There are three components to a successful integration of mobile marketing into the overall marketing mix.
1. Involve stakeholders across the company. Mobile is part marketing, part communications and part operations. Before focusing your efforts on a clever app, understand where you can provide utility and engagement via mobile.
Mobile is optimized when it’s viewed as one element of a multichannel mindset. Mobile complements existing marketing activities and can help provide a seamless experience between online, in-store, out-of-home and on-phone. However, each channel has its own characteristics.
While its effectiveness is elevated by its strength of immediacy, the intrusiveness of mobile marketing requires brands to create trust or risk alienating customers. The value exchange at the core of every meaningful one-to-one dialogue is directly in the spotlight in the mobile channel. Designing an effective program means that a simple text message must be integrated properly with your technology platforms, as well as information on your website, in-store signage and profile screens in your contact center. For this reason, educating your entire company from the ground up is critical — because an uninformed response can create a serious setback for a developing customer relationship.
2. Match the right tactic to the right objective. Integrating mobile requires an ability to understand which of the many available tactics will facilitate achieving your objectives.
Some companies use mobile primarily as a way to send alerts, such as new product announcements, discounts or service reminders. However, the most active mobile users are more sophisticated and are engaged more effectively through customized messages that add value to their busy lives. Different customers use their devices differently. Use this to your advantage.
3. Maximize data insights to become more relevant. Mobile is one of the best ways to get closer to customers. While the Internet provides opportunities to gather data to better understand the consumer, mobile goes further with the added dimension of proximity.
Far more personal than an IP address, data in the mobile world can be tied directly to an individual and physical location. With this access comes responsibility and reciprocity. Once a customer lets you “in,” there is an expectation that your messages and offers will become increasingly relevant. They will share more personal information with you, but only if you demonstrate an ability to pair their preferences with an appealing response.
