How Telecom Operators Can Increase Revenue

by Buana Sari Digital Marketer

For telecom operators across the globe driving revenue growth continues to be a key success factor. Mobile operators are facing a wide range of macroeconomic and structural challenges that are affecting their revenue growth.

Over the last few years there has been a growth in the number of telecom players. According to data published by Business Research Company, the global telco market size is expected to grow from USD 2,642.14 billion in 2021 to USD 2,866.61 billion this year at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 8.5 percent.

However, this has not induced overall revenue growth in the telecom industry. In fact, the telecom revenue streams have drastically dried down due to the decline in usage of traditional voice services and large-scale growth of over-the-top (OTT) players and free communication platforms like WhatsApp, Telegram and Skype. Regulatory actions including the blocking of mergers; mandated decline in prices; and disruptions to businesses such as the abolition of roaming charges; overcapacity: supply growing faster than demand, with telcos treading too quickly to provide subscriber packages with very high or unlimited connectivity etc. have made the situation non-conducive for telcos in different parts of the world.

With connectivity becoming a commodity and coverage being taken for granted; customer experience, engagement and service are becoming the key differentiators in telecommunication revenue growth. Telecom subscribers are willing to pay more for a better experience and brand bonding.

Digital adoption is seen as the key to telecom revenue growth in 2022 and is inevitable across all telcos. For any telecom business to achieve success in revenue generation and remain competitive today, it must adopt digital technologies. Embracing innovative mobile technologies, implementing new mobile advertising tactics, and digitally transforming customer processes are all key performance drivers of revenue growth in telecommunications.

Despite the growing digital adoption, several telecom players are not experiencing the kind of revenue growth they should be expecting from digitization. Unfortunately, they haven't embraced the right digital technology! Research shows that over 70 percent of mobile network operators still depend on physical interactions - i.e., via stores and call centers – for selling. Many of them have not been able to utilize subscriber data for sales growth.

Operators mapping a path to telco revenue growth must adopt the following strategies:

1. Resort to Real Mobile Advertising

Telcos’ pursuit of digital advertising is not a new phenomenon. Early telco-led mobile marketing and advertising initiatives in the US dates back to the mid-2007 when iPhone was launched. The telco digital advertising journey began with primitive text-based message marketing, moved through display marketing to a more sophisticated data-driven approach to marketing.

Telcos have long been using Google and Facebook, among others, to deliver marketing campaigns, which generated low mobile advertising revenues. It is against this backdrop that distinct and evolving advertising platforms like moLotus are emerging. Telecom majors perceive moLotus as the real mobile advertising and the future of mobile advertising.

Renowned telecom providers now have partnered with moLotus to offer cutting-edge mobile advertising services across the globe. The alliances have resulted in revenue maximization with cost optimization, enhanced customer acquisition, retention, engagement, and much more; overcoming challenges associated with mobile advertising.

2. Leverage Hyper-personalization to Tailor Campaigns

In a highly competitive telecom industry, personalization at scale is the key driver of revenue growth. To create new revenue streams, telcos need to work on marketing strategies that go beyond traditional mass promotions. To drive additional purchases, personalizing the marketing message based on subscriber usage patterns and recommending relevant offers is the key. When advertising campaigns take into account individual habits and expectations, they are well-received by subscribers and play a pivotal role in building trust.

By using massive telco subscriber data and analytics to create hyper-personalized experiences via new-age mobile advertising technology like moLotus, operators can overhaul their approach to customer life-cycle value management (CLVM) from acquisition to retention adding to revenues.

To ensure highly personalized subscriber communication, moLotus uses telco subscriber data to create campaigns with hyper-personalization options like customer name, unique Id, offers, rewards, etc. Telcos can engage their massive subscriber base better by creating hyper-personalized mobile video campaigns reaching directly to the subscribers’ mobile message inbox without any application or involvement of data charges. By replacing traditional digital advertising engines with a hyper-personalized moLotus driven advertising based on real-time data, operators are saving millions of dollars every year in advertising costs.

3. Make Customer Interactions Convenient

In competitive telecom markets, the next frontier for high margin revenue generation is easy and contextual customer interaction. Subscribers expect mobile operators to offer much more than just competitively priced, reliable, and attractive products; they also expect their mobile operators to be flexible, responsive, and more aware of what they need.

Studies show that Millennials and Gen Z in particular assume they can have easy interaction with their operator across a suitable mobile platform at a time that suits them. Matching these expectations, whereby customer interaction and product innovation become key strategic differentiators in a revenue-deficient telecom landscape, is both a challenge and an opportunity for operators.

These modern tech-savvy customers are gravitating toward telecom operators that have automated brand-customer interaction using new mobile technologies like moLotus. This technology/platform has come up with many easy customer interaction options as a part of the telco customer communication process. Customers can easily and conveniently communicate with telco brands via mobile using USSD, SMS, Web Link Clicks, Call Back and more. moLotus interactions make telco-customer communication to be differentiating, available, digital, seamless, and simple resulting in compelling customer experience and more quick revenues.

4. Create Rich Content to Elevate Customer Experience

Rich media, especially videos, are a great way of promoting a telecom brand or product in just a few minutes. Research suggests that using video content by telcos can increase customer engagement dramatically. Using mobile video content can increase your customer’s conversion rate by 80% finally resulting in more customer acquisitions and revenues. (Source : GetCrisp).

Rich media storytelling is a great way in which telecom operators can enter the mind space of prospective customers, show them a better world with telco products and services, and inspire them to take instant action. It is the bridge to connect your ideas, products, and services with their imaginations.

