5 Questions Mobile Marketers Should Ask In 2017
As 68% of companies have already integrated mobile marketing into their overall marketing strategy, what should mobile marketers ask themselves in order to keep up with the marketing trends and enhance their customer satisfaction?
It wasn`t difficult to predict that growth in mobile usage would continue at a very rapid pace after mobile traffic exceeded the desktop users` numbers in 2015(USA Comscore.com). We are living like our mobile phones are a part of our body, most of us even grab our phones before we wash our faces in the morning! –no, not joking: Over 50% of smartphone users grab their smartphone immediately after waking up. (ExpressPigeon, 2014). Not convinced? Let Google convince you then with their announcement of desktop search being out of date compared to mobile results very soon(2016).
It is all about the mobile now, more than ever
As 68% of companies have already integrated mobile marketing into their overall marketing strategy (Salesforce), what should mobile marketers ask themselves in order to keep up with the marketing trends and enhance their customer satisfaction?
1.How Can I Provide Omni-Channel Experiences to My Customers?
Shopping is not a one-channel experience anymore as consumers have access to the physical stores and online channels. Since the decision making for a consumer might start from a website, continue on a mobile application and end by buying the product in store, omni-channel marketing campaigns are becoming inevitable for mobile marketers.
Luckily geo-fencing technology (especially beacons) provides a great solution for omni-channel marketing. By using beacon technology, marketers can integrate online and offline channels and target customers while they are close to a store or even walking through the aisles.
In addition to using location data, with Netmera Beacon Management marketers can personalize their marketing messages on the basis of customer shopping behaviour, specific purchasing habits, favorite products, and customer payment choices. In other words, instead of sending messages to consumers only based on the location, behavioural data of the past and predictions of what they’re likely to be seeking can be used for more personalized offers.
2. How Can I Increase My Active Mobile Users?
A great way to increase retention and engagement of mobile users is Automated Campaigns. It automatically activates a message in a result of a user’s action or inaction according to a scenario marketers built. You can find the following examples for the 2 cases;
a. Engage when active: You can find the best scenario when you want to catch your customers` attention due to your business and business model: you can monitor every time they open your app, or when they visit a product page. Automated campaigns help you catch your customers after they take specific actions at specific times. Some examples of automated campaigns triggered by customers’ activities might be:
- Sending them a welcome message and a coupon 1 day after they install your app.
- Asking them to give you a rating 2 days after they make their purchase.
- Showing them the perfect matching shoes 3 minutes after they add a skirt to their basket
b. Engage when inactive: You can re-engage users when they stop using your app or engage them by promoting a feature that they haven’t used for a while. This scenario is good both for engagement and retention. Some examples of automated campaigns triggered by customers’ inactivity might be:
- Sending them a special offer when they don’t purchase anything for a month.
- Sending them a free delivery option if they do not place an order for their shopping cart for an hour.
You can learn how to make automated campaigns with Netmera Marketing Automation Solutions. Netmera will assist you in obtaining the best engagement results and increase your conversion rates
3. How Can I Personalize My Offer to My Customers?
According to a recent report from Accenture, 75% of consumers are more likely to buy from a retailer that recognizes their name, recommends options based on past purchases, or knows their purchase history. 63% of consumers said they’d think more positively of a brand if it gave them content that was more valuable, interesting or relevant. When customers clearly prefer tailor made solutions, what do we, mobile marketers do?
We need to make sure app users get what they really need, when they need it. To be able to provide personalized mobile experiences; push notification messages based on data collection and analysis can be your best ally.
To start with, you’ll have to decide which data you are going to focus on. There are few options to collect this data:
- Ask customers for their demographic details;
- Analyze their behaviors while browsing the app;
- Tag specific parameters like the type of device they are using, their geographic location, the time of the day they access the app etc.
Deep understanding of your target audience will help you build relevant user segments. After that, you can use all the collected data to build personalized messages and reach your users in a meaningful way, matching their behaviour and needs. Because you won’t be reaching them with spam and irrelevant messages, your conversion rates will be increased noticeably.
Now, you don’t have any excuses not to provide every one of your visitors a tailored and personalized experience!
4. How Can I Monetize My App(s)?
Yes we love our jobs and yes we want satisfied customers but we also want to monetize our apps, right?
That is quite challenging to achieve even when you use all the tricks in the book. It requires a lot of consideration in order to make sure you have the right monetization strategy that suits your mobile application. Here are the most common monetization strategies for mobile apps which will shed some light on your marketing plans.
Opt for a Freemium plan
Allow your users to use some of the features of your app free of charge at first. And then with Freemium strategy, after your customers tried your app, get used to your service and learn about all the advanced capabilities, offer them to use your app with an upgraded plan – usually a Premium or Business paid plan. In other words, with this monetization strategy, you offer something for free to build an interest in your product and then encourage users to upgrade their plan in order to access all the cool features. Freemium model is known as one of the best ways to attract new users and increase both acquisition and retention rates.
Embrace a Subscription Strategy
This is basically the same as the Freemium model, only for content based apps. With this monetization strategy, you provide your users a free access to some of your content, or for a period of time to build an interest. After that, you encourage them to subscribe to have the full access for your premium content. That simple but useful!
Display Advertising in Your App
With this strategy, you can either give two options to your customers in the beginning: download the app for free with the ads or purchase the app without ads, or you just keep the app download completely free. You will generate an income from advertisers, who will publish targeted ads within your app. However you need to make sure not to bother your users with too many ads and keep the risk of app churn as low as possible.
In-app Purchases
With some apps, you can sell additional content or services within the app. If you plan to build an m-commerce, or a game app then your revenue will be strictly depending on the amount of in-app-sales you are going to make.
Opt for a Paid Download
You can ask customers to purchase your app if your app has very unique features/services/content and capabilities that none of your competitors in the market provides. User acquisition might be quite challenging but with the right marketing strategy you can make sure your targeted customers know about the advanced features and monetize your application.
As you can see, monetizing apps is possible via different strategies. When you find the most suitable one for your business and determining your target audience you will then start to see the benefits.
5. When Should I Run My Mobile Campaigns?
This is one of the most common questions in mobile marketing. To answer it we need to analyse a large amount of data from a trustworthy source. Luckily we have it!
We built an infographic based on data collected from 50 million app users and from over 50 brands using Netmera’s services during 2015 and the first 2 months of 2016 (the apps in our sample are retail and e-commerce apps present in Netmera portfolio). The data revealed some interesting trends.
Our platform data showed us the best times of the day to increase your mobile commerce revenue.
We can clearly see that mobile commerce apps’ conversion rates peak at two specific times during the day: lunchtime (around 2 pm) and in the evening (after dinnertime, around 10 pm). The second peak reveals that mobile is becoming the preferred screen even when people are at home and they could easily access a desktop PC in order to make their searches and finalize their purchases.
Leave the Monday syndrome to others! As we can see above, Monday seems to be the most popular day for mobile commerce apps, followed by Wednesday and Sunday. With this in mind, mobile commerce apps owners/marketers should make sure to be there for users at these popular days in order to increase retention and revenue.
If you want to read more about our study, you can read the full article here.
There is no doubt that mobile marketing should be the core focus of the companies as user engagement and retention is becoming the most important value. When you have the most effective marketing strategy according to your mobile services and applications, you can easily monetize your business. Ask yourself these questions and let Netmera guide you in finding the best solutions for a successful 2017 in mobile marketing.