Posts Tagged "Mobile Consumer Data Asset"

Today I read a new report released by Ogilvy and Acisoin titled “Mobile Advertising – 2020 Vision” and it contains a lot of ideas about what the future holds for mobile advertising.

The most interesting conclusion I found was the future switch from a “many-to-one” to “one-to-many” relationship between advertisers and consumers.  Today, consumers are engaged by multiple devices and channels whereas in the future there will be mode/medium transparency between advertisers and consumers; the device or channel won’t matter and today’s barriers between delivering a consistent experience for consumers across all interaction channels will be broken.  The consumer’s preferences and message relevancy will rule, with technology relegated to the background.

Whether or not this happens in the future, it goes without saying that consumers today would benefit from this kind of experience.  All players in the mobile ecosystem are working hard to deliver as close to this ideal as possible and Interactive Mediums is no different in this regard.

Where Interactive Mediums does differ, is that we are working today toward many of the capabilities described in the report:

• Metrics and Value: As we have blogged about, marketers need to focus on the value of the mobile interaction as much as the cost to reach the largest audience possible.  The report similarly states “With the establishment of industry agreed metrics, the next development along the way to 2020 will be that Reach will be overtaken in terms of Value for advertising measurement.”
  - Marketers Drawn to Interactive by Low Cost Must Remember that it’s about Value per Interaction as Much as Cost to Reach
  - Value per Interaction, Not Cost per Message, Should be Litmus Test When Evaluating Mobile Marketing Providers
• It’s all about the Data: We have also described the creation of a Mobile Consumer Data Asset that should be at the core of any marketer’s foray into mobile marketing, as it serves as the foundation for understanding customer behavior to inform more targeted, relevant and ongoing interactions.  The report likewise states “In order to achieve this transition from Reach to Value it is essential that more is known about the audience.  Here we will see a greater reliance on preferences.  Profiles will be garnered through a wider dialogue with the end users.”
  - The Mobile Data Asset and the Channel Agnostic Customer View
  - Forrester Reports Increased Mobile Marketing Adoption; Strategy for Success Grounded in Understanding Customer Preferences

The future of mobile marketing will no doubt be exciting, especially as bandwidth escalates and no longer becomes a limiting factor on mobile devices, as the report states.  Yet, brands, stores, agencies and others have options today to begin taking advantage of the mobile channel with an eye toward the one-to-many relationships between consumers and marketers of the future.

Today my colleague Jeff Judge passed me this article about the debut of a new multi-touchpoint couponing system designed for use by consumers, retailers and brand managers.  The focus of the solution is around consumers, the way they receive information, and most importantly the way they buy.

Heretofore, my thought process around mobile couponing as an application involved digital renditions of paper coupons represented on a mobile device, which were then scanned at the point of purchase.  Or, more realistically, some collection of mobile coupons represented on a mobile device that are scanned en masse at check out, since that is how shoppers usually redeem coupons.

The beauty of this new offering, however, is that the shopper redeems their coupons as they would a loyalty card discount – they  supply the cashier with their card and coupons are processed as products are scanned.

Participating shoppers now have a digital coupon account associated with their loyalty card, and this couponing bin serves as a repository for offers accepted by shoppers via interactive media such as online banner ads and mobile messages.

Perhaps the real beauty of this solution is that it offers value to both consumers and their suppliers and marketers.  Consumers save time by no longer clipping coupons, while brand managers receive real time data about coupon redemption and retailers gain equally fast insight into shopper behavior.

This is yet another example of data centric value taking hold in the mobile space.  Brand managers can create and execute coupon programs direct to web and mobile much faster without need for the typical print/distribution cycle, accelerating their test/trial efforts toward developing stronger brands, while retailers stand to gain from increased shopping basket value due to better targeted and more effective coupon programs.

For mobile marketers the lesson is apparent; when crafting a program incorporating the mobile channel, take on the viewpoint of your target customer and how they want to interact with you.

