More than half of respondents to the Telecoms.com Intelligence Industry Survey 2013 felt that the most important function of mobile as a marketing channel was for operators’ own relationship marketing. By contrast the use of mobile as a promotional channel for the distribution of third party content was deemed the least important by 43.5 per cent of respondents.

More than half (53.7 per cent) of operator employees surveyed judged mobile as a real differentiator and something in which they should invest heavily. Just under one fifth of them—18.8 per cent—said that they had yet to invest in mobile as a marketing and customer relationship channel but planned to in the future. The remainder said they prefer to outsource this part of their strategy rather than invest in in-house programmes.

Caroline Doussot, head of mobile marketing and advertising at Gemalto, said she was somewhat surprised at these statistics. “Most operators see it as a differentiator and want to invest heavily,” she said. “But stilll almost a third don’t want to manage the process in-house. Ownership of the mobile as a media is a strong weapon for operators in managing the lifecycle of their customers and relationships with them. It’s strange that more than one quarter believe it should be outsourced.”

Doussot argued that, by taking the lead in mobile marketing in their own customer relationship strategy, operators will demonstrate the value of the channel to non-telecoms brands. And respondents to the survey seem to bear this out. Investment in operators’ relationship marketing departments was seen as important by just under half of respondents, very important by a further 28.5 per cent and essential by 14.9 per cent.

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