Mobile Marketing Tips MAXIMIZE YOUR MARKETING CAMPAIGNS WITH THESE EASY TO IMPLEMENT MOBILE TIPS
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
Avoid a mobile disaster in your marketing campaigns Don’t lose out to your competitors. Make sure you have the mobile competitive edge Understanding the mobile user experience is vital for every marketer to maximize their campaign effectiveness. Most consumers now have constant connectivity - whether this is by smartphone, tablet or computer they are ‘always on, always connected’. Currently, 1.75 billion people worldwide own a smartphone, with the US having 173 million smartphone users, making up almost 72% of their mobile market (comScore). Online shopping on mobiles has recently overtaken desktop for the first time 52% of website visits are now made via a mobile device, and some impressive Christmas 2014 statistics in the US from IBM include: Mobile accounted for 57.1% of all online Christmas shopping traffic, up 18.6% from 2013 Mobile made up 34.8% of total Christmas Day online sales, an increase of 20.4% from 2013
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Tablet users are valuable - 72% of tablet owners make purchases from their devices on a weekly basis (Google), 52% of tablet users say they prefer to shop using their tablet rather than their PC (Alexander Interactive) and tablet users spend 50% more than PC users and are 3x more likely to purchase than smartphone visitors (Adobe). Whatever message you want to send, whether it’s personalized content on a webpage, mobile push message, proximity alert or an optimized email it is more and more likely to be received and viewed on a smartphone. Add mobile value to your marketing campaigns using our easy to implement tips.
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
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MAKE SURE YOUR EMAILS ARE OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE DEVICES
OFFER LOCATION BASED STORE INFORMATION WHEN YOUR EMAIL IS OPENED
Sounds obvious? But how many emails do you still get that aren’t mobile optimized? Check how your optimized emails appear across a number of different smartphones and tablets to make sure they look amazing across all mobile devices. 30% of mobile shoppers abandon a transaction if their experience is not optimized (MoPowered).
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A customer’s local store information should always be included in your email campaigns. However, the challenge for marketers is knowing where the customer considers local: Close to home? Near their work? Somewhere else? Rather than second guess which is the most important, simply direct them to their nearest store when the email is opened on a mobile device using GPS data as a reference. If the email is opened on a desktop, then use its IP address cross-referenced with previous store purchase data, which will help identify their nearest store.
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
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MAKE MOBILE ENGAGEMENT EASY Dwell time for an email can be as short as 3 seconds. On mobile devices especially, the key to ensuring the success of a campaign is the visual presentation of calls to action. These need to stand out on the page and be immediately recognizable when the page is rapidly scanned.
Mobile best practice for building emails:
On mobile devices, screen space and resolution may make it difficult to pick up on more subtle designs. Ensure that it is obvious to the reader what the email is about, why the email is relevant to the recipient and what they can do next to find out more.
Always design your email with the above- the-fold mark in mind with at least one primary CTA visible on open
On average, email recipients on a mobile device take 2 to 5 seconds to decide if email is worth reading If recipients do scroll down (only 50% do), most don’t scroll back up
The email reading order is typically headline, bullet points, CTA, then paragraph copy Email recipients can click all over the place including in non-clickable areas. So, more links = more clicks Time, location, proximity – understand when, where and how close your mobile customers are when they’re searching. Use these to personalize your CTA Use geo-location to contextualize your messages The ideal subject line length that achieves the highest click rate is 28-39 characters
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
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INCREASE CONVERSION RATES BY TIMING BROWSING BASED EMAIL CAMPAIGNS
OPTIMIZING FOR MOBILE SEARCH
Personalized campaigns triggered by browsing behavior can drive conversion rates up to 10x higher than standard promotional campaigns. In-store, online or social engagement behavioral data can be used to automatically trigger a campaign send. Since the message is sent when the customer has shown they are ‘in the market’ to buy, your customer can be gently pushed to convert without reverting to price based incentives. The optimal time to send a campaign message, and indeed the channel through which it should be sent, should be an integral part of campaign planning and ongoing optimization plans.
