by anton | Oct 20, 2016 |
Here’s a mobile marketing topic we haven’t yet addressed in these pages: how do brands engage mobile users in-app? It’s surprising we haven’t yet started this conversation as in-app is where all the action takes place in mobile marketing. Well, we mean rands and cents action but that’s really what marketing’s all about, isn’t it? Making sure your app doesn’t get uninstalled in today’s competitive mobile environment means staying true to the foundations of marketing. In particular, keep in-app communication real and regular. By ‘real’, we mean communication needs to always be personalised and relevant to individual mobile consumers. You can do this by creating in-app messages that can be set to trigger at appropriate moments. For example, an onboarding message can be created to help users understand their preferences or settings within an app. Paying special attention to the actual wording of in-app messages can also create an environment that feels customised to the user. Don’t use generic terms or phrases like ‘we value your feedback’ or ‘valued customer’. Be creative and come up with brand’s own approach to in-app messages. As brands like Kulula.com and Nando’s have shown, the mundane or routine can be turned into an extension of a brand’s personality. Also don’t restrict in-app conversations to the usual two-horse, binary type of responses. Try allowing users to respond in more colourful, personalised ways that go well beyond the obvious ‘Yes/No’. European airline Ryanair used these principles it to build an in-app customer satisfaction survey that triggers upon landing, rather than sending via email at a later date. The survey was kept simple — just three...
by anton | Sep 29, 2016 |
The topic of today’s blog is maximising the mobile marketing moment. When I originally thought about today’s topic, I wondered about the word ‘moment’. It really does seem that our mobile ‘moments’ are not moments at all, but one never-ending, seamless mobile story. Apparently, in the UK mobile is considered an indispensable part of consumers’ lives because the average person there spends almost three hours per day consuming mobile media. Three hours? That almost doesn’t sound like very many mobile hours for the average South African consumer who perhaps relies much more on their cellphone to make purchasing decisions than their developed world counterparts because of a lack of penetration of ‘traditional’ web connections here. However, no matter what the country, the consumer’s love affair with mobile continues unabated: research suggests four in ten consumers would rather forget their anniversary than lose their mobile phone. Whether it’s checking our news feeds, researching a product or service, or searching for DIY explanatory videos on YouTube, consulting our mobile devices has become second nature, regardless of where we are located. A rapid rise in mobile subscriptions that is expected to reach three-fifths of the world’s population by the end of the decade means there are exciting opportunities for brands to reach consumers at any time and in any location. And they will be able to do this through an almost unlimited number of touch points. The above notwithstanding, perhaps what the South African mobile marketing community needs to focus on here is not so much stretching out that mobile marketing moment but ensuring that it is a better quality, more in-depth...
by Marius du Plessis | Sep 16, 2016 |
They say the more things change, the more they stay the same. While we’re never sure who ‘they’ are, we can be sure of this age-old wisdom. It rings true in the general business arena where consumers always appreciate that priceless combination of good value and great service. This remains true whether the customer searched the streets for the best passage to Rome 2 000 years ago, or today searches the pages of the web for the best package next cruising season. In the specialist sphere of mobile marketing, there are similarly certain fundamentals that remain true across time and space, and no matter what the latest tactical technology is. Regular readers of this blog would know that we tend to emphasize the importance of mobile marketing message personalisation, customization of platforms and seamless interaction between different bearer technologies like SMS, MMS, USSD and others. We might call these little nuggets of advice the pillars of the mobile marketing discipline. We always seem to come back to them. However, when it comes to what seems to stay the same in mobile marketing, here are a few specifics that marketers would be wise to remember: Smartphone Use Continues to Grow While feature phone use remains big in Africa, and SMS is King, the availability of $20 smartphones means smartphone usage on our continent is on the up and up, and on track to eventually match usage stats in developed markets. Video is Big Every smartphone user will tell you that videos play exceptionally well on their phones, no matter the handset brand. Some mobile browsers are better than others, but...
by anton | Jul 12, 2016 |
During a recent skim through some international mobile marketing news headlines, I noticed a press announcement from the parent company of America’s second-biggest pharmacy chain, Walgreens. Apparently, in-store and online chemist customers now have the ability to redeem mobile coupons. I thought surely this has to be some small tweak to the current mobile marketing offering of this massive 370 000 employee business as they cannot be that far behind in the game? I had recently played around with the mobile coupon offering of one of South Africa’s major retailers and I recalled, looking at the Walgreens press release, how impressed I had been. We really have some outstanding retail organisations in this country that simply get mobile marketing, and mobile coupons in particular. Of course, a major reason why South African retailers understand the power of a potential 55 million population accessing mobile discounts is because they have great mobile marketing advice from specialist advisors like InTarget. Shoprite Checkers, for example, launched Eezicoupons mobile coupons as far back as four years ago, in the process becoming the first SA retailer to enable consumers to get instant shopping discounts on their cellphones. InTarget’s experience is that a huge number of consumers admit that they actively search for mobile coupon rewards on their phones before making purchase decisions. That’s significant. In conclusion, coupons are not the sexiest of mobile marketing tools but they have come a long way from mom cutting up pages of the things over the kitchen table. Their appeal to consumers will only increase as our sluggish economy keeps shedding jobs. They definitely are worth taking another...