With so much attention in the mobile marketing arena focused on the cost of executing programs, Marketer’s cannot forget that whichever product or service they choose should reflect their point of view.  In other words, the best services are ones designed around the interactive marketer’s workflow, incorporating mobile channel marketing best practices.  Not coincidentally, services like this are also better able to capture mobile channel data that truly matters to making better decisions, which is at the heart of creating a Mobile Consumer Data Asset.

I was reminded of this when forwarded this article from the User Interface Engineering website, titled “Five Usability Challenges of Web-Based Applications.”

The five challenges and how they map to mobile marketing applications is readily apparent, and should be considered by marketers when evaluating services providers.

1. Scalability: The article points out that the number of potential users and the amount of data collected are key to ensuring a web application can meet your needs.  In the mobile marketing world, this means ensuring multiple users can access an application, but also means different users have unique requirements and the application needs to reflect that (some may want high level information, others need to get their hands dirty).  A strong data-collection component is especially key, as the mobile channel represents a new and rich source of customer insights.
2. Visual Design: Poor design not reflecting the marketer’s task can distract from their work, slowing them down and making them more likely to require help.  In the worst case, when an application becomes a part of an organization’s revenue generation efforts, poor design hurts the bottom line.  Mobile marketing is rapidly evolving in this direction.  Applications designed from the end user’s point of view, and that are well documented and adaptive to the ongoing requests of marketers, should be top of mind.
3. Comprehension: Ensuring an application makes clear how a mobile campaign will be executed is key for marketer’s to be confident their idea will play out as expected.  The analysis of post-campaign data is equally key, as it needs to be presented in an easily understood manner so proper insights can be gleaned.
4. Interactivity: The article states that users don’t always follow the “happy path” intended by an application’s designers.  Users may need to enter a process at multiple points, be able to undo their actions and interact with an application in multiple, yet structured ways.  Attractive mobile marketing applications are those that attempt to account for such actions, and/or make clear how application functions are accessed (like using the browser back button versus a “back” button on a page).
5. Change Management: Once marketers are accustomed to using an application, changes need to be presented in such a way as to minimize the impact on their work, while maximizing the value of the new capabilities to the user.  As new features and capabilities are added to an application, marketers need a heads up to know if and how any such changes affect the application’s workflow or execution.  Mobile application providers that take this approach, but also pay attention to how user’s adopt changes and incorporate their behavior into the rollout of successive improvements, should be shortlisted.

User Interface Engineering sees these five attributes as unique to web-based applications.  Mobile marketing software available via this channel has the advantage of being easy to buy, if not try, and enables marketers to quickly begin developing expertise and success targeting customers through the mobile channel.  Just be sure to choose one designed around the way you work.

An August 11 article on desintationCRM.com caught my eye the other day about Forrester’s release of its five year U.S. interactive marketing forecast.  The bottom line: spending is expected to rise to $55 Billion, or 21 percent of ALL marketing spend, by 2014.  That’s a pretty big number and large percentage too.  Marketers will be pulling investment away from traditional media and moving them into interactive projects:

“Over the course of the next five years, Forrester goes on to further break down specific channel spend within the overall U.S. marketing landscape (dollar figures in millions of dollars):
• Search marketing spend will increase from $15,393 in 2009 to $31,588 in 2014;
• Display advertising spend will increase from $7,829 to $16,900;
• Email marketing spend will increase from $1,248 to $2,081;
• Social media spend will increase from $716 to $3,113; and
• Mobile marketing spend will increase from $391 to $1,274.”

The article goes on to describe the drivers for growth in the market today and they are less strategic than you might think.  The low cost of entry is drawing marketers to the interactive medium given constrained budgets, greater accountability and the data-centric nature of interactive.  The latter point Forrester suggests is most key, as actionable data analysis expertise is lacking among many of the marketers today engaging in interactive programs.

“Media decisions are so data driven…It’s less about what feels right and much more about data and understanding who’s consuming which media at what time, what offers they’re responding to, and where they are in the buying process. All the data marketers need in order to plan creatives, media channels, specific offers, and even placement strategy is available today. The skills marketers need now are around how to create the highly-coveted customer-centric strategy given this information…the world is moving toward data, technology, and analytics.”

