CHAPTER TWO OF "THE EFFECT OF MOBILE MARKETING ON CUSTOMERS' SATISFACTION

  

LITERATURE REVIEW AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK

2.1  Introduction

This section is divided into; conceptual issues, theoretical literature and empirical findings. Also, the views of different authors in relation to mobile marketing, marketing mix, customers’ satisfaction etc. are discussed. The theoretical literature looks at the theories of mobile service adoption and consumer behaviour theories. Empirical findings look at the results of previous works of effects of mobile marketing on customers’ satisfaction and attitude of customers towards mobile advertising and marketing.

2.2  The Concept of Mobile Marketing

The review of the mobile marketing literature has shown that practitioners and academics have proposed numerous definitions of mobile marketing, but a common agreement on its definition is still lacking. Mobile Marketing Association (2005) has suggested that “mobile marketing is any form of marketing, advertising or sales promotion activity aimed at consumers and conducted over a mobile channel”.   Scharl, Dickinger and Murphy (2005) defined mobile marketing as using a wireless medium to provide customers with time- and location-sensitive, personalized information that promotes products, services and ideas, thereby benefiting all stakeholders.

Also, according to Advertising age (2006), mobile marketing is defined as “the use of wireless media as an integrated content delivery and direct-response vehicle within a cross-media marketing communications program”.  Leppäniemi et al. (2006), mobile marketing is the use of the mobile medium as a means of marketing communications.

Mobile marketing or wireless marketing is a subset of electronic-marketing and is defined by Dickinger, Murphy and Scharl (2004) as “using a wireless medium to provide customers with time and- location-sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas, thereby benefiting all stakeholders”. Mobile marketing can also be seen as: “All activities required to communicate with customers through the use of mobile devices in order to promote the selling of products or services and the provision of information about these products and services” (Ververidis and Polyzos, 2002).  

The Mobile Marketing Association (MMA, 2009) stated that the core of the definition of mobile marketing must consists of at least two parts. The first part is “set of practices” including “activities, institutions, processes, industry players, standards, advertising and media, direct response, promotions, relationship management, CRM, customer services, satisfaction/loyalty, social marketing, and all the many faces and facets of marketing.”

The second part is to “engage” which means to “start relationships, acquire, generate activity,  stimulate social interaction with organization and community members, and be present at time of consumers expressed need” (MMA, 2009). According to Becker and Arnold (2010), mobile marketing is “a set of practices that enable organizations to communicate and engage with their audience in an interactive and relevant manner through any mobile device.”

An assessment of the various definitions above indicates that the attractiveness of mobile marketing lies in its potential to target customers or consumers in a specific content as identified by Barnes (2002) and Muk (2007). In this regard Sultan and Rohm (2005) suggest that mobile devices allow marketers to deliver personalized, context and location based messages to a specific target audience.

2.3   Characteristics of Mobile Phone Device as a Marketing Tool

The mobile phone as a marketing medium provides a wide range of opportunities to organizations, marketing service providers and mobile operators Clarke, (2001). Mobile devices, as a new channel for marketing communication, have many new features and opportunities in comparison with the traditional media Karjaluoto, Leppäniemi, and Salo, (2004).

Compared with desktop computers, mobile phone device have the following characteristics as identified by Barnes, (2002) and Kannan Chang and Whinston (2001).

Ubiquitous availability: Ubiquity is a primary advantage of the mobile device. It refers to the ability of users to receive information and perform transactions wherever they are and whenever they want Clarke, (2001).

Personal usage: Handheld devices often carry the users identity and are often used in the personal context. The mobile phone is highly personal, rarely used by anyone except its owner Bauer et al., (2005). It is also equipped with a SIM (subscriber identification module) card that can store personal information and identity (Junglas and Watson, 2003). The mobile medium becomes more personal when it contains important information, such as contacts and messages (Bauer et al., 2005).

Two-way communication: Two-way communication is another feature that substantiates the potential of mobile devices in marketing. Mobile devices allow for greater two-way communication than any other tool because of their “always on” connectivity Schierholz, Kolbe and Brenner, (2007).

Localisation: Localisation refers to the ability to identify the geographical position of a mobile user by locating the mobile device (Clarke, 2001). This feature has been made possible through various location-based technologies, lead by GPS (global positioning system) Bruner and Kumar, (2007).

Certain technological tools have been identified to facilitate mobile marketing. These mobile marketing tools consists of SMS, WAP, MMS, as identified by  Grant and  O’Donohoe (2007); Xu (2006) and  Muk (2007). These mobile marketing tools are discussed below:

Short Message Service (SMS): is a digital cellular network feature, which allows users to send and receive short text and numeric messages to and from digital cell-phones over the Internet using e-mail and mobile phones based on public messaging gateways Iddris, (2006). Users can send plain-text messages to another mobile user by using the SMS protocol. This will in effect facilitate viral marketing where the recipient of the advertising decides to send it onward to his or her friends Iddris, (2006).

Wireless application protocol (WAP): is a technology that offers Internet browsing from wireless devices Turban and King, (2003). WAP can thus be used as a channel of information between Internet and mobile devices. WAP enable the user to access e-mail, the latest news, sports and other events, irrespective of location or time (Iddris, 2006).

Multimedia Messaging Services (MMS): like most messaging, is person-to-person communication, with user-created content  Xu, (2006). Based on the SMS, the ability of MMS adds pictures and sounds.

For complete academic research materials, visit www.researchshelf.com and note also that our mobile app will soon be launched where you can download it and view all our academic research materials including past questions and answers, assignments, e-books etc..