The proliferation of Internet-enabled devices has revolutionized email, facilitating the portability of email and content overall. When it comes to mobile marketing, email has an increasingly important role, with 31% of mobile users checking personal email and 21% checking work email on their phones. But what does the convergence of email and mobile mean for marketers?
- Forge stronger connections. By using email to grow a mobile campaign, marketers can tighten the connection to customers while better understanding how they behave. The behavioral data transforms standard promotions into more relevant messaging. While SMS still remains a bit of a conundrum, it’s finding its place in the landscape as an extension of a more intimate and ongoing email conversation.
It’s important for marketers to get away from channel marketing and focus more on an integrated communication strategy. For example, incorporate a conversation into an SMS campaign in which users are required to text in an email address, in addition to a keyword, to opt into mobile promotions.
- Drive behaviorally segmented messaging. Since mobile is still in the early stages of being fully utilized by both marketers and consumers, paying attention to behaviors is key. Most email service providers allow you to identify a target segment of your customer file that is more likely to open emails on a smartphone. For example, if you are launching an SMS program, subscribers who click on a mobile optimized version of your email will likely have a higher propensity to respond to an SMS acquisition campaign.
Marketers then can begin to test whether to email or use SMS on certain days of the week. Behavioral data enables marketers to test response patterns and augment their campaign strategies accordingly.
- Use SMS in a utility role across all channels. While many brands today use SMS to send marketing messages, the genuine value in SMS is its convenience. Consider retailers that allow consumers to text them for coupons, to text in for their loyalty membership rewards to use at point-of-sale or to reserve newly arrived items via SMS.
The ease of use and customer-centric approach is likely to build loyalty and generate sales. The benefit to the retailer is easier measurement and tracking, and consumers don’t have to remember to save or carry around anything but their mobile phones, of course.
