Posts Tagged "Social Media"

The title of this article today on DMNews.com titled, “Marketers still missing opportunities with loyalty programs: Survey” immediately brought to mind this recent post of ours, as well as the answer to the missing component: mobile engagement.

The article doesn’t call this out per se, but does strongly imply that engaging in-store strategies such as SMS text message promotions are an absolute necessity to address the potential threat to retailers offered by comparison enabled mobile shoppers:

“…when it comes to consumers, nearly 65% acquired information about the programs in retail environments at the point of sale, compared to only 2.8% who did so on social media networks.”

The article is based on results of a study released today by the Chief Marketing Officer Council and conducted by IBM and Ricoh.  Its key finding is that although marketers are focusing spend on social networks to communicate loyalty programs, consumers are unreceptive to this channel as opposed to strong calls to action in and around the point of sale.

A similar focus on email marketing is also cited as a disconnect between marketer priories and consumer preferences.  Speaking of preferences, relevancy is found to be at the core of effective loyalty programs regardless of how an offer is delivered.  Certainly, data is crucial to developing targeted offers, the kind of which can be efficiently collected also via text message programs such as customer surveys.

Marketers need to as well be aware that even relevant offers may struggle against the tide of comparison shopping enabled consumers expected to change the retail landscape this year and beyond.  Successful retailers will build relevancy into their loyalty programs, but also recognize that engagement strategies such as SMS text message promotions advertised in store can prevent customers from leaving for better deals, addressing key challenges threatening to make loyalty a mythical concept.

This post today on MobileMarketingWatch.com cites a Business Week article in which the Apple honcho bluntly describes his view of the utility offered by current mobile advertising formats.  He also apparently sees this as an opportunity for Apple to innovate and ultimately dominate the mobile ad medium, even in the face of online ad champ Google and its mobile focus.  We have speculated as much here.

Just the other day we blogged about the hype around mobile advertising created by recent acquisitions.  We’ve also covered issues surrounding mobile ad metrics.

We’re keeping close tabs on developments in this area for our customers so they understand where to prioritize mobile advertising alongside their broader customer engagement charters inclusive of SMS text messaging, mobile optimized websites, smartphone applications and social media.

An integrated approach to mobile channel marketing – akin to creating more effective mobile ads – is an innovation which greatly increases the likelihood your mobile marketing efforts won’t suck.

I thought of the film “This is Spinal Tap” when seeing an article today on eMarketer.com titled, “Mobile Plus Social Equals Opportunity.”  While the focus is on the growing population of mobile users accessing social networks while “on the go,” it doesn’t speak to the potential for leveraging the viral quality of social networks to amplify a mobile marketer’s message.

“Marketers are talking a lot about social and mobile and, on a slightly smaller scale, preparing to incorporate both environments into their marketing mix.  But since both channels are still evolving, combining mobile and social together puts many marketers into a gray area from both a budgetary and oversight perspective, and programs remain small and experimental.”

Marketers should not get bogged down in discussions of social media as a stand-alone ad channel or one that offers multiple points of access for consumers such as mobile or PC.  Instead, consider the challenge of creating “champions” who share your message with their followers, amplifying your call to action way beyond the confines of your opt in list.  I am of course speaking to Twitter in this instance.  Consider as well that “followers” will tend to have similar characteristics as those who they follow so message relevancy should similarly scale.

You can imagine a time soon when mobile marketers create a segment of customers tagged “social media influencers” who represent access to hundreds if not thousands of like minded individuals within social networks.  Those who do will have an advantage over others, much like the fictional musician in Spinal Tap who said, “Well, it’s one louder, isn’t it?  It’s not ten.  You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten.”

Today I read this August 24 article on CRMDaily.com featuring CRM vendor commentary on how their solutions are meeting the challenges of marketing in a recession. As someone who worked in the crm analytics arena the last time the economy went through a recession, I am all too familiar with the challenges associated with doing more with less, and focusing greater attention on retaining high value customers than acquiring scarce new ones.

The major differences today are two additions absent in the 2000-2001 time period – social media and the mobile channel. The former is emerging as a highly influential, community centric entity that offers consumers great power and commercial interests little control. While businesses struggle to understand and harness social media, the latter key difference – mobile – is a bit easier to grasp as it is more analogous to other interaction channels like web, call center or point of sale.

Where mobile differs, however, is in the behavior of consumers in the mobile channel given device dependencies and the highly personal nature of mobile communications, both of which place a premium on managing the mobile customer experience effectively. Get it wrong with consumers once, and you may not have another chance.

Traditional CRM vendors appear to correctly view mobile as a key interaction channel, yet like their forbearers at the start of the 21st century seem focused more on functions and business model than on process or experience.

If anything has been learned since the last recession it is that CRM is much more about business process than software. Similarly, taking advantage of the mobile channel requires a view toward managing the entire Mobile Customer Experience, from the way a consumer is targeted to the way information is collected and presented through the types of applications optimized for mobile devices.