Mobile Marketing

My name is Julian. Welcome to my Mobile Marketing blog. Feel free to ask me anything and submit ideas/thoughts using the links above. Cheers

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Personalisation

Social networking websites like Facebook and Google use personal data and account information to provide relevant advertisements in turn for better services for their users. That same need for personalization in mobile experiences has now arrived, but few companies are are delivering on customers expectations. With mobile driving news consumption and responsive websites becoming more prevalent, it helps show marketers how to make mobile experiences more personalised.

There are a few easy-to-implement tactics to personalise mobile for customers. Understanding each will help businesses monetise mobile more effectively. Check out the 5 tips below:

1. Drive opt-ins Perhaps this is obvious, but getting an opt-in opens up infinite possibilities for personalisation. Be bold when encouraging customers to sign in on the mobile Web, submit their phone number to receive mobile alerts, or authorise push notifications when downloading apps.

2. Communicate across channels Effective mobile marketers take a cross-channel approach that integrates the various mobile channels, such as SMS, app, Web, social, and Passbook.

3. Location-enable Pretty simple really. Mobile devices go everywhere. Take advantage of how that information can create personalised experiences.

4. Provide choice Choosing between options lets customers personalise through customisation.

5. View mobile through a data lens When most marketers approach mobile, they gravitate toward viewing the technology as a communication channel. Savvy marketers understand that mobile produces much more value as a data channel.

Above all, remember that trying to implement all the above personalisation tactics simultaneously will be overwhelming. Personalisation is a crawl-walk-run endeavor. Bite off each tactic in chewable chunks, as each step forward will increase overall momentum.

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Assessment

Here's my assessment piece talking about B2B marketing! The link above will take you to my soundcloud page

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Mobile B2B

Marketing experts have long been predicting that mobile is about to revolutionise the way we market to customers. In fact, every year for the past three years, someone has heralded the coming of ‘The Year of Mobile’.

In 2010, it was the launch of the iPhone 4 and iAds that had marketers excited about the possibilities of mobile advertising. Mary Meeker’s ‘State of the Internet’ report had executives questioning the role of the mobile in their business as we approached a major tipping point in mobile internet usage. In 2011, top marketing trends lists for the year assured us that this was definitely the year for mobile marketing. And even last year, Mashable was insisting 2012 was the year of mobile advertising.

Meanwhile, back in the land of reality – the actual day-to-day, gritty lives of real people, a.k.a. our clients and customers – the ‘year of the mobile’ had come and gone. Australia currently has one of the highest rates of smartphone penetration in the world. Australians’ mobile activities are mirroring that of their general media consumption and informing the decisions they make around purchases.

And it’s not just consumers. For B2B clients, who are often treated as a unique species with different behaviours from the everyday people of the B2C world, mobile has become just as critical as an extension to their lives. The changes we see in consumer media consumption and decision-making are the same that are disrupting our B2B customer journey.

In fact, there are even greater implications because mobile is becoming pervasive within the enterprise. Mobile is not only affecting marketing, but is also enabling a more mobile workforce and allowing companies to deliver more utility to their own customers via mobile devices.

The year of the mobile has come and gone. If B2B marketers are not planning for a mobile customer journey, they are missing out on the significant opportunities for more impactful, meaningful and innovative communications activity. At a minimum, they risk having little cut-through versus more progressive marketers who have fully embraced this very real change in customer behaviour.

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Mobile Analytics

App marketing is the new frontier in communicating with your prospects, customers and clients. A hugely important piece of that is in-app messaging, or, the messages you send to users while they are currently interacting with your mobile or web app. In-app messaging engages the users who are already active, capitalizing on their behavior and using attributes (such as location, gender, and device) to determine which users will take certain actions. 

Sessions are a basic unit of measurement for app engagement. Most app owners want their app to be so engaging, a user never puts it down. But, in order to engage with an app, a user has to launch it. Each launch counts as a session and looking at session lengths help app owners quickly understand if users are actually using their application. Session length is typically defined as the amount of time the app is in front of the user. There are exceptions: some apps (such as streaming audio apps) may also include time spent streaming in the background, and always-on apps (such as kiosks) may build timeouts into their session model.

