A recent study by Gartner found that smartphone sales will hit 468million by the end of the year. Can, this, coupled with a real shift in consumer attitudes and behaviour when it comes to mobile media consumption, provide greater opportunities for mobile direct marketing? Justin Cooke, Fortune Cookie CEO, explains how direct marketers can take advantage of the latest innovations to get the best returns.
As a direct marketing delivery channel, the mobile phone is unrivalled in its ability to put timely promotional materials in front of consumers to get superior response rates, but as most direct marketers will know, there are key considerations that are critical to the level of success this form of direct communication can deliver.
Users of mobiles are dealing with issues such as limited screen estate, reduced speed and in most cases limited time or attention spans. Therefore the experience must be tailored accordingly – if brands are mindful of the emotional and need state of the consumer they are targeting, then mobile DM can certainly deliver a return on investment for them. We have seen far higher conversion rates using mobile than traditional digital DM like email: from a well-timed SMS reminder about a forthcoming sale, to a time-limited special offer which leads consumers directly to a website optimised for iPhone or iPad, these activities are delivering twice the conversion rate than standard DM practices.
Mobiles also offer huge opportunities for behavioural and geo-location targeting. Smart phones have the built-in capability to deliver a personalised message or experience to you based on where you are and what you are doing. This degree of brand relevancy, timeliness and personal tailoring vastly lifts the engagement and response rates compared to other channels. It also allows your customers to be your advocates with the ability to integrate a simple status update on their Facebook, Twitter or Foursquare based on what they do when they interact and transact with your brand.
There are interesting emerging trends and innovations in mobile which present new opportunities for direct marketers too. We will see a huge rise in location-based interactive services as our devices start to take advantage of near field communications (NFC). NFC enable a brand to send a message to a mobile device when its owner walks past or comes close to a specific spot, whether that be in a train station, airport, shopping centre or supermarket. That message can be an exclusive promotion or a QR code offering a shopper an instant discount on a specific product. And, although it has been long talked about, I think we will finally start to see the rise of the mobile as a digital wallet, allowing us to pay for goods and services as well as send and receive funds to and from our mobile. This can produce almost instant returns on well targeted direct marketing as consumers are prompted to buy, and can do so immediately.
Clearly the tablet has also changed the game and influenced how consumers view mobile devices. Our experiences with them is becoming more immersive ,and our desire to be able to perform any function or service from anywhere means that our expectations of mobile are set by what we can do on a desktop device. The launch of 4G or LTE which is imminent in many parts of the world will provide a significant increase in mobile data speeds of up to 1GB per second and I have no doubt that this will transform our consumption of media on a mobile device. All good news for direct marketers, who will be able to target consumers more efficiently, more often, more dynamically and quicker than they’ve ever been able to before via a mobile device.
This article was originally published on DM weekly (subscription only).