Mobile marketing - Should we be worried?

The evolution in technology has changed the behavior of the society. Remember those old days when we wanted to buy something, we had to drive or walk to the stores to get the items? And now with the technology advances that we have nowadays, shopping has never been easier and convenient! With just some clicks on your phone, you can sit and relax at your home while waiting for your goods to be delivered.

But have you ever wondered about your personal information is being stored at? Your credit card, your address, your name, your license, anything. Is it being deleted straight away after you finish your payment? Is it being stored somewhere else? Is it being used for another purpose?

Well, as the behavior of advertising industry grows and shifting towards e-marketing, consumers are being tracked, profiled, and targeted for direct marketing communications, therefore people are more aware of their privacy and data protection. When you buy with credit cards, the data is sold and bundled with your online browsing data, that is why advertiser on Facebook can target people who only buy specific item.

If a website uses cookies, information is stored in the cookies. There are two cookies; first-party cookies and third-party cookies. First party cookies contain a small amount of text stored in the user's phone, tablet, etc, created by the website the user is currently viewing. Third party cookie are cookies that are set by a website than the one you are currently on and third party advertising website may use that cookie to track your online habits and your data for marketing purposes.

Don't worry! You can prevent identity theft through these steps:

• Shop at reputable website
• Unique password for every website
• Do not publish to much personal information on social media
• Monitor your credit profile
• Be aware of Website that ask for your personal information!
• Update anti-virus software
• Download things from reputable resource

A great video - what you need to know about information security!

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Freemium is not Free

Freemium = Free + Premium

Freemium describes a business model where company give away a core product for free and then generate revenue by selling premium products to a small percentage of free users (Freemium, 2015). The idea is to make customers fall in love with the free version, and once they love it, they are willing to make a purchase for an upgrade version and spread the word about it to others. 

This has become a booming business model, y'all know Candy Crush Saga right? The very popular game that drives everyone crazy.

So, this Candy Crush Sage is the example of freemium model, where you can download the game for free, when it is not "free" actually, you have to pay to unlock some features such as getting more lives, or even pay for an extra moves when you can't solve the game. According to ThinkGaming data, Candy Crush has 6.7 million active users, and the developer has earned $633,000 per day and became the App store's no1. top grossing app. Even myself had spent almost $50 dollar for the game, it was so addicting, that I could not stop playing it anywhere anytime. 

                         

Well, freemium business model can be a quick way to attract customers to download or get your product, moreover the word of mouth can be built quickly, such a smart way without having to pay a lot of money to advertise your product. However, freemium business model can be a bad model if we see from different perspective, from the point of view of gamers, it can be a bad thing as they have to pay to continue playing, when actually they can pay once for a game that would take them forever to play. 

Well, to make freemium works, there are certain ways according to Gold:

1. Educating your customers about the benefits they will get by paying for an upgrade version.

2. Minimize the cost to serve free subscribers

3. Maximize marketing spend efficiency to generate excitement and virality.

4. Fence your paid offers from your free offers in a way that create a compelling free-to-paid migration path.

5. Establish clear, effective calls to action to drive conversion.

So, are you a pro freemium games? If not, why? 

Reference:

https://www.zuora.com/academy/guides/is-freemium-right-business-model/

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