A shout out to my friend Doug Stovall from HipCricket on the great article on the divide between mobile consumers and marketing managers. A copy is provided below. Doug is “right on target.”
Mobile usage has become an integral part of the path-to-purchase. Consumers are tapping into their smartphones at home, in store aisles, and on-the-go to read news, research products, compare prices, engage with brands and receive special offers and coupons.
But, marketers have to remember mobile is personal and is intended to be a channel to have a conversation. Mobile engagement must be a two-way street built on personalization, relevance, context, preference, intimacy, immediacy and experience. Otherwise you’ll lose your customer.
The mobile channel has the ability to deliver significant increases in customer engagement, retention and conversion if done correctly. Mobile Marketing and advertising is the fastest way for companies to communicate branded message to highly targeted and engaged consumers directly on their home screens to deliver rich media.
One size doesn’t fit all
Hipcricket’s AD LIFE® platform enables brands and agencies to immediately reach their customers at key moments by triggering mobile marketing and advertising campaigns based on a customer’s behavior, precise location, mobile lifecycle and more. The level of detail collected by the platform transforms how brands engage with consumers by delivering the right information, at the right time, to the right device.
The benefits of having an end-to-end mobile engagement platform for your mobile marketing and advertising initiatives:
- Increase Awareness and Sales: Use mobile coupons and exclusive offers to drive in-store traffic and increase sales. When brands offer coupons via text messaging, they typically see a 3-5x higher redemption rate and ROI compared to other digital marketing channels.
- Start A Mobile Conversation: Right device, right message, right time is how we approach mobile marketing. SMS and MMS campaigns offers a 98% open-rate with over 90% of messages opened within 90 sec
onds. - Location, Location, Location: Mobile devices go everywhere. Brands should take advantage of how that information can create personalized experiences. Marketers can request that customers share their ZIP code. As long as customers see the value in the call to action requesting location the message won’t come off as intrusive or pushy. For those stuck on how to use location, start with four straightforward applications: time, weather, calendar, and geography.
- Generate Revenue through Mobile Advertising: Hipcricket goes beyond an ad network to give mobile marketers the opportunity to generate additional revenue through integrated advertising campaigns. The AD LIFE platform is fully integrated – SMS/MMS/InApp Messaging, Location-based SMS (LBSMS), 2D/QR codes, mobile advertising network, mWeb and Apps – a true end-to-end mobile marketing and advertising solution.
- Mobile Marketing Data Optimization: Hipcricket is truly unique in the way that it analyzes data across all mobile channels to create and serve relevant content to your customers or potential customers. Once a person’s cell phone number is added to the database, brands can use it as a personal identifier to connect the dots with their CRM, loyalty programs and even the users social media profiles. The more brands know about their consumer’s buying habits and mobile engagement, the more personalized and relevant the information will be.
Companies just getting started with cross-channel mobile marketing should focus on small wins. True cross-channel takes time and optimization, so commit to integrating what makes sense over the short, medium, and long term instead of trying to do everything in parallel.
This coming year mobile marketing and advertising will really start to take shape for marketers and brands especially with the collection and dissemination of actionable data. This data will help marketers evolve their mobile strategies to finally deliver experiences consumers have been asking for – personalized and relevant.
Throughout the week we will be addressing the keys to launch successful mobile marketing and advertising initiatives within your company.
SOURCE
From: http://www.loc-aid.com/blog/2014-08-26-consumers-are-tapping-into-smartphones-why-arent-marketers
