Mobile marketing is growing in importance. We live our lives through our smartphones from dawn to dusk; we are wedded to them regardless of situations; for example, 50% of millennials use their mobiles while visiting the bathroom. Despite this mobile dependency, some marketers are failing to engage this captive audience as they are failing to grasp the key mobile metrics that matter and which should be informing their integrated marketing strategies.
Consumer behaviour has changed forever. Fueled by unbridled access to information consumers’ hearts, minds and ultimately wallets are won or lost for marketers in ‘micro-moments’ – intent-driven moments of decision-making and preference-shaping that occur throughout the entire consumer journey.
Today’s hyper-connected consumers are no longer considered online or offline at any one point in time, but are instead constantly in flux. For instance, the commute to work is now multifunctional as we sort emails, begin our work day, browse for our next holiday, or catch up on the news – all from the train journey as we travel into the office. Although the interaction may now be more fragmented, the always connected consumer provides huge engagement opportunities for marketers.
Before examining outward metrics on individual campaign performance, it’s important for marketing leaders to make an internal assessment of how integrated their mobile marketing practices sit within the over marketing strategy. For many organisations, mobile still sits separately from other channels such as email or social. Consumers today do not think in channels; they are becoming channel-agnostic and expect a consistent experience across every possible touch point and interaction moment. It’s therefore imperative that any mobile marketing strategy is fully integrated within the overall marketing mix.
Consumers make purchase decisions based on where they are standing, who they are talking to, what’s just been on the television, or the newspaper story that has encouraged their lifestyle goals. With an average eight-second attention span, the challenge is to strike in the right place, at the right time – quickly, boldly and in a memorable way.
There are four key metrics that should be priorities to assess campaign success: real-time engagement, conversion rates, behavioural data and service level.
Real-time engagement
Today’s hyper-connected consumer crave personal interactions with brands and therefore mobile marketers need to engage with optimum relevance in real-time. Real-time engagement is what marketing is all about – increasing communication with potential and existing customers, building trust and forging commitment. With 5G services becoming widely available soon, brands need to be prepared to meet online customers where and when they want to engage with live content: across multiple devices. Brands that prioritise real-time engagement will see huge peaks in campaign performance.
Conversion
Too many marketers focus on site traffic when the true metric they should be looking at is conversion and how many of these visitors are adding to the brand’s bottom line. Basket abandonment is a new age epidemic in the world of e-commerce and marketers need to create a retention strategy to re-engage distracted shoppers. Understanding the behaviour behind basket abandonment allows marketers to create an intelligent reminder system that could personalise offers and reclaim the sale. Perhaps this could mean a nudge via a different channel next time a consumer comes back online.
Behavioural data
Brands have the capacity to collect insights on how their key demographics will behave in future e-commerce scenarios due to individual behavioural data provided by mobile marketing metrics.
Mobile marketers need to make sure they are collecting the right data – and using it smartly. Brands can build a single customer view by collecting data at the various junctures of the customer journey and merging it to create a 360-degree profile of every consumer. Marketers need to understand the data, listen, act, and analyse to build marketing initiatives that consumers love to experience. A Consumer-First approach is needed.
Service level
When it comes to the impact of metrics on a business’ ability to improve its level of service, mobile marketing is the best channel to increase perceived service value. The main reasoning behind this is an added ability to reach aftercare excellence and the ensuing opportunity to strengthen brand loyalty.
The same can be said of the other benefits of an increased service value off the back of relevant data provision. The intelligence gained from mobile marketing metrics can assist in reaching aftercare excellence, optimum purchase assistance to deflect basket abandonment, and supplying the right kind of reminders to engage with today’s entitled customer demographic.
Beware of the red herring
The red herring in mobile marketing metrics is the “hit rate”. Marketers need to heed lessons from the past and implement discipline in mobile marketing in order to achieve optimum success in this area. Blindly saturating your target market could even damage your customer relationships, not to mention the effectiveness of the practice as a whole. Communicate only when absolutely appropriate, or risk becoming irrelevant.
