If I have to be honest, in mobile marketing technology providers space, End to End is the most frivolously and inaccurately used phrase! Every player who has the capability to send a message calls themselves an End to End mobile marketing technology provider. But we have to understand that mobile campaign management is neither about sending the message, nor about the channel of communication! It is about engaging the customer and driving them towards desired behavior. Only technologies which have comprehensive features that engage subscribers and make them respond to the marketers call to action are truly End to End
A real End to End mobile marketing technology does the following
Captures every data that is available and make it relevant for marketer Enables marketers to drill down into the data in every conceivable way
Enables marketer to run multiple types of campaigns Inbound, Outbound and Interactive
Enables Marketer to utilize suitable delivery channels for each push, pull or on-trigger campaign
Provides multiple channels to reach out to subscribers and personalizes the interaction based on channel of affinity, Preference of language, Time of day.
Provides clear visibility to marketers on the campaign progress in real-time
Tracks subscriber performance in real-time.
Ability to perform fulfillment on every system in operators domain and 3rd party in real-time
Measures success of campaign performance most accurately & has all requisite models for that
Provides comprehensive reports to every role on the campaign performance
Controls the marketing communication by enforcing communication policy strictly
Flexibility to configure different users with different roles to perform different tasks like authorization, capacity utilization etc.
Provides a highly usable interface, because marketing, ultimately is not a technical function
Today, we are seeing a lot of players in mobile operator domain entering the mobile campaign management for various reasons, but how many of them are successful in transforming operators marketing processes? Ultimately the technology should be focusing towards achieving specific objectives and optimized towards operator marketing processes.
Mobile operator domain is highly technical because of the nature of their business. As such, we see lot of technology vendors vying to provide various types of services like Billing Technology, Network Equipment, Messaging Gateways, VAS service providers, SDP platform vendors etc. Each of these vendors has some capability that is in some way associated with sending a message to the consumer! Or drill down into operator data Therefore, sometimes deliberately and sometimes inadvertently they end up getting classified as End to End Mobile Campaign Management solution provider.
For example:
A VAS vendor that provides pre-call inserts calls themselves a mobile campaign management solution provider,
A messaging gateway provider which has interface for sending bulk messages calls themselves the same,
A retail loyalty solution provider adds up an few mobile channel connectors and claims end to end features
A BI system vendor with e-mail campaign management adds up an bulk SMS module and calls themselves end to end campaign management solution provider!
Mobile is a highly personal medium to reach out to subscribers and ad-hoc systems custom made and not purpose built for mobile campaign management will ultimately spoil the relationship operator has with the subscriber. Mobile operators have to be cautious in terms of selecting a mobile campaign management technology and should distinguish between a true End to End technology and the one that isnt.