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Companies who want to achieve mobile success need to think about how to deliver mobile content. It is not good enough just to adapt a desktop strategy to fit mobile users as they have different requirements. If your website isn’t optimized you will be losing sales - check your website navigation works across smartphones and tablets Check the speed of your page loading 57% of mobile customers will abandon your site if they have to wait 3 seconds for a page to load (Strangeloop Networks) with 70% of tablet users expecting a website to load in two seconds or less (Compuware). Vitally, every 100 millisecond increase in load time decreases sales by 1% (Amazon)
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MAKE SHOWROOMING WORK FOR YOU Showrooming – where consumers shop online after experiencing the product in a physical store With 80% of smartphone users using their mobiles for shopping research and 80% of those doing their research in-store, price transparency is vitally important for mobile customers. Showrooming is on the rise as smartphone penetration increases. So how do you reduce the number of store walkouts from the result of smartphone usage?
How to prevent showrooming: Reward your shoppers in-store, securing an edge over online only competitors
Implement staff training to deal with showrooming enquiries and connected customers. Set and distribute a company policy that deals with how staff handle price match requests
Consider selective price matching instead of matching online prices for all items. Alongside stocking exclusive items, this helps keep customers returning to the store Offer more unique items in-store to discourage showrooming. 50% of Macy’s inventory is made up of products only available in Macy’s locations
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Offer a service where in-store out- of-stock items will be shipped to the customer’s home for free, thus making your high street presence an extension of your online presence
People use mobile devices to enhance their in-store shopping experience – make sure you offer extra content (videos, rate and reviews etc) to give your store visitors more incentive to buy
Offer free WiFi to help consumers redeem mobile vouchers/scan QR codes etc instore
Fighting showrooming using beacon technology: The US consumer electronics giant GameStop is fighting showrooming by introducing real-time promotions, information plus ratings and reviews to smartphone users directly in-store via beacons. Beacons trigger expert content, relevant data and more when browsing a product area. Installed on shelving to deliver an enhanced shopping experience to their stores, beacons help eliminate the need for additional online research and showrooming, while saving shoppers time and increasing buying power to make decisions based on immediate information.
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PROMOTE WEBROOMING Webrooming (also known as Reverse Showrooming) – where consumers research products online before going into the store to purchase Webrooming will result in $1.8 trillion in sales by 2017 Ecommerce sales should reach $370 billion in 2017 Webrooming is where retail’s future winners will dominate (Forrester Research) 69% of people in the US webroom while only 46% showroom (Harris Poll)
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What makes customers want to come in-store to make or complete a purchase? Here are a few reasons customers choose webrooming over showrooming (Merchant Warehouse):
47%
don’t want to pay for shipping
23%
don’t want to wait for delivery
46%
like to touch and feel a product before they buy
36%
will ask the store to match a price found online
37%
like the option of being able to return the item if needed
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
“By placing mobile at the center of the omni-channel strategy, retailers and brands will enable a new level of interaction, engagement, conversation and loyalty. And revenue” FITFORCOMMERCE
How to promote webrooming: Go omni-channel with highly personalized cross-selling initiatives delivered to the right customers at the right time. This opportunity enhances sales across all channels Engage customers with context driven incentives. Sending location-specific mobile vouchers and coupons that can be redeemed nearby can entice a potential purchaser in-store Give in-store customers great service that is harder to replicate online
Offer consumers useful and relevant mobile accessible information such as videos, rate and reviews or similar to drive them into store and encourage sales conversions
Engage shopper’s opinions – take advantage of shoppers who are on their mobile in-store, by asking them to engage via social media, which could also be incentivised
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A good example of a successful webrooming technique was shown by Lowe’s home improvement stores in the US, who used a Vine mobile campaign tagged #LowesFixInSix to encourage customers to create and post short six-second video clips of their home improvement solutions. This is a perfect example of how a brand gives consumers useful and relevant information in a mobilefriendly way and ultimately drives these mobile shoppers into a local store. It also landed the brand a Bronze Cyber Lion at Cannes and a Silver Clio and a Mashies Best in Show. If a business commits to offering useful content, engaging with customers and republishing their content, sharing images, videos and insider information, this will engage and increase audiences. Webrooming is at a critical intersection of the digital and physical worlds. Showrooming may be a problem, but webrooming could be the solution. Closing the online and offline loop is now possible, which is more important for retailers to ensure their marketing success. Both the retailer and the consumer will benefit from a single marketing initiative. At each step, think about what your mobile customers need when they interact with your business.
