It’s a brand new (mobile) world! There’s no denying it – consumers are tethered to their phones. With Sendpulse reporting that 83% of millennials sleep with their phones beside them in bed, and eMarketer projecting US m-commerce sales will reach $588 billion by 2023, it’s easy to see why mobile is now a key component of any marketing strategy. The proliferation of smartphones has created a more convenient way for consumers to interact with their favorite brands, and whether it’s a mobile site or a mobile app, smart marketers are doubling down on their efforts to deliver a seamless and unified customer experience.
Take, for example, the retail sector. Consumers who interact with a retailer’s app are more likely to spend more money (both in AOV and CLTV), so it is no surprise that marketers have been working to drive downloads through paid ads as well as organic marketing. And while getting consumers to download a brand’s app is a challenge in its own right, getting them to engage with it is even more so. Marketers must make sure they provide valuable content in order to drive engagement, but even the most prolific content creation strategy will fail to deliver on consumer value if the brand experiences are not data-driven, relevant, and consistent across channels.
Deliver on Consumer Expectations
Mobile has fundamentally changed what consumers expect from companies – mobile has ushered in a desire for immediate satisfaction. The average person now has unprecedented access to information at their fingertips, and can even have purchases delivered within hours of ordering.
These expectations are only going to increase as 5G becomes more widely available. According to eMarketer, the 2020 phone replacement cycle promises to be a good start for the launch and adoption of 5G networks. Making sure that you’re delivering a fast and responsive mobile experience to deliver on consumer expectations will be key.
Where mobile content is concerned, relevancy is the name of the game. When a customer engages with a brand on their mobile device and clicks on a link, they want to quickly be taken to the correct landing page. If that expectation isn’t met, or worse, if the landing page is unrelated to the content that made them click through, bounce rates will be high. Your campaigns are going to have to adapt to these new expectations. With Movable Ink, marketers can generate data-driven creative that updates in real-time. That creative is relevant to each individual because it activates data and pulls it out of silos to create a seamless content experience from one page to the next. This allows brands to deliver the highly-personalized and relevant experiences that customers love.
Liberate Your Data
Marketers spent the last two decades talking about “big data”. Smart marketers are now talking about actionable data. In order to deliver relevant, real-time 1:1 personalization, data needs to be accessed at the moment the individual is engaging with your mobile site or mobile app. To liberate your data, you need to integrate your tech stack and allow it to communicate via real-time APIs. Having a central place to connect data (not house it) will allow you to deliver seamless messages across any channel and any device.
Optimize Product Recommendations for Mobile
Retailers regularly incorporate product recommendations at the bottom of a web page, but on mobile, consumers just want to hit “shop now” and quickly complete their transactions. Smaller screen sizes mean there’s less room for clutter, and your customers want to be able to find exactly what they’re looking for in as few clicks as possible. Marketers need to make the most of the limited screen real estate, this means being sure that the product recommendations are relevant, personalized, and up to date.
For example, Under Armour was able to incorporate real-time product recommendations into their campaigns and increase conversion rates by 49%. Their team worked with Movable Ink to power recommendations with their product API, which brings up the appropriate product recommendations in a beautiful, visual, and up-to-date manner. Customers are no longer shown sold-out products, expired sales, or previously purchased items.
Find Partners That Elevate Your Strategy
Effective cross-channel marketing means delivering a worthwhile experience to keep the consumer coming back. A key element to achieve this is finding the right partners, internal and external, that can help deliver on a unified vision. For example, if you have an existing mobile team, take the time to make sure they understand the vision for your entire marketing program. As far as external partners, align on a strategy early on and request their expertise as channel experts. This approach can result in content modules you can repurpose and optimize across channels by leveraging a connected tech stack led by a unified strategy. The right team of partners will draw from their expertise with clients across your industry and work with you to deliver a best-in-class experience.
To learn more about Movable Ink’s partnership with Branch, check out the Movable Ink Exchange.
About the author
Prior to joining Movable Ink to oversee North America and EMEA retail strategy, Julio worked across multiple SaaS companies whose integrated solutions focused on driving digital innovation for retailers. At Experian CheetahMail (now Cheetah Digital) he worked on strategic email program development and deployment. At RevTrax he worked closely with the executive team to manage the evolution of the product, define go-to-market strategies, and led the Customer Experience organization in delivering ROI targets for the client base. Julio joins Movable Ink from Eversight, where he led strategic engagements that leveraged the software to create and deliver smart, dynamic pricing and targeted promotions.