Mobile Marketing

A survey of 1,600 women on mobile phones has essentially given mobile shopping  applications a thumbs up. But what does this survey really mean? The numbers look impressive but they need to be taken in context, more about that later. The survey done by miBuys discovered that the vast majority of these women are open to more mobile marketing and shopping. The survey showed how mobile our internet surfing is becoming, 94% of these women said that they use their phone to surf even when they are at home and may have access to a PC or laptop. Some other interesting figures that came out of this survey include;

• 85% of them access Facebook, Twitter or similar Social Media sites via mobile phone
• 84% have noticed mobile marketing, and 57% have clicked on mobile advertising
• 67% are interested in receiving mobile coupons or vouchers
• 72% often do things on spur of the moment
• 73% often treat themselves to things they don’t need
• 93% are always on the look-out for special offers

A Targeted Mobile Marketing Audience

This survey does paint a very rosey picture for mobile shopping applications and mobile advertising but I must frame these numbers with a word of caution, you must consider the source. First, the survey was done by miBuys – a company that provides mobile advertising services. I’m not saying I don’t believe their information, but clearly they benefit from positive results which could create biases in how questions are framed. More importantly, the 1,600 women in the survey were women that responded to the survey via their mobile phones ONLY. Clearly this means the survey is made up of women on the highest end of the technology scale who would definitely respond more favourably to questions about mobile shopping applications.

These surveys results were reported on by the highly respected social media blogger “Mashable” with the headline “What a Girl Wants: More Mobile Shopping, Survey Says”. No mention was made of the clear bias of the survey, the figures were presented in such a way that a casual observer would conclude that these statistics were a reflection of ALL women that have mobile phones. As a statistics major I am always looking for good numbers. But I’m also always looking for biases, making sure the numbers are true and accurate. There is no question that Mobile applications are the future, and for some specific markets you might even say they are the present. Clearly mobile shopping is in the early adoptor stage of development and for most companies there are other internet marketing initiatives that are a better investment today.