Google Analytics offers you so much awesome stuff that you may wonder: “Why pay for an analytics tool if GA gives us all this for free?” Of course, the answer to this question depends on your business requirements and cannot be given in general. But still, there are some things that most paid tools offer which GA does not. And the more I have been working with different tools, the more I have come to understand that these things are really important.

Sampling is a common method in statistics. Think of how few people (rows) are needed to get valid electoral forecasts: In Germany, Emnid, one of the bigger opinion research institutes, usually asks between 1,800 and 3,000 people, a sample of just 0.003-0.005 percent of the population entitled to vote. That sounds ridiculous in comparison to the 15 to 60 or more percent you usually get in Google Analytics, but of course it depends on what you analyse and how representative your sample is. Emnid, for example, selects the people it interviews carefully to reflect the overall population as well as possible.

Both Google and Facebook have very well established franchises on mobile, but the market is still very fragmented. In fact, Google and Facebook combined probably command less than 25% of the total time spent by the average mobile consumer.

There are other display networks and other search monetization players out there, but if we combined mobile search and display ads on the mobile web, Google probably has a high market share in terms of ad revenues. The rest of the apps, including gaming apps, are simply not getting their fair share of advertising spent.

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mCommerce

When you are out shopping or browsing watch how people are using their mobiles. Are they taking pictures of items, taking selfies, comparing prices? When people are out shopping, especially teenagers, they're not using their phones to shop or compare prices. They're texting, calling friends, snap chatting or taking selfies. Older people aren't using their phones much, mainly for calls or texts. I'm not too sure people use their phones that much for comparing prices, they'd prefer to physically shop around and have an actual shopping experience.

I've used red laser before and didn't find it all that useful. Although this was way back when it first came out and there may have been a few bugs. But what i wanted was to scan a product and have it tell me where i can find the exact same product at different stores but with comparative prices. What it gave me though was 'similar' products with stores and prices. It might have changed by now, but i don't feel like i would use it anyway. If i want to compare prices i'll do my research at home. I think i would be faster at it too.

Find an advertisement for a brand which brags about their mobile experience or site and try it out. What do you think they are trying to achieve and is it simple, clear and useful? ASOS have an app that says you can shop online but my experience with this app wasn't the greatest. The settings wouldn't remember which country i was in and would default to GBP. Plus would crash a lot, there were heaps of bugs in the app. So i prefer shopping online using the full desktop site, or in store if i can.

Could you go for a whole day buying and living using nothing but your phone? Even if you don’t think we are there yet, how do you think you would go? Absolutely i could go a whole day using only my phone. I already do! i have a pay pass chip from my bank that sticks to my phone which allows me to pay using NFC technology. im not sure how older people would go, considering 'most' of the older generation are skeptical about online and mobile banking.

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Location Marketing

What is location based marketing? Sometimes called 'geo-targeted marketing', or 'place-based marketing', location-based marketing delivers messages to customers and potential customers when they are physically close to your business.

These marketing messages are delivered to customers' mobile devices via location-based services - websites that specialise in providing this kind of information.

Location-based marketing relies on:

smartphones that allow users to access rich internet features wherever they are

GPS (global positioning system) technology that enables services to pinpoint the locations of mobile devices and businesses.

Location Based Services (LBS) are a general class of computer program-level services that use location data to control features. As such LBS is an information service and has a number of uses in social networking today as an entertainment service, which is accessible with mobile devices through the mobile network which uses information on the geographical position of the mobile device. This has become more and more important with the expansion of the smartphone and tablet markets as well.

LBS are used in a variety of contexts, such as health, indoor object search, entertainment, work and personal life.

Several examples are:  - Recommending social events in a city  - Requesting the nearest ATM or restaurant  - Turn by turn navigation  - Locating people on a map displayed on the phone  - Receiving alerts such as sales, discounts, or traffic jams; and  - Games where your location is part of the game play.