Forrester’s research points to the continuing emergence of a data and analysis driven approach to effective mobile marketing.  This starts with developing a Mobile Consumer Data Asset based on best practice marketing methods, and taking a programmatic, iterative approach to engaging customers in high value interactions.

Yesterday I saw this article on Mobile Marketer about a developer’s accusation that Palm is deceptively capturing Palm Pre user data such as location and application usage.  Palm doesn’t deny that they do this; in fact they say it is to help develop a better user experience for its customers.  That is completely plausible yet a mobile industry analyst suggests a change in strategy lest Palm stoke consumer privacy fears:

“Given that the user’s actual identity has no value for this purpose, it would be prudent for Palm to remove all personal information, anonymizing the collected data and treating it strictly in aggregate.”

Even were Palm to take this step, what the company is ultimately doing is creating a rich database of consumer behavior data at the mobile interaction channel.  And even when scrubbed of user identities, this asset can have tremendous value to any firm doing business with Palm.

Developers, advertisers, and marketers alike may all wish to access this data to create more relevant and targeted content based in part on anonymous user segments.  And Palm surely cannot ignore the value this would have.

Marketers should watch developments in this area closely and prepare to act quickly if they hope to connect with consumers effectively via the mobile channel.  Starting to build a Mobile Consumer Data Asset, and analyze interaction data to develop higher value customer relationships, is a logical first step.

Today there was this post on Mobile Marketer, reporting on a breakfast meeting event recently held to discuss how mobile media should be measured.  I found it interesting that the word “data” was used only in the very last sentence of the article:

“I mean, the data’s there…it’s just a matter of digging through it.”

Leading up to this quote are other interesting comments from panel members at the event, such as:

“They’re (clients) looking to understand what is the ultimate ROI, the ultimate link to sales…these are hard things to measure in mobile.”

And also comments about the challenges involved:

“Each (mobile) channel has a lot of different metrics about that one channel, but it’s hard to tie it across…yes, there’s a problem here but it doesn’t mean you don’t do it.”

While it truly is challenging to get a handle on the right marketing metrics for various mobile channels like SMS, mobile web and mobile applications (in isolation and in combination), the first step must be collecting the right data and making it available in the right form for marketers to make smarter decisions.  Marketers should set their sights on providers with this level of focus.

It might be a coincidence, but today I saw another article about mobile business intelligence, indicating that perhaps the mobile channel is gaining momentum with the mobile worker as much as with the mobile consumer.

The article focuses on the rising demand for mobile BI and the challenges to success, such as device variances and network latency or bandwidth.

It’s only a matter of time (sooner than later) before mobile BI tools make their way into the hands of on the go marketers to use on data collected as part of their mobile marketing efforts. To take advantage of such tools and their ability to lend actionable insight, marketers need to start building a mobile consumer data asset today. If not, savvy competitors surely will.

Analyst firm Gartner calls it a Hype Cycle, but practically speaking it’s a visual display for how a new technology gets absorbed by its target market. In the early stage, literally unbridled enthusiasm drives customers to buy a new, exciting offering, almost regardless of value simply because it represents the latest and greatest thinking. Mobile marketing appears to be in a similar phase, with many vendors taking advantage of demand void of pragmatic buyers found in more mature markets.

Enough market babble, but seriously, with demand strong, mobile marketing providers don’t appear to be working hard to differentiate themselves in tangible, value based ways for their customers. Instead, they are focused on presenting a price reflecting their own costs for serving messages through the mobile channel.

Long term, providers like this won’t survive as has been proven time and again. While cost is always an important factor in a buying decision, it should not be the primary one with mobile marketing services. Instead, marketers should focus on the value of interacting with customers through the mobile channel; the cost per message may be small, but the impact per customer can have enormous positive or even negative economic implications, depending on how a marketing program is executed.

It is for this reason, I believe, mobile marketing services firms that help customers achieve a high value per interaction are the ones that will be around to see the market move past its current, excited phase. Marketers can identify these firms as possessing the means to execute mobile communications, build a mobile consumer data asset and use an analysis driven approach to executing more targeted, higher performing programs over time.