I’ve seen a lot of entrepreneurs working on new online business ideas who actually had no idea about their target market, not to mention its estimated size. I find this strange, because we always had numbers related to the Internet, as well as the mobile market size in Romania. Yes, segmenting these numbers to the niches that one or another are interested about, it’s a different discussion, but at least the general digital market size is known.

Ionut has recently mentioned the size of the online Romanian market as being 8.3 mil users, citing Google Ad Planner numbers. This is a bit more than 1/3 of the total population of Romania, which was estimated at around 21.5 mil people in 2008, as well as more than the last numbers cited in 2008, which were 7.5 mil Internet users.

In terms of mobile users, the situation is quite different. VoxLine announced recently the ANCOM numbers for Romania and the results are impressive: we have 28.6 mil mobile users, out of which 24.5 mil active sim cards. Of course, we cannot really have more mobile users than population in Romania, thus these numbers are actually attributed to about 16 mil unique mobile users.

Despite the fact that the mobile market is twice the size of the Internet market, mobile marketing in Romania is still in a very incipient stage, even more so as compared to online marketing. The interesting thing is that, despite the numbers showing quite a significant Internet and mobile market in Romania, advertisers are still reluctant to move some of their advertising budgets on these channels, although they are better performers than the traditional media channels (more measurable, thus better ROI).

Just think about how you are startled every time your mobile phone rings or vibrates. We almost always rush to pick up the phone and check out who has contacted us, be it via voice call, SMS, MMS or e-mail. There is no other medium that has such a powerful customer journey interruption, and maybe this is also one of the reasons while mobile marketing is so sensitive.

Anyways, the idea is that these media channels are here, are measurable, are reachable, perform well and are all yours to take advantage of. Some of your competitors have already taken advantage, and thus you should be at least considering these channels for your marketing budget. If I were to talk about the automotive market, I can tell you Jaguar has been the first automotive company targeting me via an MMS.

“The Nokia N97 is an important step towards our vision of delivering a highly personalized Internet experience,” said Jonas Geust, Vice President and head of Nokia Nseries. “Fuelled by a multitude of music, maps, games, media and applications via Ovi, the Nokia N97 transforms the Internet into an experience that’s completely tailored to the tastes and interests of its owner.” (source: Nokia.com)

Although a lot of the features announced in the press release have been worded as innovative, most of the applications mentioned have traditionally been available on previous smart phone series, such as E or N series. However, the tech specs of the phone do provide a step forward in terms of features available for the Nokia users, with 32GB of device storage, expandable to 48GB with the addition of a micro SD card, as well as the new bluetooth stereo headset also launched today.

Although not that spectacular technological breakthrough, the N97 smart phone does appear to be an attractive upgrade option for Nokia E and N series users. I would personally buy the phone to replace my Nokia E71 if the price would prove to not be prohibitive (in Europe, estimated market price for the Nokia N97 is somewhere around 500 Euro).

To get a glimpse of the looks of the new product, check these images taken from the Nokia N97 press page:

For more information about the Nokia N97, check these resources:

Nokia N97 Press Release: http://www.nokia.com/A4136001?newsid=1319081
The Nokia N97 press page: http://www.nokia.com/press/n97
A full list of Nokia N97 features: http://2009.nseries.com/

Realitatea.NET Launches Realitatea.MOBI

Realitatea.NET, the leading quality news portal in Romania, has launched today Realitatea.MOBI, the new and revamped version of the website’s mobile portal. If you want to be instantly connected to all the relevant news and information, you can access realitatea.mobi from wherever you are, by simply using your mobile phone.

The new mobile website offers the ability to follow news stories, the comments written by the website readers, but it also allows you to write your own comment directly from your mobile phone.

The new realitatea.mobi also offers you interactive multimedia experience, by offering you the ability to read the news stories that are important for you, but also view photos and videos attached to them. On top of it, if you have been the witness of an event and have recorded it with your mobile phone, you can send your own story (text, image and video) through the Eye Witness service directly from your mobile phone.

The gap between consumer behavior and marketing spending is quite big at the moment, a lof of advertising clients spending the bulks of their budgets on TV and print advertising, simply because that’s how it was done before and it’s deep within their comfort zones. On the other side, consumers spend most of their time on the Internet and on the radio, areas that receive the smallest percentage of advertising spending.

While one of the main arguments of traditional media is that the results are actually measurable, what most clients and even agencies don’t grasp yet is that online or mobile media are actually much more measurable, targetable and profitable as well. On top of this, these media are also the most interactive ones as well.

While mobile marketing is stil in its infancy, the reasons why both marketing clients and agencies should jump on its bandwagon are quite obvious: 90% of the customers are where their mobile phone is; targetting can be done 100% effectively, 100% geographically and even 99% behaviorally (with the ability to control the moment in time and space when the message will be delivered, based on the customer’s state of mind) and there is enough information available to correctly measure results.

However, the mobile marketing is not the universal answer to client marketing neeeds. The whole idea is to create an integrated communication campaign in which to use all available media there where they are most effective, based on who the customer is, in what context he is and in what state of mind he is when he receives your message.

One of the most important issue of creating an effective communication message is to grab your customer’s attention. With mobile marketing this issue is automagically solved. We’re still startled when we hear our mobile buzzing or when we feel it vibrating. Right at that moment, you’ve got our undivided attention and it’s up to the message to push it to the next level.

One of the other advantages of mobile marketing is that research and data is easily collectable, since mobile operators have full customer data, ranging from geographical location at a specific point in time and the type of terminal that the customer is using to detailed behavioral information based on customer’s mobile buying and usage behavior.

In Romania, studies have shown that the customers are more attracted to interactive and colloquial messages rather than informative and professional (serious) messages. For them, lifestyle is extremely important and they highly relate to their peers in terms of coolness. While still reluctant to receiving mobile advertising (adults 26-35 more than youth 18-25), customers in Romania would accept it if it would bring them immediate material benefits.

Another interesting aspect of mobile marketing is its viral potential. It takes a simple action to forward an SMS/MMS to a large list of your friends if that message is funny enough that you want them to read it as well. Studies also showed that entertainment is the most sought after type of information that the mobile users are interested in.

Overall, the event was extremely interesting, I’ve learned a lot of things and I thank Manafu for the great events he’s staging in the Romanian marketing community. Kudos for Manafu also for his new communication agency that he announced yesterday as well: Prodigy.