by anton | Aug 29, 2017 |
Watchwords come and go and two of the latest words we hear often in business lately are ‘customer engagement’. Of course, this might be the catchphrase of the moment but customer engagement really just means you care enough about your clients to reach out to them in ways that matter to them. This is simply good business practice. What else does customer engagement really mean? We like a simple definition provided by the business resource platform, Business2Community.com. According to this sage provider of sensible information, customer engagement is basically “any strategy you implement that will attract your targeted audience”. To InTarget, this screams mobile marketing. If you’re still unsure about the need to optimise your business strategy for mobile, here are two more great reasons your firm needs to get cracking and partner with the right mobile marketing provider: Mobile is where customers are. There’s no way of saying this in any other way: everyone you need to speak to has a cellphone. According to some sources, the average consumer is spending three hours a day on mobile. We think it is much, much higher with South African cellular users checking their mobile handsets at least every few minutes throughout the day. Now, aside from simply checking text message and WhatsApp icons, they’re also increasingly turning to their mobiles to conduct purchasing research and make decisions. Mobile users love emails. We don’t know why, but there’s something fabulous and very nifty about checking emails on a mobile device. A mobile strategy can really help you maximise your firm’s email marketing effort because clever mobile firms have come up with such...
by anton | Aug 28, 2017 |
As the year has now firmly passed the midway point and we close in on the last few months of 2017, it’s tempting to take another look at the tips mobile marketers were providing as the year got underway. As we review the sage advice of 2016 for 2017, we are reminded that there were the usual favourites that appeared to be cut and pasted from one media platform to the next. Advice like enable opt-in advertising seemed obvious – albeit crucial – and the same was true for such sound advice like optimising campaigns for location-based advertising. This is a great way to get in front of users at the moment they are in your brand’s area of operations. One particular bit of advice caught our eye as we reviewed advice provided to mobile marketers in 2016 about this year. One marketing thinker mentioned how emerging markets can influence mobile strategies in positive ways. The only thing is China, India, Brazil and Russia were the countries highlighted as offering great opportunities for mobile advertising. We can’t argue with the inclusion of at least one of those mobile territories, but at least one or two others are in a terrible state and we wonder if the risk justifies the reward. Perhaps things looked rosier in 2016. It seems bizarre, especially for a successful and growing organisation like InTarget, for any mobile marketing guru to give the entire continent of Africa a miss in a serious discussion of current and future mobile opportunities. And the Middle East for that matter too. How do you sideline a billion people and expect...
by anton | Aug 16, 2017 |
We quote so many facts and statistics with foreign origins in this blog that it’s a refreshing and positive change to have some local stats to highlight. The 2017 South African Mobile Report, by PricewaterhouseCooper’s (PwC), reveals that nearly half of the respondents use their mobile phones for two and a half hours per day. That was particularly interesting for me as I read this very morning that a study by UK firm TextLocal found that young mobile users in that country use their phones for an average of five hours a day. With relatively few SA mobile users having work or home access to a desktop or laptop computer, I doubt UK mobile users really do use their phones twice as much as their local counterparts. The difference in the two figures is most possibly due to differences in study methodology. An additional interesting local mobile-related statistic has to do with SA cell users using their mobiles for web access. Fully 40% of respondents said they use their handsets for Internet usage and the latter typically amounts to paying bills and engaging in other types of mobile commerce. If fully 4 out of 10 SA cellphone users are well-versed in m-commerce then doesn’t it make sense for your firm to be well-versed in mobile marketing? Of course it does and InTarget can show you what to do. The first thing your business needs to do to get m-ready is to take steps to optimise your operations for mobile. With mobile, new opportunities arise to communicate with your customers but this means you need to make a commitment to...
by anton | Aug 14, 2017 |
Mobile’s the best thing since sliced bread, the wheel and democracy! So the conventional wisdom goes. When one realises that the 40 million mobile user milestone is fast approaching in South Africa, we at InTarget couldn’t agree more. However, why is it then that mobile conversion rates in E-commerce are so low? Some sources have the average rate at which online shoppers eventually actually purchase via their mobile devices at just over half a percent. While it is obvious that the mobile form factor has inherent disadvantages related to size that are not going to go away any time soon, the fact remains that consumers are leaving desktop in droves. So it seems to us that the onus is on the mobile marketer to identify any roadblocks that exist in mobile E-commerce and overcome them with a view to boosting conversion rates. Let’s be mobile optimists and plough on with some practical things we can do with regards to the above. Desktop users have greater freedom to switch between various websites. It’s just way easier on desktop to play around with tabs. Recognising that online buyers tend to check multiple product reviews across different pages before making a purchase, this is a potential issue that needs definite attention from the mobile marketer. We need to impress upon clients that they need to make it a lot easier for mobile users to check product reviews on the brand’s E-commerce platform. Don’t shy away from reviews, encourage them, and don’t let potential buyers exit your platform to read product reviews – they need to stay on the page! Typing in crucial...
by Henk Auret | Aug 2, 2017 |
We’ve said before that mobile marketing runs on numbers. What also true is that words grease the wheels of business – and specifically, quotes. Businesspeople the world over do seem to love a wise word or two, and especially when it’s delivered in the form of quotable quotes. A particularly quotable quote that I came across this morning while researching the topic of today’s blog is this one that I just love from Entrepreneur Magazine: “If you’re not being smart about reaching your customers via mobile, you’re leaving a ton of money on the table.” Toby Nwazor, a consumer goods marketer, came up with this one. It’s great because it states in no uncertain terms that we’re dealing with money here – real cash that’s being completely thrown away if you’re ignoring mobile marketing. There are three ‘must have’ mobile marketing practices that companies absolutely must adopt if they’re not to go the way of that venerable, 160 year old soon-to-be-extinct retail store, Stuttafords. InTarget can advise on all of these, so while we won’t go into detail here, you’re welcome to discuss them with us in much greater detail over really great coffee: 1. Location-based marketing is truly here. We can help you send notifications to current and potential customers via text and other mobile technologies who live or work within a certain radius of the locations relevant to your brand. 2. In-app marketing offers the most personalised engagement possible with consumers. This drives retention, loyalty and lifetime value. This one is fantastic because you’ve already captured the customer and simply need to deepen the engagement. 3. SMS...
