Digital Marketing Direction: Mobile Marketing

By Erica Wenham, Tuesday 19 March 2013.

Digital Technologies For Marketing (Week 23)

The Mobile Revolution

“Now is the time, if you haven’t already, for marketers to start experimenting with mobile and social to find what works best for their organisations. They must remember however, that whatever they do to experiment should be a relevant, positive user experience, because if they can’t provider that, then it’s better to provide no experience at all” (mobile-ecommerce, 2013) Mobile has become an integral part of the marketing process in recent years and organisations can no longer ignore the powerful tool that mobile marketing has become. There are a variety of technologies within mobile that have seen the industry expand and made it easier for brands to communicate with customers and build long-term, effective relationships. A few examples include; smartphones, tablet devices, live e-mail downloads, Bluetooth technology etc. With its overwhelming success amongst many audiences, the benefits of mobile marketing are phenomenal and it’s a great way for brands to share useful information no matter where they are. By reaching out to the target market, retailers like ASOS, Topshop and New Look can use this to their advantage to help drive sales and grow consumer figures. Mobile marketing is the fastest growing technology within the industry and our three chosen retailers effectively take this on board  for their digital/mobile marketing strategies and app downloads (this will be discussed further within this section). Safko (2012) reinforce this “as a company that wants to connect with customers and prospects, why wouldn’t you be participating in the most widely used technology on the planet”?

9 Types of Mobile Advertising

1. SMS: (short message service):  Also known as ‘texting’: Advertisers can send relevant marketing messages in form of texts
2. MMS: (multi-media message service):  Marketing messages that utilize multiple, rich media elements such as images, video and audio
3. Mobile Applications: The ads can be hosted inside the application design and logic. The applications comprise of managed platforms, virtual machines, applications and widgets
4. Bluetooth Wireless Proximity Based Marketing: It works like local TV advertising on cable or network channels where a customer in a particular location will be served custom ads for that area. You will receive an ad or a message based on the location your wireless device is picking up
5. Location-Based Marketing: Delivers multi-media directly to the user of a mobile device dependent upon their location via GPS technology
6. QR Codes (quick-response barcodes): Allows customers to quickly learn more about a business, by visiting a mobile version of their business page on a mobile phone that is enabled to scan the bar code
7. Pay Per Call Mobile (also called click-to-call):  Pay per call is advertising that generates a billable event only when the reader of the ad does something—in this case, makes a phone call.  A mobile ad can contain a phone number that the customer can select and call instantly from their cell phone
8. Voice Marketing: Voice broadcasting calls numbers from a computer managed list and plays a pre-recorded message to the customer
9. Mobile Banner Ads: Like standard banner ads for desktop web pages but smaller to fit on mobile screens and run on the mobile content network

Tablets

In recent years, tablet usage has been on the rise with over 20%  of consumers owning one. Although tablets still count as part of mobile advertising, there is some difference in smartphone marketing and tablet marketing.  Both of devices “offer unique and specific customer experiences. They offer experiences that can be used to build brand, optimise the way products are presented and sold – as well as enhancing the goods and services that you market”. Smartphones are more on-the-go devices which are virtually fused to our every day existence. You can pretty much do everything on your smartphone nowadays from contacting friends, to email accounts to online shopping. Marketers alter their websites to fit mobile formats. Exclusive ASOS, New Look and Topshop apps can also be downloaded to mobiles.

On the other hand, Tablets provide a much larger size and more effective interactivity, immediately presenting great marketing opportunities for retailers. As tablets are regarded more as a “leisure device” rather than “on-the-go”, research shows that the average purchaser on a tablet is much higher than one with a smartphone.

Marketing Implications of Mobile Marketing

Although it is commonly known that mobile is mainly used by younger, more affluent consumers, it is no argument that mobile has taken over the lives of many people, particularly in recent years. Consumers have begun to use their devices for everything to contacting friends and families to online shopping. Due to this, marketers have decided that it is one of the best and most effective ways to reach their target audience – and they’re right. The benefits as follows explain why.

ü  Mobile marketing can act as a new, innovative and effective tool for retail brands and advertisers to reach new customers and target specific audiences.

ü  Mobile messages are much more likely to be read by consumers than emails sent via PCs as they can easily get caught in the spam filter. As mobile is essentially “on-the-go” for most audiences, the response rate is also much more successful. Particularly, personalization, immediacy, and interactivity of mobile ads also encourage response by busy consumers.

ü  Campaigns as part of mobile marketing strategies are highly targeted and are opt-in, making them more effective than other forms of advertising.

ü  Mobile marketing can help build a customer database. Once customers opt in to receive an ad, you can use the information for loyalty marketing and customer retention.

ü  Mobile marketing can help generate buzz about your products/services because your offers will reach consumers while they are actively shopping, socializing, and making buying decisions.

ü  Mobile phones can receive input anywhere-anytime, enabling location-specific and behavioural targeting for local businesses. Access to millions of customers (even international audience) can also be reached in a matter of seconds.

While this method of marketing strategy offers a lot of advantage and convenience to target markets as the mobile industry continues to innovate, there are a few limitations of mobile marketing;

û  A trial and error period may be required for mobile marketers to learn how to succeed in mobile marketing, which differs from marketing strategies through the web.

û  Advertisers can be wary of consumer privacy issues.

û  Adaptation of content and messages to different mobile providers results in poor user experience.

Mobile in the Online Fashion Retail Sector & The Future of Mobile

Mobile broadband using smartphones (51% ownership among ABC1s) and tablet computers (up from 2% in December 2010 to 5% in July 2011) is triggering use of devices in ways that retailers need to respond to, especially price checking against local competitors when in-store and features such as QR barcodes and onboard GPS in smartphones create opportunities to send and receive information and deals when they are near or in a store.

Mobile marketing within the fashion/retail industry grew at a fast pace during 2012, making it the year of the mobile consumer with 2013 promises to utilise this strategy even more. Leading fashion retailers ASOS, Topshop and New Look have recently been optimising their online-websites for mobile phones and tablet devices (tablets offer considerable future potential for the organisations as they allow browsing and selection processes much easier and very similar to what PC users are more familiar with due to the larger screen). By implementing these mobile marketing strategies, the organisations can increase their market outreach and potentially help to achieve business goals to deliver exceptional customer service and generate substantial sales and profit.

In addition to this, future site and app design has to “marry the depth of content of online sites with the functionality of mobile devices, especially location-related content, to produce an even more engaging user experience” (Mintel, 2013). Mintel reinforce the importance of ensuring retail websites are feasible with smartphone and tablet devices. This is emphasised by finding how customers browse and buy when using the electronics. This proportion will then significantly in future brand results given the rate of acquisition of smartphone technology by phone users.

According to Mintel research from 2013, when the dramatic rise is penetration of smartphone devices began (penetration hit 36% during 2011, up from just 9% two years previously) is presenting “both online and bricks-and-mortar players with a number of new opportunities”. As well as enhancing the opportunities to connect with online channels and stakeholders, mobile marketing technology is also opening many new doors for retailers “from everything to the launch of retailer-dedicated and exclusive smartphone apps to geo-location marketing, to barcode scanning and augmented reality”, e-commerce is an area expected to grow even stronger during 2013 and future years to come.

 Finally, the graph shown above indicates how effective the online retail sector is with the majority of consumers ordering products online (43%) with around 5% using their smartphone or tablet device to purchase. As these results were accumulated during 2011, it is assumed this percentage is substantially higher now.