CELL PHONE AS A MARKETING TOOL Introduction: With the hike in the telecommunication sector, cell phones are far

reaching the globe and hence there are dramatic changes in the way people communicate. Such a technology has made the world smaller, the penetration and adoption of cell phone is almost 100% everywhere. Due to such a revolutionary change and with the advent of mobile commerce cell phone has become a marketing tool as it allows marketing activities to be tailored to actual customers needs and tastes and targeting customers more accurately through using one to one marketing communication . Cell phone marketing provides marketers with a real opportunity to get a high response rate as compared to traditional media. The reason being that the people within the cell phone marketing network such as customers ,businesses ,marketers and brands can interact with each other in more creative and fashionable way. Literature Review Leppniemi et al. (2006) carried a comprehensive review about mobile Marketing research and found 21 different definitions. The author found that academicians used different term interchangeably such as mobile advertising, wireless marketing and wireless advertising which all refer to mobile marketing. Scharl et al. (2005) define mobile marketing as the use of a wireless medium to provide customers with individualized information about product services and ideas at any time and locations which benefits all stakeholders. Graham, 2001 studied the future of wireless advertisings and found that 60% of respondents showed interest in receiving text advertising through mobile phones and Black (2001) reported that brand awareness for the advertized brand increased more than 80% among respondents who received on average six SMS advertising. Barwise and Strong (2002) studied SMS as a potential advertising means for young people, and found that 51% were very satisfied with a service that was customized and tailored to only receive messages relevant to interests. 84% stated they would recommend such a service to a friend, and 63% said that they had either replied or taken action as a result of receiving the SMS ad. The authors, however, stressed the importance of the relevancy of the SMS contents as prerequisite to motivate young people to take an action. In addition, the authors showed that mobile advertising were more favorable to

consumers for location-sensitive and time critical events. Enpocket (2002) reported that 94% of respondents had read the SMS advertising messages, and 23% of them forwarded the marketing messages to friends. Objectives of Study 1)To study the effectiveness of cell phone marketing. 2) To find the effect of direct advertisement through cell phone on customers buying intention. 3)To find the factors leading to increase in use of cell phone marketing. 4)To find whether the customers rely on the information provided to them through sms. 5)To find what kind of product buying decision is likely to be influenced more by cell phone marketing. RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLGY: Research Type: Descriptive Research to be used to find the effectiveness of cell phone marketing. Sample Unit: - Individual Customers Sampling Technique: Non probability Convenience Sampling. Sampling Area: Ghaziabad and Noida.