Post 7 of 12

Questions to ask your Mobile Strategy provider…

Just as you challenge your internal functions, it is essential that your mobile provider understands your business objectives too.

Challenge them to see what they understand and what they dont, while assessing their ability to pick up and translate the information that you give them.

A good partner will challenge you, pose searching questions or even prompt you to reconsider your aims and objectives.

A supplier must offer genuine channel agnostic consultancy because more often than not, the solution offered by most suppliers is derived from their technical capabilities and dressed to meet your business needs.

How can you ensure that my mobile strategy is scalable?

Scalability is important because mobile strategies can cross international boundaries and investment can be flexed around the results achieved.

The starting point is to look at mobile marketing not just as a single product. Its a way of interacting with customers and can involve many different types of solution – acquisition, loyalty, transactional, content, behavioural, events driven and social.

Other questions you need to ask are based around the types of solutions your potential mobile partner can deliver.

Do they offer a full suite of mobile solutions? Do they offer sector specific mobile solutions? Do they have a self service platform or a managed service? Is their technology their own? Is their mobile platform scalable for increases in volume?

These types of questions will lead you to understand exactly what a vendor can and can’t do for you. Once you have discussed the operational and technical side of a vendor, you can begin to discuss the key aspect of any mobile partner which is how much knowledge do they have?

In my next post I will talk about the level of knowledge and consultancy service you should expect from your mobile partner.

Thanks

themobileexpert

Post 6 of 12

Can our mobile marketing strategy be scalable? Can we have complete control of the ROI? Are we addressing our whole target market or just a small segment?

Mobile Marketing doesn’t come in a box; its an enabler that comes in many shapes and sizes. Presence based solutions, such as an app or mobile website, may attract a one off investment, however without customer awareness presence will go largely unnoticed without advertisement or a strategy to drive traffic.

Presence solutions will provide your brand with a more accessible route with which to engage your market. But they don’t necessarily acquire new customers, because they rely on people finding and accessing your content. You should also give consideration to the potential cannibalization of other channels, such as the website, when marketing another channel to the same typical set of customers.

Messaging channels such as SMS for example lacks that content rich material but done well it can drive significant footfall into your brick and mortar store or your virtual one equally. It can also drive consumer behaviours and awareness of your content.

Messaging works best on a pay as you go commercial model and will generally deliver a good return on investment. You have to be prepared for a large take up of an offer via the mobile channel though… do you have enough call centre staff on to manage a high volume of calls? Do you have enough vans for delivering a lot of stock on time? etc..etc… 

Have you considered the regulatory implications, mCRM management, best practice campaign execution and how to knit together with social media and email to enhance response levels?

The last 5 years have seen a dramatic shift in terms of how mobile and retail go hand in hand.. in the past companies where quick to add an app to their marketing channels as they wanted to compete with their competitors but they werent actually sure what to do with it once they had it… it was more like “well they have one so we should – tick that box”.

The problem was that everyone had an app, mobile as a channel was diluted by the sheer amount of apps a consumer could download so quite quickly consumers started to delete or simply not use an app after the first week or so, as new ones were available everywhere.

For the price savvy consumer, they would sign up to an app to get a discount and then never use it again, deleting it after 4 weeks for another sign up offer instead. Brand loyalty didn’t seem to penetrate the app market either and a big part of this was the consumer attitude to mobile as a channel.

As mobile has evolved and matured, we have seen the app craze slow down and loyalty and retention become the by words for a succesful business and more importantly a successful mobile strategy.

5 years ago 40% of smartphone users would use their phone to research a product in store and gain competitive pricing info etc.. thats now over 70%

5 years ago 1% of smartphone users had bought something using their mobile phone in store, this is now over 13% as retailers buy into making it easier for consumers to engage with the one device they always have with them.

Useful stats;

• 53% of smartphone users check their phones within 5 minutes of waking
• Over 32 million phones are purchased yearly in the UK, and 6 million are handed down
• The proportion of 4G users jumped from 8% to 25% in the last year
• 25% of smartphone users make no traditional voice calls in a given week
• 13% of UK adults have now made a mobile payment in-store, up from 3% last year

Statistics – Deloitte 2015

When deciding on what your strategy is you must keep in mind that you have a wide and varied audience, who are for the majority at least, very mobile savvy. They expect to be engaged and involved via the mobile channel. When it comes to defining the ROI of a mobile strategy, decide what your objectives are before you decide what your return will be. Is it to acquire more customers? Retain existing ones? etc..

