The impact of mobile marketing on consumer decision-making, brand equity and customer relationships: a UKZN student perspective.

Abstract

The rise of new technology continues to present marketers with new ways of marketing their brands to consumers and mobile marketing has become part of these new advertising mediums. A number of issues continue to rise with regard to the effectiveness of mobile marketing as a means of enhancing communication and customer relationships and its effectiveness as a promotional tool. Therefore, the aim of this study was to determine the perceptions of UKZN students towards the use of mobile marketing, the impact of mobile marketing on their purchase decisions and also the perceptions of UKZN students in terms of the efficiency of mobile marketing in building brand awareness, brand image and customer loyalty. The other aim of the study was to uncover the perceptions of students regarding the use of mobile marketing and developing a certain understanding of the effectiveness of mobile marketing when targeting young consumers such as students. A sample of 359 students from the University of KwaZulu-Natal’s Westville campus was drawn for data collection using the simple random sampling technique. The data was analysed in order to test the hypotheses of the study and the researcher utilised both descriptive and inferential statistics. The results of this study show that there exist significant intercorrelations among the key dimensions (types of mobile marketing, convenience, credibility, informativeness, entertainment, attraction and retention, consumer-decision making, brand equity and customer relationships) of the study relating to UKZN students. It was also revealed that there is no significant difference in the perceptions of UKZN students, varying in biographical profiles (gender, age, race, educational level and college) regarding each dimension of the study (types of mobile marketing, convenience, credibility, informativeness, entertainment, attraction and retention, privacy, consumer-decision making, brand equity and customer relationships). The results also show that students believe that mobile marketing has an impact on their purchase decisions. The recommendations generated from the results of this study provide insight into how marketers can use mobile marketing to successfully target university students.