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Among Mobile Marketing Techniques, Text Messaging Most Often Responded to

Some 70% of consumers who have responded to a mobile marketing offer say they’ve responded to a marketing text message - compared with 41% who’ve responded to a survey and 30% to email offers - according to the Direct Marketing Association (DMA).

Some 24% of mobile phone users surveyed online reported having responded to mobile marketing, DMA’s first-ever quantitative research related to mobile marketing found.

Among the other findings:

• One-third (33%) of the group that did not respond to any mobile marketing (76%) reported that they had never received an offer; lack of interest and cost of airtime was cited as the leading reasons by those who haven’t responded to mobile offers.

• 71% of people who respond to mobile offers have data plans.
• 21% of mobile marketing responders indicated that they respond to three or more offers per month.
• Respondents who used AT&T (Cingular) Wireless and T-Mobile were more interested in mobile marketing incentives than respondents who used Verizon Wireless.
• Teens 15-17 years old (19%) and young adults 21-30 years old (19%) are twice as likely to respond to offers on their mobile devices as those 18-20 years old (7%).
• Single (never married) respondents were the most likely of all groups to respond to mobile marketing appeals.
• Overall, higher-income respondents making more than $60,000 per year were more likely to respond to mobile offers.
• Responders to mobile marketing were typically more tech savvy - for example, responders were twice as likely than non-responders to subscribe to internet-based music subscription services.
• Buyers of entertainment/music/video products were the most likely to respond to mobile offers.
• Categories of mobile offers were dominated by entertainment/music/video (44%), followed by…
  • Food/beverage (21%) and telecommunications/mobile (21%)
  • Beauty/personal care (15%)
  • Automotive/transportation, business services, consumer electronics, financial services, and vacation/travel (12% each)
  • Healthcare/pharmaceutical and real estate (7% each)

“These findings suggest that mobile marketing will continue growing into a multibillion-dollar industry as more mobile phone users are enticed by falling prices to purchase data plans and broadband enabled devices,” said Edward T. Manzitti, Ph.D., author of the DMA’s report and VP, Research & Market Intelligence, at DMA.

About the data: The online survey, conducted in March and April 2008, collected data from 800 mobile phone owners. 157 surveys were completed by respondents between 15-20 years old; the remaining 643 surveys were completed by respondents 21 years old and older.