Mobile Personalization is one of the hottest new trends in marketing in 2014. Mobile purchases make up about 20% of all eCommerce transactions and mobile sales are projected to increase from $139 Billion to $400 Billion in the next couple years alone. It is apparent that mobile presence is growing rapidly, but the real question is “What is the best way to improve mobile presence and interaction?”
1. Push for increase in opt-ins: The first way to improve mobile presence is to push for an increase in opt-ins. Opt-ins range from customers signing up via mobile devices with their personal information, allowing push notifications to their phone, and cross-promoting mobile offers through their desktop site. By offering these opt-ins a company is able to gain more personal insight into customers that agree to this and personalize their mobile experience by including their name, deals and offers based on their geographic location, and more relevant product selection based on their previous transaction history. In short, having these opted-in customers allows a company to associate more personally with the customer and create an opportunity for them to evolve from being a simple customer to an evangelist for your brand.
2. Cross-channel Promotions: The second way to improve mobile presence is cross-channel promotions over mobile. Within the mobile realm there are multiple ways to reach customers: SMS texts, Apps, social media, passbook, and mobile website. There are various ways to get involved in this avenue of marketing and it can include text campaigns where potential customers can text a preset number for offers and rewards and thereby entering their phone numbers into a
database for a company. Another method is to have an app developed for a brand. This has the most flexibility as the app doesn’t have to serve any particular purpose other than collecting data. It could be a game, a coupon generator, or any other form of entertainment. As long as it gets downloaded then it is fulfilling its purpose and creating more personal contact with customers.
3. Geographic data: The final way to improve mobile presence is to tap into geographic data. This can be done very simply just by having a feature in an app or website that utilizes the phone’s location services to determine
where a customer is and if there are any promotions that would benefit them at their current location. One way to
capitalize on location information is to send geographically defined text messages or emails to customers based on where they are. If a customer in a shopping mall, for example, and then receive a text from a store offering a sale a clear call to action is created and it is more likely to be followed up with because of the proximity to the store.
As mobile presence increases and customers are more focused on their devices than ever before, marketers too must focus more on these devices. The ability to capture customer data and create a more engaged experience for them is available but it’s a matter of acting on it and creating the avenues to acquire this data in the first place. Once the mobile presence is improved, the results will be noticeable and by connecting with customers it can be expected that lifetime value and loyalty of those customers will be increased dramatically.