Near field communication (NFC) is a set of standards for smartphones and similar devices to establish radio communication with each other by touching them together or bringing them into proximity, usually no more than a few inches.

Present and anticipated applications include contactless transactions, data exchange, and simplified setup of more complex communications such as Wi-Fi. Communication is also possible between an NFC device and an unpowered NFC chip, called a "tag".

The Commonwealth Bank recently released "tags" for customers to stick to the back of their smartphones. This enables users to "tap & go" when paying for things on NFC eftpos machines.

Bluetooth is a wireless technology standard for exchanging data over short distances (using short-wavelength UHF radio waves in the ISM band from 2.4 to 2.485 GHz) from fixed and mobile devices, and building personal area networks (PANs).

Location-based advertising (LBA) is a new form of advertising that integrates mobile advertising with location-based services. The technology is used to pinpoint consumers location and provide location-specific advertisements on their mobile devices.

There are two types of location-based services in general, push and pull.

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Mobile Advertising

With so many people using smartphones and tablets, mobile strategy is going to be more important than ever in 2014. A new year is a time for change and another chance to do things the best way possible. It’s important to look back at the way businesses were marketing to customers in 2013 and how they can improve in the new mobile year. Let’s take a look at the top mobile trends for 2014. This is where business can start looking at innovative mobile marketing strategies to ride the mobile wave and improve their positions in global marketing.

1. Programmatic Buying – The latest ad technology is geared around automated buying and selling as ad exchanges, supply side platforms and mobile ad networks reach for scale. Programmatic ad buying and selling is changing the mobile landscape and is growing in fast in developed internet markets. Advertisers have been quickly won over by the ability to bring together the combination of historical intent combined with profile and behavioral data in real time through these new automated technologies. 

2. Wearable Technology – Wearable technology is changing the way we interact with technology and daily life. This advancement is providing businesses with opportunities never before imagined with new products to market on, such as Google Glass and smart watches. As wearable technology gains popularity and becomes integrated into everyday life, marketers who take advantage of wearable technology’s ability to make interactions effortless for consumers can benefit in establishing a strong connection and provide unique experience.

3. Improved Location Targeting – There is a lot of excitement around location-based mobile marketing and the strategy has grown tremendously over the last few years. In 2014 location-based targeting will only improve further. Reaching consumers where they are and converging both digital and real worlds means the right ad at the right place and at the right time. It brings value to consumers helping them find products and services where and when they need. Marketers can use location patterns with existing customer data to deliver custom messages by serving relevant, time bound offers based on their profiles and travel patterns.

4. Mobile Ad formats – As mobile advertising grows, new ad formats are likely to come up. Facebook’s insertion of native advertising into news feeds, Twitter’s promoted tweets, and Instagram’s in-stream ads are a few examples of the new, successful ad formats introduced this year. 2014 will see brands and developers discover more creative ads involving innovative rich media formats. Continuous growing network connectivity speeds will enable brands to test new creative formats, including mobile video, moving away from the standard mobile banner ads.

5. Mobile Big Data – Big data is said to anchor the next revolution in mobile industry. Spending on big data has risen tremendously over the previous few years and 2014 will see further growth. Mobile big data comes in many forms, smartphone penetration, consumer usage patterns, mobile apps and other services working in the background. As the mobile penetration grows, the data from mobile becomes even more important and this data can be used to optimize and personalize mobile experiences. Location data is the primary component of mobile big data which differentiates mobile from online helps transform the mobile advertising industry. The ability to deliver real time, local targeted advertising represents a significant evolution in the mobile ad market. These data points provide mobile app marketers with a wealth of knowledge on user behavior that wasn't previously available.

6. Mobile Video – Faster wireless networks, better devices and affordable data plans will enable this change and will result in people spending increased time watching video content on mobile devices. Mobile video ads are expected to become the top ad format in the coming year along with new mobile ad formats discussed above. Facebook’s introduction of video on Instagram and the success of Twitter-owned Vine has created new avenues in mobile marketing via social networks. 

