Be Smart with Your Prepay Mart
Two important trends in the telecommunications market cannot be overlooked: the penetration of Smartphone and the fact that prepaid customers outnumbered postpaid customers in 2010. True, these two trends seem completely unrelated. Yet, the combination of both trends may have a significant effect on service providers’ revenues and marketing strategy.
According to Gartner research, by end of 2012 over 75% of enterprise mobile users will have a Smartphone, driven by low service costs (Gartner Hype Cycle for Wireless Devices, Software and Services, 2010). Frost and Sullivan, ICT Practice supports this by claiming that Asia Pacific will be driven by price decline and application richness, with Smartphones expected to be mass marketed by 2015 and account for 60% of mobile sub base in Asia Pacific.
Add to this rapid growth the remarkable pace of technology adoption. Today’s coolest device becomes old fashioned in about six months. This makes the whole “exclusive” positioning of Smartphones very short lived. If iPhones and various Smartphone devices used to be perceived as luxurious items, today this socio-economical-mobile-device segmentation seems irrelevant. Welcome to the prepaid world.
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| Leave a Comment September 27th, 2010
Prepaid Customer: What you do is who you are
Anonymity is probably one of the most frustrating factors for marketers servicing the prepaid market. A Prepaid customer purchases a SIM card in a kiosk, leaving behind no trace of identity – unknowingly preventing any segmentation of core services. You cannot maintain an ongoing relationship with the customer – an essential component for building loyalty and for identifying opportunities to increase share of wallet.
| Leave a Comment September 5th, 2010
The Pain in Spain: Fake SIM Activation
Spain has one of the largest mobile markets in Europe, with effective competition from four mobile network operators and a growing number of resellers. The economic crisis, combined with new EU regulations and the fierce competition has driven down the cost of mobile calls by 35% since 2005. As if that’s not enough, the Spanish prepaid mobile market has encountered another challenge which seriously affected ARPU. Fake SIM activations, also known as “revolving doors”, have recently hit Spain, significantly impacting operators’ revenue. Some users activate a new card due to the loss of an old SIM, but others take advantage of an attractive acquisition offer (e.g. free airtime, subsidized handset…). In such a case, the old SIM remains dormant and in due time is considered a churned customer.How can operators handle such a phenomenon? How can they identify and differentiate between the different kinds of SIM activations, and more importantly – how can they be prevented? Read more
| Leave a Comment July 20th, 2010
Russia the Freedom of Choice: Multi SIM Ownership Drives Churn and Decreases ARPU
Russia has the largest mobile market in Central and Eastern Europe and is continuously growing. At the end of May 2009 the total number of subscribers reached 194.7 millions, with customers being wooed by three major service providers (MTS, VimpelCom and MegaFon). Competition has further intensified with the growing penetration of multiple SIM ownership. As the majority of handsets are not purchased through the operators but rather from independent stores, Russian mobile operators could not lock handsets to their networks, and consequently customers can benefit from different operators’ SIMs on a daily basis. Read more
| Leave a Comment July 20th, 2010
Segmentation vs. Behavioral Life Cycle Management:Getting the most of Your Marketing Efforts
The saturation levels of mobile markets and the low exit barriers for customers have caused many operators to shift the weight of their marketing efforts from new customer acquisition to customer retention. As part of this trend, operators are investing lots of funds on sophisticated customer segmentation solutions. Yet, are these segmentation efforts really delivering the desired results? Are common proactive marketing practices, based on traditional segmentation succeeding to increase customer loyalty and profitability?
| Leave a Comment February 12th, 2009
It’s All About the Offer
Alon Werber, VP, Marketing and Business Development at Pontis, offers advice to network operators on successfully cross-selling and up-selling to their customers
The battle to win the hearts and minds of the mobile user is bringing new challenges, but also huge opportunities for operators. In addition to rapid churn rates and high customer acquisition costs, marketers are faced with an economic downturn, therefore it is essential that marketers use the tools available to maintain customer loyalty and retention, whilst maximising ARPU.
The key to building relationships is to present consumers with services and offers, which meet their requirements, at the right time. Essentially the key is thinking ‘What’s next?’ Instead of predicting users’ wants, operators must adopt a system which acknowledges a response, or lack of, and keeps the dialogue open, whilst executing offers in real-time. Gartner forecasts that within three to five years, up-sell, where you offer a higher priced version of the product; and cross-sell, where you offer a related product, will soar. So how can marketers implement these to ensure return on investment?
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