Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should
One can hail smart watches as the next great evolution in personal connectivity, or see them as an emerging white elephant for consumers and vendors alike. However you see it, these new devices demonstrate how the mobile world has taken another leap forward in innovation and development and, we are sure, will make a considerable impact on the future mobile landscape.
Smart gadgets and devices like this are, according to the GSMA, set to achieve a penetration rate of 75 per cent in Europe and North America by 2020. With this high level of smart device adoption expected, creating countless opportunities for marketers, this is an area anyone involved in communications and engagement should be paying attention to. Where there’s a screen and a broadband connection at the ready, the service and app development possibilities, as well as marketing, advertising and engagement opportunities are endless.
The trick at this early stage is to plan well enough so to ensure that any service provided is deemed useful and outreach to customers isn’t intrusive or annoying enough to cause a negative reaction against your company.
As smart gadgets start to become ever more intimate and on your person at all times, they present even more opportunities than ever to interact with customers, especially through messaging and notifications.
Already, according to a study by vendor Infinite Convergence, more than 1 in 3 mobile phone owners now subscribe to mobile messages from businesses, with 91 per cent of mobile owners opening a message within 15 minutes of a notification. The trust is there to use or abuse.
However by having a smart mobile gameplan, enterprises, large and small, can hopefully ensure they take the former route when interacting with audiences, particularly in an era where the smart device is an extension of the user.
Suits you, Sir (or Madame)
New devices and new screens present an interesting creative opportunity for those tasked with connecting with a mobile user in the right way and at the right time. We have already learned, for example, that adverts that work on a web browser don’t necessarily work on a pocket sized screen. This, amongst other things can be lessons learned when interacting with customers in a device specific way. In one scenario, location based text promotions sent to fitness tracker armband as a runner passes near a juice bar, are a perfect way to capitalise on location to generate a sale. Brands could even increase discount notification (from 10 per cent to 20 per cent) as customers walk further away from a store to encourage them to return.
However, if the mobile is used for marketing, it’s essential that it’s tailored to the person and the device. Thankfully with the rise in the range of devices, we have also seen a rise in the big data analytics capabilities available to businesses to enable another level of granular targeting.
I knew that already
Creating a plan to ensure mobile engagement amongst your target audience doesn’t differ hugely from the age-old principles of engagement on other platforms. What needs to happen is that the delivery and context of the engagement is refined to suit a new paradigm.
The core of this should be giving people what they want. Rarely will people actively choose to use short messaging services for lengthy or detailed discussions in their personal life, so why would they use it in business? A simple message seeing if a customer would be interested in receiving an email with information about discounts or offers can take advantage of mobile messaging’s high open rate and also start an anticipation in the customer that can prove beneficial to the longer form message.
Setting up this sort of immersive, unobtrusive, trouble free communication line with a customer is invaluable. The technology exists already, it’s down to planners to figure out how to best use it.
It’s a question of practicality. Remember, practicality isn’t boring. Sometimes simplicity, rather than gaudy graphics or unwanted phone calls from sales people can go a long way. There is always a limited time period to get a message across. The same goes with communication on smaller screens: don’t try and be too fancy or overly persistent.
Along with being practical about the capabilities and limitations of your chosen media, it’s important to make the assets and platforms work for you. According to Flurry analytics, messaging or social apps saw growth in 2013 of 203 per cent. Clearly people like to keep connected, and are using numerous mobile apps to do so.
It, therefore, seems sensible to use these platforms to communicate with an already engaged audience and speak to them in the way they are used to being spoken to. With the easy availability of mobile messaging APIs, and new technology like WebRTC – where, in the right environment, businesses can connect directly with customers in one click video calls, messages, and content sharing – developers for enterprises can easily integrate new forms of rich communication platforms into proprietary apps and websites, creating a new type of interaction and social network.
For example, if a customer browsing in a retailer’s app has a question about a product, they can click to call an agent and get an answer straight away – not only may this present a sale but by speaking to the customer about their requirements, there can be up or cross sell opportunities. Look on this as an evolution of the user forum, one that is native to mobile, and extremely consumer friendly.
If you are a developer creating company specific apps and services, the key is to try and differentiate your product from competitors in the same market. Offer something better than the competition to capture your user’s imaginations. If you have the technological capability to introduce an element of fun, such as a short survey or game to the interaction, then the dialogue maybe more fruitful. This can be tested alongside your regular “answer yes to opt in” style communication.
The smaller the screen, the bigger the opportunity
It may seem counterintuitive, but the reality is that the smaller you go, the greater the intimacy and the greater the chance the communication or dialogue will be accepted. If you see a trailer in the cinema, you’re one of 150 people around you being shown the brand message, based vaguely on the type of film you’re watching. If a company can get the right message or interaction to your smartphone, based on demographic information and location, that’s the sort of granular, personal interaction Don Draper could only fantasise about.
Developers, engineers and imaginative technologists have striven to produce incredible methods and media of communication. Sometimes a 4k video projected all over a building sized screen will work. Sometimes, a text to say “thinking of you” will be much more effective.
To find out more how you can utilise the true value of mobile, take a look at Acision’s Mobile Gameplan, an interactive guide to creating a winning mobile strategy, from your mobile, tablet or computer.