It is quite interesting to watch how mobile video advertising platforms like moLotus, AdColony, InMobi, etc. are being used by global telcos to educate, entertain, inspire, engage and convert customers. Some telcos are still relying on YouTube and Facebook telling stories. However, moLotus videos up-to 40 sec. are most preferred by renowned telcos. moLotus rich media formats include greeting, brochure, slideshow and showcase other than videos. Telco marketers can add product pictures, voice-over and music, creating attractive storyboards and video messages.

5. Improve Customer’s Product Discovery and Purchase

Telecom operators are powerful multi-product service providers, and to get new revenues they need to keep on adding new products and services. Introduction of new products and services requires effective awareness, lead generation and conversion campaigns.

A suitable awareness campaign plays a crucial role in a telco market with new products chasing customer’s mindspace. Telocs must showcase their newly launched products in front of busy, distracted customers using mobile advertising platforms like moLotus which assist them to showcase products yielding more visibility and awareness. Customers easily get attracted towards the product demos and other forms of awareness content.

For many telcos, lead generation used to be a big problem. They used ineffective and outdated practices to acquire leads. Their leads were not qualified or actually engaged, interested leads. Hence their sales teams wasted their efforts in converting the dead and decrepit contact lists.

Lead generation has become performance and direct revenue oriented with the adoption of moLotus mobile lead generation platform by telcos. They are not only getting more leads but also converting them into sales using cost-effective moLotus lead generation campaigns. The automated campaigns extensively use illustrative telco product videos and offers attracting the potential customers; encouraging them to interact, and enter into transactions and avail the products instantly.

6. Offer Loyalty & Reward Programs

Tremendous changes in the telecom industry have created new opportunities for mobile operators and a battlefield for retaining their existing customers. The emergence of new networks has created an increasingly competitive environment. The ever-changing demands and preferences of customers have shifted the focus of operators towards revenue generation by building customer loyalty. To compete in this new environment, operators are launching new loyalty & rewards programs to boost customer loyalty and generate more revenues.

Mobile reward campaigns can offer a lot more in terms of telco revenue generation. There are currently too many customer loyalty & rewards programs delivered via mobile apps like Shopkick, Spendgo, Smile.io, etc. Telcos using them have been mostly unhappy with these apps.

Research shows that moLotus delivered mobile loyalty campaigns are fuelling telecom revenue growth by delivering hyper-personalized messages to customers for special occasions like anniversaries, birthdays, festivals, reminders, etc. and that are custom-branded with options for name, greeting, reward, call-to-action (CTA) for individual customer. The telco brands are sending different kinds of reward-based coupons directly to customer’s inboxes. These loyalty & rewards campaigns have boosted customer loyalty adding to the conversions and sales volume.

7. Add More Value via Upselling & Cross-selling

As the competition between mobile operators becomes severe, it has become important for operators to diversify their business areas. For instance, several telecom operators are moving from traditional voice-based interactions to mobile value-added services (VAS), which are newly designed services to uplift ARPU and profits. Thus, upselling and cross-selling are becoming key telecom revenue drivers.

Telcos are using various customer classification models for facilitating upselling and cross-selling. These models use the accumulated data of the existing customers including their demographic data and the behavioral patterns for using old products or services and finding new products and services.

Telecom majors have decided to use tools like moLotus in view of its ability to cross-sell and upsell products based on customer classification models depending on the customer needs and behavioral patterns. Embracing moLotus telcos can create unique upselling and cross-selling mobile campaigns, targeting large customer databases, capturing more leads and maximizing customer response and average revenue per customer.

8. Process Automation and Transformation

Digital transformation has provided a wide range of benefits to telcos helping them to earn more revenues. Dynamic telcos are using platforms like moLotus to automate and digitally transform their customer processes to meet changing business requirements and revenue goals.

Mobile automation platforms like moLotus, Marketo, Hubspot, etc. are automating the customer process making them much faster, smoother and convenient. With its robust automation capabilities, moLotus technology is being applied to seamlessly automate the telecom customer processes like customer onboarding, service reminders, thankyou letters and a lot more while reducing cost and enhancing revenues.

Noteworthy is the fact that the moLotus technology has gone ahead in transforming the loyalty card space by replacing plastic cards with Mobile Cards. Telcos are establishing a long-term relationship with the millennials and Gen Z customers by keeping them engaged via moLotus mobile transformation capabilities like digital rewards, mobile reminders, Frequently Asked Questions, real-time customer ratings, how-to, feedback via mobile and more. Studies highlight that moLotus mobile transformations have reduced telco outbound costs by up to 30% adding to new telco revenue streams.

9. Converting Big Data into Big Returns

The rise of mobile devices has increased the data volume flowing through mobile operators’ networks. It is important for the telecom brands to process, store, and extract deep customer insights from the massive customer data available. Big Data analytics can help them increase effectiveness by enhancing customer experience and improving security.

Research has shown that using Big Data in telecoms is truly substantial. Most telecom brands that adopted Big Data Analytics are early birds turning data into profitable insights minting high margin revenues. However, according to an IDG survey, only 20% of telcos have been able to deploy data analytics successfully, while another 70% are of the opinion that big telco data is going to play a big role in the future of telecom business. Most of the telco failure in data monetization can be attributed to lack of right tools in the past.

The new moLotus technology has come up in a big way with Big data Analytics assisting telco partners in managing and monetizing their massive database. Telcos can do micro-targeting based on business criteria, demographics, interaction, etc. to generate rich customer insights which further enable them to create and deliver personalized and customized content to the subscribers, finally improving marketing effectiveness and ROI.

Conclusion

The global telecom sector is facing new revenue challenges presented by a dynamic regulatory, technological, and competitive environment. One of the biggest trends shaping telco revenue generation is the adoption of new technology like moLotus; bringing more revenues via innovation, knowledge transfers, real mobile advertising, breakthrough transformation and more; paving the way for the 5G era.