Consumers are now truly mobile in their browsing and shopping habits – nearly a quarter plan to use their mobile phone to search for gift ideas and one in ten plan to purchase or pay for presents on their mobile this Christmas (Mobile Marketing Association).
Equally mobile search continues to play a huge part in people’s lives: a recent Econsultancy survey revealed 75% of consumers said mobile search makes their lives easier, 63% said access to mobile search has changed the way they gather information, and 32% said they use mobile search more than search engines on their computers.
Shoppers increasingly expect companies and brands to deliver mobile-enabled services that meet their needs regardless of whether they are connecting via a smartphone, tablet or generic mobile phone handset. However, marketers tasked with developing a major mobile strategy for a brand may feel overwhelmed at the perceived amount of planning, infrastructure and co-ordination, combined with the fact that competitors may be stealing a march on mobile prospects.
In actual fact, executing an effective mobile strategy can be done quickly, generating results within a matter of days. The following tips will help to develop a fully considered mobile strategy, ensuring that your company can capitalise on mobile browsing – helping to secure sales in the short-term, as well as building long-term loyalty and customer engagement.
1. Consider how many people access your home page via mobile now
Gartner predicts that in three years time, more people will access the net through their mobile than through their PCs. Foresee research suggests that 32% of shoppers already use their phone to access retail websites. Brands need to capitalise on this by mobilising their websites. If you have a normal website, how does it look on a mobile device? If it’s not easy to read and browse, then our research says you could be losing out on revenue – 49% of people don’t feel comfortable making a purchase on their smartphone due to difficulties viewing the content, while 34% cite slow websites as the reason.
2. UK shoppers are open to influence
When shoppers go online to research or purchase products, they have made some, but not all key decisions. Foresee research shows that 47% of shoppers use their mobile phone for price comparison reasons. Companies need marketing and promotional strategies that give potential customers the right combination of information and offers, to help make their decision in that brand’s favour.
3. Take advantage of advertising
Mobile advertising, which is quicker and 39% cheaper to implement than desktop advertising (Latitude), can be seen by anyone with a mobile phone – over five billion people. Most of these people are within arm’s reach of their devices for over 90% of their waking day, meaning that mobile adverts experience a greater percentage of click-throughs (4.8%) than desktops adverts (3.1%) (Latitude), delivering a huge return on investment for businesses. Mobile advertising looks set to overtake online advertising in three years time. Google can see this coming, as evidenced by its recent acquisition of mobile ad start-up AdMob for $750 million – Google’s third largest ever acquisition since the $1.65 billion YouTube acquisition in 2006. Make sure mobile targeting, either through banner campaigns or offer-driven ads, is a key consideration in your strategy.
5. Use the technology
A smartphone user surfing on a fast connection will expect more than someone on edge connectivity on a feature phone. However, levels of connectivity should always be considered – 3G is good but it’s not as good as broadband. Make your m-site light but with enough functionality to ensure that shoppers can access the information they need and consider page design. Shoppers rely heavily on three kinds of content: product details, peer reviews and personalised ratings; and recommendations. Retailers need to look for ways to provide this kind of content and ensure that it is timely, accurate and relevant.
6. Bridge the consumer gap – use mobile vouchers to take your message to the high street
The supermarkets are leading the way here, with targeted mobile marketing, triggered by specific rules changes, to customers who show a change in their behaviour. For example, customers who stop shopping at their usual store for an extended period will receive a mobile coupon to entice them back. The major operators are already doing this with their pay-as-you go mobile customers and sending personalised and targeted communications once customer spend ceases or drops below a specified level.
7. With SMS, small is best. Keep the message snappy and the call to action easy
97% of all text messages are read within 3 minutes of them being received and mobile campaigns are proven to deliver the lowest cost per lead, coupled with the best response rates. Use text messages for customer service, marketing and customer lifecycle management to reach shoppers at every stage of the purchasing journey and at just the right time, to drive customer acquisition. What’s more, our research showed that over 50% of people said they would use a personalised loyalty scheme on their mobile, while 21% of people would purchase more if a brand had a proactive loyalty scheme.
8. Use location based services to your advantage
It is now easier than ever for business to take advantage of location services. Location-aware phone functionality means customers can be increasingly tracked and pinpointed, with brands communicating with customers based on their location. Most handsets/ smartphones also allow integration with GPS from within an mSite, bringing even more benefits to brands.
No one can contest that the future is mobile: according to Econsultancy, mobile retail purchase intent effect is eight times higher than online retail purchase intent. How you choose to market your brand now will be critical for future customer acquisition and loyalty – the brands prepared to take a step up to true mobile engagement will be the ones achieving long-term success.
