Julia SJ

How to own your mobile engagement strategy and drive sales Do you spend 177 minutes on your phone every day? No, that’s not a misprint - that’s the average smartphone usage per person, per day. [1] Our beloved smartphones are there beside us all day, right there when we go to bed at night, and ready as always for a quick flick through our notifications when we wake up in the morning. Brands have been slow to adopt mobile as a key source of customer engagements, perhaps due to complexity, but the tides are turning, with companies like Sephora using app-based strategies to show customer reviews from scanned products in-store, and FIAT driving customers in-store via their mobile devices. And if you’re not clear with your mobile engagement strategy? You’re going to lose customers, lose sales, and miss the boat. So it’s time to ask yourself this: How are you going about targeting customers, really getting them to engage with your brand via their mobile phones? Is your app informed by the best strategies? How are you delivering more customers to your store? How are you using mobile engagement to create more sales? An omnichannel approach Approaching your mobile engagement strategy from an omnichannel approach – even within the mobile environment! – allows you to engage with your customers wherever they are searching for something. That is: your brand across your tailored mobile website, your brand headed to the top of the search results through clever SEO, your brand popping up on Instagram, and your brand app dazzling your customers. Your mobile app is a brand strategist’s dream tool in learning more about your customers, getting them to participate with the brand, and ultimately drive sales. When implemented strategically, focused on the user and their experience, it can be the smartest marketing channel that you have in your toolset. Own it by tapping into customer loyalty There are two very big pieces to the brand loyalty picture: true loyalty and transactional loyalty. True loyalty: a consumer’s positive experiences and preference of the brand, and Transactional loyalty: a customer’s loyalty through a rewards-based loyalty program Both of these can be positively influenced by your strategy for mobile engagements, ultimately leading down the road to purchase, after purchase, after purchase... True brand loyalty and the millennials Millennials now make up 7% more of the population do than their Boomer counterparts (and the same percentage of the population as Gen X’ers), and are the audience that will drive retail in the many years to come. With a self-centric digital life, they have grown up expecting to be placed in a tailored digital experience – which should be the basis of your mobile strategy. Not only this, 47.8% of millennials indicated that they would feel more loyal to a brand that provided interesting experiences. [2] Here’s what’s not interesting as a mobile strategy: a static webpage, that has simply been optimized to fit on a smartphone. What they do want? Rich interactive experiences that speak directly to them and know exactly what they want – which can be pointedly directed by engagement strategies from your side. This strategy doesn’t just work for millennials either. A tailored customer experience will always lead to a better result. Mobile loyalty programs How many loyalty cards do you have, right now in your wallet? A department store, a supermarket chain or two, a handful of cafes, and a pharmacy? More? Less? Over 80% of smartphone users carry two or more loyalty cards, with over 35% carrying 5 or more. [3] This wallet bulk is a serious issue: if I have a new card I have to add I may be more likely to discard an old one. A mobile-enhanced loyalty program makes sense. Storing multiple loyalty cards in a mobile wallet allows customers to add a large amount of loyalty cards that are accessible at any time, from anywhere. But there’s no reason for your loyalty program to only be the “simple purchased products for points to informed offers from products via email” cycle. The combination of a basic loyalty program alongside in-app points earning activities will inform you more about your customers than is possible through a simple loyalty card swipe at the store. With a mobile marketing automation strategy, you can include assets such as polls and surveys to inform you of customer preferences, videos to watch that include more info about your products, and promotional games to give your customers something fun to do when they’re on their 3pm boredom-induced work coffee break, which can all accrue loyalty points with your brand. The better your loyalty point program, the more likely your customers are to come back and continue shopping with your brand. Own it by using time and location dependant engagements Did you notice how we mentioned the customer’s 3pm work coffee break when it came to our loyalty points engagement strategy? Well, that’s because 69% of people believe that the “quality, timing, or relevance of a company's message influences their perception of a brand.” [1] The wrong move when approaching your customers can lead to a negative brand experience. This is more important than ever with your mobile engagement strategy. While triggered app notifications with an engagement asset can be a clever way to interact with your customers, each asset needs to be well informed, to keep your customer happy. Bzzzz bzzzz notification coming through… 8.30am on the drive to work? Go away phone, I’m busy. Sitting at the hairdressers on a Saturday? Sure, I’ll play a retailer’s game. Just walked in store? Thanks for the discount code on my phone! With a smart app, you can truly capture all of the right moments to engage with your customer – the ones where they are happy to oblige with an interaction. An automated engagement is triggered when the right conditions are satisfied. What the right triggered engagements are determined by, featuring Tim: Customer profiles Is Tim still in school? If so, he won’t be accessing his phone during school hours then. Purchasing habits Does Tim seem to come in store once a month following pay day? A good chance to concentrate engagement strategies around that time-frame. Surveys Has Tim indicated that he’d love to see cargo shorts in store? Better let him know when you start carrying them. Time Is it appropriate to reach Tim at this particular time? If he’s passing by a store, is it even open? Geo location Is Tim close by a store? Is he at work? On holidays somewhere? iBeacons in store What are the best engagements to send to Tim when he enters a store? Does he want directions? New targeted products? What you really want is the full picture on when, where, and how they shop. This knowledge can then help you to influence what they buy, when they buy it, and how they buy it too. Your triggered engagements, with the right backing evidence, can result in a great deal more influential sales. [1] http://icxa.org/2016/02/the-future-of-millennial-brand-engagement/ [2] https://vibes-marketing.s3.amazonaws.com/Website/Reports_$folder$/2016-MobileConsumerReport.pdf [2] https://think.storage.googleapis.com/images/micromoments-guide-to-winning-shift-to-mobile-download.pdf