Not surprisingly luxury advertisers have embraced mobile and are flocking to mobile applications, mobile web sites and mobile advertising. According to a recent study conducted by Martini Media and iMedia UK where they surveyed UK marketing professionals about how they are allocating their marketing budgets for the demographic containing wealthy consumers mobile is rapidly becoming the medium of choice right now.
In fact, mobile advertising has grown an amazing 148% year-over-year in Great Britain recently and and UK marketing professionals have been moving steadily towards a mobile-first strategy. This is even more so the case in the luxury market as we see that luxury marketers are now investing heavily in mobile along with big increases in video and rich media formats. Mobile applications and mobile optimized web sites are a perfect fit for sophisticated consumers with high end smartphones.
At this point almost half of all marketing budgets (48 percent) are slated be spent on digital media in 2013, with a huge majority (95 percent) of respondents claiming they increased their digital marketing budgets in 2013 by an average of 22% over the past year. Not surprisingly we see standard display marketing tactics have fallen out of favor and spend there will decrease. Brands that identify as targeting high-income consumers plan on spending more than 2X as much on video and nearly twice as much on rich media and mobile compared to with mass-market brands. Which makes perfect sense as luxury brands can really benefit from these mediums being used to showcase their products.
When it comes to choosing the medium for digital campaigns, the ability to single out a target audience was ranked as the key factor for the choice. Digital’s ability to target clearly offers advantages that luxury brands are willing to pay for to reach the right audience.
A new report from Xtreme Labs states that many retail brands are missing the boat on the mobile app opportunity. They say that 30% have no mobile apps available to users and that with retail brands offering mobile apps, many are being scored low by shoppers. This offers a wide open space for savvy businesses to jump in a secure additional market-share with quality mobile applications for iPhone, Android and tablets.
While it is quite amazing that 30% of big name retailers don’t have mobile apps, it is equally amazing that those that do are getting a large number of complaints. Apps like this just tell users to go somewhere else to do their shopping. A well designed and developed iPhone application or Android application will keep users in your store.
According to Xtreme Labs data, mobile applications for the Top 100 Retail Brands averaged merely 2.9 out of 5 stars for iOS apps and fared even worse in the Android environment rating just 2.2 out of 5 stars.
Their data shows some great information for brands looking to build an app for their brand. Shoppers are looking for mobile apps to augment their in-store shopping experiences and these mobile apps need to work without crashing. A surprising 33% say app crashes of big retailer applications are an issue with Android apps and 23 percent state the same thing with iPhone applications. Additionally, consumers are looking for better features and better design.
But beyond just developing a better mobile app experience, users need to keep in mind where users will be using these apps. Consumers are using these apps and mobile web sites in-store and are increasingly shopping at stores that offer free WiFi over those that do not offer WiFi connectivity.
Looking at current trends and apps that are scoring well, there is a huge opportunity for savvy retails to augment their users shopping experiences and grab additional market-share with carefully designed mobile applications that include quality development.
One of the hottest new trends in retail, thanks to the Apple stores, is allowing retail associates in stores to complete transactions on the spot rather than making customers walk all the way to a register and stand in line to complete the transaction. Giving retail associates the tools to do this is taking customer service to a whole new level and rapidly making the cash register obsolete.
At the last Mobile World Congress, mobile payments and mobile payment systems were one of the hottest topics. We are entering an age of mobile and mobile applications taking retail to a new level, especially if you consider the opportunities offered by augmented reality.
As Charler Napier says: “Small business owners represent the segment driving mobile payments adoption most aggressively today” in an interview with Bloomberg. But we are still in the early stages of development so opportunities are abound. While we are hearing about names like Square and GoPayment right now, there are sure to be other solutions providers to follow.
In the near future cash registers are going to disappear in favor of mobile payment systems and since 66 percent of retail transactions are made with plastic today and 180 million Americans carry a credit or debit card, it’s no surprise that retailers would switch to mobile payment platforms that will change the face of retail.
If you are planning on building an app, consider integrating new mobile payment systems into your iPhone app or Android app. Passbooks and digital wallets are also extremely hot topics in the industry right now and its better to plan for the future with mobile application development.