7. Rising Mobile Currency – Thewidespread adoption of smartphones has seen a rise in the adoption of mobile wallets. Instead of paying cash or credit card the consumers now can use a mobile phone to pay for wide range of goods and services. As mobile continues to grow at huge pace in developing nations, mobile payment solutions are being deployed as a means of extending financial services to the unbanked community. This is bound to create enormous demand for mobile advertising services and technologies as brands seek to target existing and prospective customers.

8. Mobile Messaging – Mobile-focused social messaging apps such as Snapchat, Pheed, WeChat, WhatsApp etc. are growing their monthly active users at tremendous rates meaning consumer interest in communicating on these platforms and mobile devices in general is high. These apps allow users to communicate with text, images, video and other media in real time on simple, visually appealing platforms. Although this isn’t a trend, it still represents the growing number of customers for these apps on mobile phones today. This data presents a massive opportunity for businesses to get in front of their customers and take an active role in discovering the best mobile marketing messages for these platforms.

9. App Marketing – Over the last few years, app promotion was all about reaching the top positions in the chart through incentivized download generation. This year the strategies shifted toward a more CPI (click per install) sensitive approach through non-incentivized downloads. As mobile advertising continues to evolve, the metrics used to gauge the effectiveness of campaigns have also evolved. 2014 will see new metrics with a clear focus on generating ROI based positive campaigns. New metrics such as consumer lifetime value (LTV) and average revenue per user (ARPU) are evolving and these will be analyzed carefully in accordance with the business model of the app.

The link below is to a youtube video i found on transmedia storytelling. Henry Jenkins is the director, Comparative Media Studies Program at MIT. In this viral-info-snack he discusses the power of media in a 21 century trans-mediated world. A world where converging technologies and cultures give rise to a new media landscape. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bhGBfuyN5gg

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Value Propositions

Internet marketing is no longer a new thing and it seems as though many big brands, if they know what’s good for them, are already on the bandwagon. 

Internet users are different from mobile phone internet users because of their attention span and their preference for the zoom-in method. A conventional website could contain lots of links, information, write-up on one page and it would not confuse the user (not much, anyway). On the other hand, because of limitations of the screen and them being on the go, users prefer it if the mobile web page which is direct and to-the-point. The creative team would have to learn to be more direct and focused about their intention.

Another thing that differentiates mobile phone users from the PC user is that mobile phone users would most likely click on a link or scan a QR Code if there was something in it for them like, something free! For PC users, information is the key to exposure and as you can see, the mobile user market is a very much different one, indeed.

Parental controls fall into roughly four categories: content filters, which limit access to age inappropriate content; usage controls, which constrain the usage of these devices such as placing time-limits on usage or forbidding certain types of usage; computer usage management tools, which enforces the use of certain software; and, monitoring, which can track location and activity when using the devices.

Marketing through the Mobile Channel, “Mobile Marketing,” consists of a unique, complex, mix of technologies, business skills, and marketing expertise. It is a child born of the Internet revolution, and it is critical that today’s marketers grasp its significance. It is one of the first new channels to arise in over 50 years, and will quickly become a primary means of reaching out to our customers.

People have become more and more comfortable with and reliant on digital communication solutions, including the mobile phone. In fact, there are now more mobile phone subscribers in the world (2.4 billion1), than there are landline phones subscribers. The mobile phone is becoming a primary means of communication, not only for voice but also for digital services, email, digital photos, navigation, etc. Worldwide over 350 billion text messages, also known as “SMS Messages,” are exchanged across the world’s mobile networks every month, with over 15% of these messages, according to the Yankee Group, being classified as commercial, or marketing, messages.

