Something that has been close to my heart ever since I can remember is education. It’s a boring subject for most, but if you’re reading this, chances are that you’ve completed high school and some form of tertiary education. You have an opinion and on top of that, one that matters. Regardless of whether your 18 or 80, you will acknowledge the importance of education.

As well as the startling realisation that we, the graduates, are some of the selected few to have been granted with that luxury. Motivation and ambition are arguably two of the core factors that got us to where we are today. Many of us had the support structures from parents, siblings or guardians. Some of us are not that lucky though.

We all have one thing in common though, sporting heroes. Whether it is John Smit, Ashwell Prince or current Olympic silver medalist, Khotso Mokoena. They all have an unmatched ability to motivate.

Add a mobile phone and an innovative and passionate drive for education and you get www.boostup.org. The only pity is that it’s a US based model. But let’s hypothesize for a second here.

The function of boostup.org is to offer a “Wake-Up Call” mobile marketing program that motivates teens to get up and go to school.

It features free ringtones and motivational wake-up call messages from celebrities and sporting heroes. A hypothetical example of such a wake-up call message would be:

“I’m Khotso Mokoena. I’ve been a long jumper for the past four years. I made the SA Olympic Team in ‘08. I won a silver medal at my first Olympic Games. But before all that, I had to wake up, get out of bed, and go to school. Maybe you should, too.”

This is a straight forward, no frills marketing campaign aimed at the youth. Something I’m sure will interest many people that are pro-actively campaigning for education of the youth.

Of course, the million dollar question always remains…will I make money from it? My answer is simple. There’s commercial potential in any campaign. If the strategy is correct, the cause is worthy, the money is bound to come.

Post inspired by: MobileMarketingWatch

Here’s a funny entry to highlight the difference between marketing a mere 8 years ago and today. Marketing around the Olympic Games used to be a like a 100m cakewalk. You pay a gazillion dollars to the Olympic Committee and then another gazillion to show off your products on television and print.

Of course, that was only the Coca Cola’s of this world who managed to do it, while the rest of the smaller business world were left salivating like Pavlov’s dog. Eight years on and Beijing 2008 rolls by and we can already see the effect mobile communication has.

Even Coca Cola realized this and were one of the many companies to introduce mobile advertising and marketing to create awareness of their product around the Games. Their method: A simple Bluetooth connection in thousands of locations in around the Olympic stadium, focusing on the youth market and delivering video commercials directly to Bluetooth enabled handsets.

NBC who were gifted the sole rights to broadcast the Olympics in the US have pretty much covered all bases of mobile communications. “Consumers”, as we marketers tend to call normal people, have an array of mobile alerts programmes to choose from. Among these are daily news alerts, real-time information, and breaking news, to athlete alerts, medal results, event reminders, video highlights and a photo of the day- categorized by sports category. This is profound and guaranteed to drive advertising revenue through the roof.

The fact is people, a mere 8 million consumers will pass through Beijing alone during the Olympic Games and it is estimated that each person would be confronted with about 3000 advertising exposures per day! This is not even mentioning the television and radio commercials. This leaves mobile marketing, a channel that is purely permission based, for companies to secure loyalty and dedicated brand exposures to their consumers.

There’s certain opportunities that come along every once in a while that positions businesses to maximize their advertising spend and show greater return on brand exposure and consumer loyalty. The FIFA Soccer World Cup hosted by South Africa in 2010 and the London Games in 2012 among the obvious.

Where previously, smaller businesses where left out in the cold due to the extreme nature of advertising price hikes, most of them could simply stand on the side and watch in vain. Today however, a combination of the internet and mobile communications has opened a world of opportunities for these companies to engage with their target markets without employing bank breaking budgets to do so.

Digital marketing has leveled the playing ground, resulting in a more competitive market where the smartest and often the simplest from of marketing would succeed. Gone are the days when your marketing budget determined your success.

This should be an eye opener to businesses all over. What they do with this information will determine their fate.

Some marketers spend a lot of their time dreaming up the perfect campaigns. I would know. I’m one of them. Just yesterday, I ran through 4 folios working on a mobile campaign for a client of mine. The longer I continued, the more I realized I’m onto something magical.

I had the campaign developed and set onto my testing ways. It worked brilliantly, but it took the “consumer” 10 minutes to finish and forced numerous text replies. It was evident that the campaign had failed before it even started.

I was gutted. Not because of the failed campaign. But because time and again I seem to forget the golden rule of effective marketing: Keeping it simple.

At a party the other night a friend of mine wanted to share a marketing idea with me. My friend is in construction, a project manager, someone more likely to overspend on budgets than devising marketing strategies. Needless to say, I was curious to hear what a “non-qualified” could come up with.

Vehicle dealerships tend to issue courtesy cars when your vehicle is in for a service. It’s good practice and certainly goes a long way in after sales service delivery. (I pity those who don’t)

What they manage to do, unintentionally I’m sure, is to remind you just how magnificent your own vehicle is when you return their no bells and whistles entry level mass production model.

That is the idea right? Well, is it? What if they issue you with a same model demo as your car, but with a higher spec? Just how special is your own vehicle now? Just how agonizingly short are you from your perfect car? How much would you be looking forward to trading in your own vehicle for the latest in the range?

I absolutely refuse to test drive any vehicle in a higher spec margin than the one I’m contemplating buying. The reason therefore is obvious. I’d hate to know what I’m missing out on by not spending that extra ten grand or so.

The problem with progressive marketing like this of course is the abundance of reasons we’d be given from businesses as to why this approach will not be viable. Because we as businessmen and women are programmed to assume that complexity is the measurement of success, where I’m sure that the average consumer would be reluctant, yet unanimous in agreement that driving a higher spec vehicle during service intervals will mess with their minds.

I have a new found respect for my friend. Not because of his brilliant mind, but for reminding me that marketing is about my customers.

I know people that could well have been surgically attached to their mobile phones. These people hardly ever miss a call, regardless of who is calling, their phones often don’t even have the opportunity to complete the text message alert or the text has been read and replied to.

I have categorically positioned these people on my high potential mobile marketing list. Come hell, high water, divorce, dinner or speed traps, a beep from their phones creates an instant extrasensory reaction from these people.

What I’ve found from my close observation of these people is that they seem somewhat more prone to responding to marketing material, signing up for various services and are more often than not seemingly oblivious to fine print.

The amounts of time I have been asked why their phone bill accumulates unknown deductions each month is countless. They are soft targets, for want of a better phrase.

What I’ve gathered from my informal research is that these consumers have quite similar character traits among them.

1. They are predominantly female.
2. They are younger, typically youths and young executives.
3. They are creative people, communicative and generally the social type.
4. They are risk takers. It seems that women are more likely to take risks than men. Invaluable to the business world in my opinion.
5. They are better at time management, are more organized and also more impulsive.
6. They are better listeners and would allow you more time to conduct your message than men. Therefore, if it’s attention you’re after, women are more lenient.

Marketers sometimes have difficulty identifying target audiences. Generally, you may find that they portray marketing messages to men if the product in question is targeted at men. Similarly, I have spoken to numerous people that simply cannot comprehend marketing to youths. More often than not, their reason for it is that youths don’t have spending capacity.

They possibly don’t have spending capacity, but the power to influence should not be disregarded.

Women and youths are perfect digital marketing target audiences, especially in the mobile field. If the message is correctly conveyed, timeously delivered and properly addressed, the returns should be greater, regardless of the product.

In Cape Town there are 7 men to every woman according to popular statistics, but in the world, there are probably 7 women to every male that would consider marketing and advertising messages.

I believe a smart marketers should fancy their chances.