Mobile Network Operators (MNOs) are facing a challenging climate. It’s a saturated market with increasing competition and decreasing customer loyalty. And that means they must leverage new revenue streams and provide value-added services to achieve profit targets.
The old model: Cross-selling and up-selling
MNOs’ most valuable asset is their customer base. Not only is it cheaper to retain an existing customer than attract a new one, but existing subscribers are a captive audience you can cross- and up-sell to.
Of course, cross-selling and up-selling are not new ways of selling – MNOs are well-versed in promoting upgrades, add-ons and accessories, but they offer diminishing returns. When you combine this with 3.6 million customers swapping provider every year, MNOs need to look beyond traditional cross- and up-sell opportunities.
The future model: Brand partnerships that monetise data and offer new services
If price isn’t enough to stand out and cross-selling doesn’t bring in the same profits – MNOs have a truly valuable option. And that’s to collaborate with exciting brands to monetise data and provide value-added services to customers.
MNOs can deliver highly targeted, hyper-personalised campaigns promoting a brand’s offering to their customers. This benefits customers because they have access to new, exclusive deals from the partner – which boosts your retention and ARPU.
You also diversify by generating revenue from data. You can achieve high conversion rates from these campaigns because customer mobile data is so rich. Geo-location targeting, for instance, can deliver personalised messaging, products and offers to customers in real-time when they’re most likely to engage (like when they’re walking past a retail outlet).
To give you an idea, MNOs have seen a 45% increase in customer engagement and 98% increase in mobile advertising revenue using Engage Hub solutions to drive these types of campaigns.
TIM: A case study
MNOs are using this approach to boost revenue and profit. One example is leading Brazilian telecoms company TIM. They recently partnered with a digital-first Brazilian Bank to deliver personalised advertising promoting the bank to their customers. Within the first 3 months, TIM delivered a massive 80 million MMS messages through the Engage Hub platform. Although MMS as a channel has been around for a long time, TIM’s rich data meant they could use Engage Hub to send contextually relevant, highly-personalised communication at scale. Through the campaign, TIM helped their client to acquire new customers and become the fastest-growing Brazilian bank.
Ultimately, partnerships that use data and real-time, intelligent marketing open up new, scalable revenue streams for MNOs looking to diversify
For more information on how Engage Hub can help you monetise data, leverage real-time intelligence and foster revenue-boosting collaborations, download our latest whitepaper or get in touch today.
