Since the shift from PCs to smart phones and now wearable devices, marketing and advertising has been turned on its head.
Consumers are now in the drivers seat and can determine when and where they want to hear from brands. Consumers have come to expect things to happen right now in a personalized fashion.
And as a result, companies must learn how to create multi-channel customer communications that address these changes. While this potentially creates creative challenges for businesses it also creates the opportunity to connect with consumers on a whole new level.
Consumer’s mobile behavior is also pushing businesses and mobile application developers to be increasingly more innovative to improve user experiences.
Beyond what your customer’s experience, they are creating an unprecedented amount of data. This data is available to be collected and analyzed if your business chooses to do so. The opportunity exists to even do so in real time, giving your marketing team the option to deliver the right message to the right person on the right device at precisely the right time.
In the past business wasn’t able to turn on a dime when it came to marketing and advertising but in today’s world real-time content creation and publishing are the norm. Modern interfaces allow business users intuitive tools to publish content from multiple internal sources across a variety channels.
With the additional requirements of developing messaging for multiple channels, many businesses have found relief by being able to outsource whenever possible. In the modern economic paradigm, tasks that can be outsourced, must be. Often as content is being carefully targeted it is harder to produce externally, which leaves creation of tech and the systems as perfect opportunities for outsourcing to iPhone application developers and Android application developers. This frees your internal resources to have laser like focus on the items that require the deep levels of customer understanding, while you can outsource items that require technical mastery to companies that have the resources to complete the tasks.
This helps your marketing staff remain free from being distracted by technical issues. Marketers thrive in this environment free of unnecessary tasks, where they are able to leverage technology.
Photo: Luke Ma (Flikr) http://bit.ly/1CFd1P1
Mobile has revolutionized not only the way we interact and communicate but how we do business and as such, mobile has become a vital aspect of “how we do business” to businesses of all sizes around the globe.
Whether you are just looking to dip your toes in or to have a responsive web site built or to contact an iPhone application developer or Android application developer, it is important that your business understands the importance of mobile and the implications of it when it comes to doing business in the future.
First of all, consider that mobile is a lively, active medium that is regularly on your customers minds. According to Mobile Marketing Watch, 46% of smartphone users say they utilize their mobile devices as their primary search tool. Their research went on to reinforce the importance of smart phones showing that 91% of smart phone users check their email at least once per day from their phones. Additionally, 76% use their smart phone for social media at least once a day. Beyond that mobile devices are shown to be critical to retails as 35 % of in-store shoppers actively comparison check prices on their smart phones while shopping and 31% look up product information while shopping.
But beyond that, mobile marketing is a highly effective advertising medium. According to a recent Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness study, “mobile is a strong driver of campaign performance across the entire purchase funnel. From upper funnel metrics like awareness and image, to purchase intent and actual behavior (foot traffic or sales), the empirical evidence proves that mobile has a fervent contribution to campaign results, justifying a double-digit allocation of the entire media budget (not just digital) to mobile.”
Mobile allows you to engage directly with customers in ways business never could before. From giving exclusive offers to your mobile app users when they are in a location to take advantage of the offer to building in functionality to allowing your customers to customize their shopping experience, mobile takes engagement to a whole new level. If you make the experience personal your users, they will be more engaged and more likely to return.
Beyond the now, forward thinking businesses are looking at The Internet of Things and the opportunities that it offers to businesses. The Internet of Things is growing exponentially and creates incredible opportunities for businesses to serve customers with new levels of service and convenience that they never imagined before.
Image: Kent Chen (Flickr) http://bit.ly/1N5f2PY
In a recent study from the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), they looked at the complete marketing budget for four businesses: Coca-Cola, Walmart, MasterCard and AT&T. MMA’s goal was to determine the value of mobile ad spending. After reviewing budgets and campaigns from these four companies they determined that bigger mobile budgets lead to higher advertising ROIs.
Companies are not just shifting their budgets to iPhone application development, Android application development, mobile web sites and mobile advertising because it is trendy, they are making the shift because it works.
A perfect example of this is when Coca-Cola launched its campaign for its Gold Peak Tea, they found that mobile accounted for 6% of the sales despite only requiring 5% of the budget. MMA goes on to show that if Coke had spent 10% of their budget on mobile instead of 5% that they would have seen an extra 4% in sales on this single campaign.
When it comes to Mastercard, MMA states that by allocating just 8% of their budget to mobile, they could reinforce their image as ‘a good card to carry while traveling’ by 7X. When looking at campaigns, Mastercard found mobile marketing produced 2X the results compared to campaign average. “I was surprised at how effective [mobile ads] were in relation to other media,” said Adam Broitman, vice president of global digital marketing for MasterCard.
According to Greg Stuart, CEO, MMA, “With very limited effort, brands can increase the performance of a campaign by 30 percent on average (and potentially much more) by simply reallocating funds.[to mobile]”
A key feature to mobile marketing programs, according to the report, was location targeting. Walmart program utilizing proximity targeting to reach people within range of a store proved 1.5X more effective than simply sending ads to people who had visited the store before.
Additionally, the MMA study also points out that ads that contain audio or video components produce a higher return on investment than standard display ads.