If you need help with any of the things we discuss here then please give me a call or email me at scott.threlfall@eagleeye.com

Thanks

themobileexpert

Post 5 of 12

Does my organisation fully understand mobile marketing and what it can do for my business?  Have we tested our understanding?

There is a vast majority of organisations that don’t fully understand mobile so you’re not alone if you’re unsure about the level of knowledge in your business.  Mobile Marketing is still relatively new and even the organisations that are delivering great returns from adopting mobile will admit its merely the start of a journey.

Mobile Marketing uses a wide range of technologies, from mobilising your web-site and smartphone apps to multi-channel messaging and voucher redemption – all with many different technology permutations.

Some vendors specialise in single channels whereas others offer a more holistic approach and can provide advice on all aspects of mobile technology. And again, don’t just consider the technology, you need to look at the personal nature of your customer interaction; the consumer experience, feel and journey. Understanding consumer insight behaviours, expectations, dislikes and preferences, is important and unlike on-line, telephone or catalogue, the mobile channel offers you a much more personal connection with your customer.

You should also avoid simply replications what a competitor has done or assume that expertise exists internally – the likelihood is it may not.

If you have a very basic understanding of what mobile can do for your business, it always pays to speak to a provider that can offer the widest possible advice.

Your provider should have a strong client base, be a mobile technology provider with its own technology and have a strong knowledge base to be able to work with you to create a multi – channel mobile strategy.

Any questions you may have feel free to email me at scott.threlfall@eagleeye.com

thanks

themobileexpert

Post 4 of 12

What’s the best way to measure the success of a mobile marketing strategy?

This depends largely on your objectives.

Understanding the cost of customer acquisition for each of your existing marketing channels is a good starting point.

If you have the data, it will enable you to assess the relative value and return on investment from mobile marketing.

Traditional channels typically offer cost per lead from £6.49 for direct mail, £1.29 for website banners and as low as £0.29p per mobile lead. You can see how cost effective mobile is at generating new business if you get your value proposition correct.

Traditional channels offer 1% to 5% returns at best so you should consider how your customer acquisition model changes if that 1% becomes 25% and 5% becomes 55%. Does that allow you to scale your marketing investment or reduce cost? Either way, its highly attractive commercially and financially.

Businesses that have created effective mobile strategies have enjoyed response rates for major campaigns that are well in excess of 50%, voucher redemption rates of 65% AND have significantly reduced customer churn levels higher than 10% through the effective adoption of a mobile strategy.

Source: Juniper

The first step to creating your mobile strategy is to truly understand what mobile marketing is and what it can do for your business. I will talk about that in the next post.

Thanks

themobileexpert

Post 3 of 12

How can mobile marketing compliment and enhance my existing communication and sales channels?

No channel operates in isolation and a good mobile strategy is no different. Your customers want to engage with you seamlessly whether they order online, buy in store or simply want to browse your product range.

They will generally want to engage with you on their terms at times to suit them, regardless of the channel of choice.  Of course all of these channels can be effective in isolation but, when combined and used in a single campaign, offer incredibly powerful opportunities to interact with your customers.

They can drive buying behaviours, increase brand value, help you sell more, churn less and offer an “always available” customer journey.

An integrated mobile strategy will work hard for a brand or organisation. Understanding the dynamics of a multi channel customer model with the unique advantages of mobile, such as Location Based Services (LBS), to compliment effective below – the – line CRM driven marketing can drive remarkable results.

The 5 elements of a good mobile strategy are critical in a) developing the channel b) increasing revenues across that channel, c.) integrating the channel into your regular marketing communications.

• Customer Knowledge
• Appealing Value Proposition
• Development of Creative/Assets
• Promotion Strategy
• Reporting and Evaluations

As we go through the above list and begin to plan our strategy around the mobile channel, we also need to remember the 5 reasons why mobile is the best channel on the planet for gaining attention, delivering instant results, adding value and real time reports.

These are;

• Personalised – Mobile is a highly personal channel due to the nature of the device,   when I get a text with my name on it, it becomes even more personal to me.
• Portable – Carry it anywhere.
• Immediate – Send and receive instant messages and responses
• Ubiquitous – There are over 6 billion mobile device users in the world
• Trackable – Everything about the channel is trackable from who the device belongs to, what messages they received / sent / replied to etc..

By understanding the elements that make the mobile channel tick, you can begin to put together a mobile strategy and work towards convergence with your existing channels over time.

Thanks

themobileexpert