Title: Mobile marketing in Indian retail: a preliminary investigation of relationship and promotional endeavours through Short Message Service

Authors: Arpita Khare; Sapna Rakesh

Addresses: Indian Institute of Management – Rohtak, Maharishi Dayanand University, Rohtak 124001, Haryana, India. ' Institute of Technology and Science, Mohanagar, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh, India

Abstract: Mobile marketing entails reaching customers through voice, Multimedia Services (MMS) and Short Message Services (SMSs) for various promotion-related objectives. Mobile networks and technologies removed the barriers of time and distance, and made marketing ubiquitous, flexible and personalised. This research explores Indian customers' perception towards mobile marketing, through SMSs, undertaken by companies. The perception of Indian customers towards the mobile marketing strategies of companies was segregated into relationship, promotion, shopping efforts and the inconvenience attributes. Correlation, ANCOVA and Multiple Regression tests were used to analyse the data. The results reveal that there exists a positive relationship between the four attributes of mobile marketing. Customers' attitude towards mobile marketing is affected by promotions, however, over usage of this media makes people consider it inconvenient. For mobile marketing to be successful, the inconvenience dimension has to be balanced while designing SMS-based marketing strategies.

Keywords: mobile marketing; m-marketing; SMS; short messaging service; customer relationship; promotions; India; retail industry; customer perceptions; shopping efforts; inconvenience; marketing strategies.

DOI: 10.1504/IJBCG.2012.046285

International Journal of Business Competition and Growth, 2012 Vol.2 No.2, pp.110 - 128

Published online: 15 Nov 2014 *

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