Mobile Marketing: 50% of marketers do not know how many customers interact with their local mobile marketing
In the MarketingSherpa Mobile Marketing Benchmark Report, we asked marketers about their local mobile marketing efforts …
Q: What percentage of customers/prospects interact with your organization’s LOCAL mobile marketing tactics?
While marketers who do track these numbers saw some very impressive results (about a quarter of marketers finding that more than half of their customers engage with social check-in, opt in to geo-fencing communications, and redeem mobile coupons), the biggest surprise is the number of marketers who simply don’t know.
“The fact that the research suggests 50% don’t know how effective they are is evidence that although mobile consumption is increasing and marketers are increasingly adopting it as a marketing channel, analytics and measurement have still yet to catch up,” said Grant Osborne, head of agency, FIRST. “I believe tracking and analysis of mobile (both mobile Web and apps) will be a great source of gaining competitive advantage in this space this year.”
What gets measured can get optimized
We just launched the call for speakers for our Optimization Summit 2013 in Boston. From attending our two previous Optimization Summits, along with several other MarketingSherpa Summits, I’ve learned from brand-side marketers that almost every successful campaign or tactic begins with measurement.
So to help you optimize your mobile efforts, here are three tips we’ve learned from your successful peers over the past year.
- Your customers, much like a snowflake, are precious and unique …
… as are mobile devices. To truly produce an effective marketing program, you have to understand the makeup of yourcustomers, not global statistics. By looking at its site analytics, Alex Corzo’s team at The Ritz-Carlton Destination Club discovered that iPhone users accounted for 90% of its mobile email opens, and decided to optimize for that device.The team’s iPhone-targeted landing pages boosted the conversion rate by 40%.
- Just because it’s free, doesn’t mean you don’t have to sell it
This is true for free content. It is true for free mobile apps, as well.So let’s say your IT department has invested time in your shiny new mobile app. It works great. The features are stunning. Then, you release it, and you charge zip, zero, zilch.
Vast hordes of downloaders will not automatically flock to your free mobile app. Because while the cost might not include any hard money, there is still a value exchange, and thus a cost – whether it be time, effort or giving up space on that little smartphone screen for another icon.
So you need to create a marketing campaign, and measure its results, for your mobile app — just as you would any other product — measuring both downloads via a paid push and organic downloads.
For example, by creating device-targeted ads, Ryan Scott and the team at Seamless was able to increase app downloads by 50%.
- Just because it is internal, doesn’t mean you don’t have to sell it
Of course, the above recommendations take resources. So you may have to sell business leaders, your CMO, or your client on the need to invest in mobile analytics and tracking.
The free excerpt of the Mobile Marketing Benchmark Report may be able to provide some assistance. Pay special attention to the charts on pages 26 and 27, which show the majority of marketers are increasing mobile marketing budgets, and by a significant amount at that.
Related Resources:
Optimization Summit 2013 in Boston
Optimizing the Evolving Landscape of Mobile Email Marketing — Video presentation from Email Summit 2012
Email Summit: Mobile marketing panel on the complex sale
Marketing Research Chart: Customers interacting with mobile email messages
Categories: Mobile apps, content marketing, Internal marketing, mobile marketing, mobile optimization, mobile research
