down expenses in the context of economic recession,” Hai said.

And SMS marketing has become the new “bread earner” for mobile network operators when they target the business clients.

VinaPhone, one of the 3 biggest mobile network operators in Vietnam, said 120 enterprises operating in different fields of the national economy are now the clients of the network, using SMS Marketing service.

However, VinaPhone still thinks that the number of clients is still too modest, if noting that there are 600,000 businesses in the national economy. “This means that many enterprises still cannot access the new marketing method,” an executive of VinaPhone said.

The representative of MobiFone, also a big network operator, has said MobiFone is developing the mobile marketing system and that it plans to provide the services in 2013.

“Since it’s an effective marketing method, this would be the tendency in the future, “ he said. Not only helping advertise enterprises’ products, mobile marketing also can help classify consumers and measure the advertisement effective more exactly than other traditional marketing channels.

Especially, mobile marketing is the way that allows businesses bring information to targeted customers at the lowest possible costs.

Buu Dien newspaper has quoted the lately released report of InMobi as showing that 75 percent of surveyed people receive much information about new products via their mobile devices.

InMobi’s survey was conducted on 15,000 mobile phone users in many countries. 59 percent of people, who surf on the Internet with mobile devices would easily accept the mobile ads like they accept the ads on TV or Internet.

Worries have been raised that SMS marketing would make the spam messaging more serious. However, mobile network operators have denied this, saying that under the Decree No. 77, the ad service providers can only send ad messages if this is accepted by mobile phone subscribers.

“Since March 1, 2013, we have been providing SMS marketing to the subscribers who register to receive ad messages,” an executive of MobiFone said.

According to the VNCERT, the Vietnam Computer Emergency Rescue Team, tens of billions of ad messages are delivered every year, which accounts for 10 percent of the total number of messages, while the number of legal ad messages sent from the content service firms just accounts for 3 percent.

A survey has found that manufacturers use messages to attract 95 percent of mobile phone users, while 90 percent of messages are read within 3 minutes after they are successfully delivered. About 16 percent of smart phone users buy products because of receiving SMS marketing.

Compiled by Thu Uyen