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
Moving forward Important points to consider for your mobile marketing plans
1. MOBILE OPTIMIZED WEBSITES The greatest priority is to build a mobile website that is actually designed for mobile rather than just a resized desktop site. There are three ways to do this:
Use responsive web design
Dynamically serve different HTML on the same web address depending on the device viewing content
Create mobile-first not desktop-lite destinations. Build a mobile-optimized website that you continue to optimize over time
2. REVIEW YOUR MOBILE STATISTICS OFTEN What % of your website traffic and search enquiries comes from mobile devices? Look at your mobile data in a timely manner and react accordingly.
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3. REGULARLY EVALUATE YOUR MOBILE WEBSITE PERFORMANCE AND OPTIMIZE BASED ON WHAT YOU LEARN Make frequent updates, for example allowing users to access store specific real-time inventory and pricing as well as product location information in-store. Include a ‘current location’ search, enable faster checkout process and offer simplified website content.
4. NOMINATE A MOBILE CHAMPION IN YOUR COMPANY Companies who understand the importance of mobile and have a person or department who can carry the message across their company are less likely to miss out on opportunities. Those who don’t may lose out on the sense of urgency that mobile opportunities bring.
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
5. IMPLEMENT VIRTUAL OR PHYSICAL BEACONS Beacons, or iBeacons, are an important retail technology, being rapidly adopted by businesses with a bricks-and-mortar presence. They enable location-based targeted mobile marketing solutions. Beacons, both physical and virtual, join the gap between online and offline marketing and have a big role to play in the future of retail. They allow you to send real-time messages to customers’ smartphones when they are in a physical environment. This technology allows contextualized marketing for a mobile world - beacons tell a marketer when their customer visits a store; they allow predictive recommendation technology that serves up-to-the-second content at the precise moment the customer opens their email, offer or visits their site; and they give insights that effortlessly generate a truly personalized experience.
If you want the benefits of beaconing but don’t want to invest in the hardware, consider virtual beacons as an alternative.
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What is a virtual beacon? Indoor tracking and navigation is a fundamental requirement for contextaware smartphone applications. Virtual beacons are a responsive indoor mapping system that is extremely fast and highly accurate. Pinpoint the position of a user from smartphone accelerometer and magnetometer measurements only, without physical beacons, equipment or WiFi - the only required information is a floor plan. This cost effective, energy efficient approach to indoor mapping enables always-on background localization.
Beacons can now be replaced by virtual beacons, removing the implementation and management costs.
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
How to successfully drive revenue using beacons: UK retailer OFFICE Shoes wanted a solution that would tie together multiple marketing channels and provide a seamless in-store and digital customer experience. Following the launch of a beacon-enabled app, OFFICE used beacons and the SmartFocus Message Cloud marketing platform to deliver offers and push notifications to their customers plus an in-app competition. Real-time offers were sent to app users in-store using beacon technology and had over 80% engagement levels. Customers using the OFFICE app also received a beacon-enabled personalized email directly after their visit in-store. This resulted in an extremely high open rate of 71% and an impressive click-through rate of 40%, as well as increased revenue from in-store visits.
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True proximity marketing is now a reality. Marketers are empowered to create personalized messages that are not just context-aware, but context driven. With the bridging of the gap between online and offline, omnichannel marketing becomes an imperative. Marketers who embrace this new world will deliver more conversions, happier customers and more revenue.
A BOUT S MART FO C U S
SmartFocus is an innovator in messaging and communications, enabling the world’s largest brands – including Mercedes-Benz, Nestlé and House of Fraser – to understand and connect more closely with today’s connected consumers; whether that be via web, mobile, email or social channels. Through The Message Cloud solution, SmartFocus genuinely listens to and learns from customers using patented algorithms and unique location-based marketing tools. Using The Message Cloud, SmartFocus customers have the rich data, intelligence and the tools for contextually unique engagements, through any digital channel. Get in touch with us to find out more.
SmartFocus Inc 18 West 18th Street, 11th Floor New York, NY 10011, USA Tel: +1 (646) 356-1169 Fax: +1 (646) 783-7982 SmartFocus UK Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Sq London, WC1H 9LT, UK Tel: +44 (0)20 7554 4500 Fax: +44 (0)20 7554 4501 www.smartfocus.com