The objectives of mobile marketing campaigns are straightforward: increase brand awareness, generate a customer profile opt-in database, drive up attendance to events or visits to a store, improve customer loyalty and increase revenues. Mobile Marketing does not stand alone; rather it leverages traditional promotional channels, such as the recent Mobile Marketing Campaigns associated with American Idol, The Apprentice, and the 2004 Superbowl MVP campaigns. The traditional marketing promotional value chain consists of campaign sponsor (the brand), marketing agency, content provider, and traditional promotional channel such as TV, radio, paper media or even the Internet.

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Mobile Engagement

Mobile app ads help drive engagement and conversion for your app with ads that take users to a customised location within your app.

For example, a travel app can target its existing users with relevant flight deals in an ad with a call to action to “Book Now” for a flight. When the person clicks the ad, they will be sent straight into the app to the flight deal advertised. Another example is a game can run an ad to its existing players to try a new level or start a match, with a “Play Game” call to action.

Push messages give your apps a voice. They're a permission-based mobile messaging channel to deliver useful information to your customers when and where they want it. At their moment of decision, Good Push is front-and-center on their smartphone's home screen.

You can compose a push message in our visual web-based editor, preview it on popular mobile platforms including iOS and Android and send it immediately to the people who have installed your app—even when the app is closed on their devices.

Smart customisation options let you choose the right time to send push messages and schedule them in advance. For example, queue up a series of push messages to send before and during your next sale to build anticipation and drive conversions.

You can create promotions, offers, product updates and marketing campaigns or rely on our high-performance API to automatically deliver alerts for breaking news, sports scores, stock movements and other significant events in real time. All of your targeted calls-to-action are delivered right to your audience's home screens and are just a tap away.

An in-app message center allows your customers to engage at their convenience. It's a great way to build loyalty with your app by providing a communication hub for continuous engagement and delivering ongoing value such as the latest updates, coupons, photos and more.

Delivering compelling, valuable content increases the chance that your users will want to hear more from you. Give them a reason to opt in. Then continue the conversation with highly engaged users by sending push notifications to bring them back to your rich content again and again.

A message center can be added to your app as a simple inbox (reminiscent of an email app), or it can be highly customized to blend seamlessly into your app.

Keep in mind that users are choosing to actively use the technology, so it’s important for them to perceive value in the experience and have an incentive to use it again. Payoffs are your chance to provide exclusive, rich media content to a captivated audience at the moment when their interest is highest. Ideally, users should experience a "wow factor" – the payoff should significantly enhance the print reading experience and allow them to experience the content in a deeper, more meaningful way.

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User Experience

What does SoLoMo mean? SoLoMo, short for social-local-mobile, refers to a more mobile-centric version of the addition of local entries to search engine results. SoLoMo emerged as a result of the growing popularity of smartphones, and provides greater local precision to search engine results than what's available via a PC.

Contrary to popular belief, mobile commerce is not simply buying something with your smartphone.  Most of the time, the website you bought from happened to use a mobile-friendly interface that made the exchange easier, but at its core (and at the risk of splitting hairs here), that’s not true mobile commerce.

Mobile commerce, and its SoLoMo cousin, include features that let you purchase goods by way of an app that acts as a go-between from your smartphone to the store, cutting the website completely out of the picture.  And, interestingly enough, people seem to prefer it this way – with 60% of mobile users making a purchase through their phone from their phone.

 Here’s what to keep in mind before you launch your new app to the masses:

Find Out if Your App Idea Already Exists on the Market.  A great design is only half the battle.  You’ll also want to do your homework and determine if your app idea already exists on the Android or Apple marketplace.  If your competitors are not yet in the SoLoMo market, they will be soon enough.  The time to grab your share the bustling customer base is now.

Be Sure You’re Prepared for Fixes, Patches and Updates.  Not to dissuade you, but for every Angry Birds success story, there are hundreds of apps withering away in the digital graveyard.  Be ready for bug fixes, updates, patches and new version roll-outs, and make sure you have both the personnel and time/budget commitment to see your app through to completion and beyond.

Give Your App a Feature that will Engage People  Look for ways that your SoLoMo app can better enrich someone’s life or give them an experience that they’ll want to tell their friends about.  For more details on going beyond the sleek user interface, check out this set of mobile design guidlines from Smashing Magazine.

I find the best apps out there are the simple ones. They look clean, and can do just what you want in the least amount of taps or swipes. Speaking for myself, i use the iPhone apps for Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram and Facebook more so than the desktop version. They're more streamlined and user friendly. They are also a lot of great picture editing apps that are easier to use on mobile rather than desktop. It's ease of use is definitely what makes them so popular. Added bonuses include saving them to your device, and exporting them easily to other social media sites. If i've had a bad app experience i simply delete it. It doesn't take long for me to pass judgement or assess the app on whether it's good or not. A good indicator is whether it stays on my iPhone.

If an organisation is thinking about mobile today, i would say an app is the way to go. People today, well younger people, are happier with and more likely to download an app in order to get what they want. It's quicker and easier than searching the site in a browser. It cuts out all the unnecessary junk and gives the user what they want then and there. 

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Mobile Consumers

Understanding the mobile consumer

Theory of reasoned action (TRA) is a model for the prediction of behavioural intention, spanning predictions of attitude and predictions of behaviour.

Theory of planned behaviour (TPB) is a theory about the link between beliefs and behaviour.

Technology acceptance model (TAM) is a theory that models how users come to accept and use technology, and which two main factors influence a users decision about how they’ll use it. They are Perceived usefulness (PU) which means the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would enhance their job performance. The other factor being perceived ease-of-use (PEOU) which means the degree to which a person believes that using a particular system would be free from effort.

Innovation diffusing theory (IDT) is a theory that seeks to explain how, why, and at what rate new ideas and technology spread through cultures. The 5 factors of innovation that influence a user’s decision to adopt or reject an innovation developed by Rogers are: 1 - Relative advantage 2 - Compatibility 3 - Complexity 4 - Try-ability 5 - Observables

Australian Mobile Phone Lifestyle Index - Link

The first lot of figures that i thought would be a lot higher were the following about the growth rate of other uses mobile users are using their phones for:

• Send and receive emails – 20%

• To get information – 21%

• For entertainment – 20%

• To visit websites, and/or search or browse the internet – 18%

• For banking, including transfers and bill payments – 20%

• To buy things online – 19%.

I, for one, use my iPhone increasingly for buying things online, emails, especially entertainment. Everyone i know plugs their phone into the car first thing to listen to their own music. Even banking, particularly in the younger generations, is easier and faster on mobile than logging in on a desktop. 

I'm also surprised at the low number of students surveyed, compared to full-time employees. I feel like younger people, especially students, would have a greater influence on the results because of the higher use of all features that phones have the ability to do today. 

Also, the social media rankings are surprising. I don't know how Facebook is still up the top. I'm baffled companies aren't attacking the masses using tumblr. There are over 174 million blogs on tumblr and growing since march 2014. Facebook will soon be obsolete and the two main social media people will be using will be Twitter and Tumblr. 

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Introduction to mobile

After completing the mobile playbook there were a few major points that struck a chord and emphasise the impact mobile marketing has on the world today.

- understand your business and the product or service you offer customers. find out what it is they want from you and how you can broadcast that through mobile.

- make a website, that is also mobile friendly. better-yet, an app is easier to access and refines the uses customers need and want that cuts out the rubbish or irrelevant info. keep tabs on it though, and ask for feedback to see what needs changing, adding, or removal.

- make someone in charge of this area and make it their job to take control of your creation.

- find out what's working for you, and what isn't on your mobile site. go on the mobile site for yourself and ask whether you like it or if it's working for you.

- are there any differences in search results when you search for the same thing on mobile and the desktop version. note the differences if there are any and take any measurements to fix this.

- make sure your mobile site is easy to use but also engaging. plain boring websites will lose traffic quickly. but, in your face and over the top website also deter customers away. keep this in mind.

- review changes regularly and make sure it's working and if it's actually helping. 

The big companies out there have already been in this game for a while. but new and upcoming small business should also step into the mobile world. i can only see this medium expanding and becoming more widely used in time.