Consumer priorities are evolving and have done so faster and less predictively in 2020 than ever before. They are spending less time in physical venues such as stores, restaurants, and stadiums, avoiding crowds, and relying on digital channels to get what they need from a brand. These changing priorities have accelerated engagement strategies from physical to digital and have dramatically changed how they engage with brands and how marketers can capture their attention.
While more and more brands have been putting mobile at the heart of their digital transformation, mobile channels are even more instrumental as the connected consumer relies on their mobile device to access a brand.
Mobile: It’s where customers want to engage
Mobile is no longer an emerging channel, but rather, where a marketer can expect a customer to engage. Consumers now spend 8 out of 10 digital minutes on a mobile device, 66% of consumers check their phones at least 160 times a day, and over 3.5 hours a day take place on mobile devices, which equates to, on average, 2,617 taps, email opens, swipes, or clicks per day.
Marketers must think of mobile as a collection of highly accessible touchpoints, whether it be SMS, email, web, or mobile app, making a brand much more accessible to a customer, which means that the marketer must be ready. However, many marketers are still “stuck” with mobile initiatives in silos. While they might excel with mobile app engagement or conversational SMS, they might not incorporate that success into a broader cross-channel strategy, inclusive of email, web, or social.
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Marketers face challenges related to having an incomplete view of the customer and not understanding how to optimize engagement across touchpoints. This is typically due to disconnected tools for managing channels and data residing in disparate systems, an inability to operate at scale across channels, and not analyzing what engagement strategies are effective.
Top 3 essentials for a mobile strategy
“It’s clear that a fully-fledged mobile strategy is no longer a nice to have, but the cornerstone of any digital transformation.” – Andy Gladwin
In the Marigold Engage+ report: The Value of Mobile in the Digital Age, Andy Gladwin, Head of Mobile at Marigold Engage+, discusses the importance of mobile technology in a digital transformation strategy. In the report, Andy highlights key considerations to optimize engagement strategies that put mobile at the center.
- A single, accessible view of the customer. Centralizing data into a single view of the customer not only drives operational and engagement efficiencies but helps to eliminate costly integrations. Having a single view also helps marketers know how to best understand customer behavior, as well as anticipate what they are likely to do next, using reporting, analytics, and ML.
- Connecting touchpoints. We live in an omnichannel world, where highly empowered consumers can engage with a brand whenever and however they want, which are make-or-break moments for the marketer. A marketer shouldn’t view the world through channels, but rather highly accessible touchpoints and being where consumers are. Therefore, the marketer must be ready to orchestrate engagement across all touchpoints, knowing that the accessibility to a brand is driven by mobile, through app engagement, conversational SMS, email opens, and mobile social engagement, alongside other touchpoints as well.
- Powering personalization with the right data. As consumer priorities have evolved and shifted in 2020, it is more important than ever to gather consent-driven data from customers while respecting privacy. Marketers should actively ask for preferences and use creative and interactive mobile-driven experiences, such as games, polls, and quizzes, to understand customer disposition and willingness to engage. This can include using mobile interactivity, such as a scratch screen, pressing to focus, dragging to spin a wheel or swiping left/right to show preferences to different product offerings. A marketer can use behavior data for analytics and driving personalization and more contextual, meaningful engagement.
At Marigold Engage+, we’re excited that the Marigold Engage+ (CES) provides marketers with capabilities that help them address marketing challenges and seamlessly incorporate mobile into digital strategies. Capabilities such as a single, accessible view of the customer; orchestration of interactions across all touchpoints; gathering zero-party data at any point in the customer journey, as well as vital mobile capabilities, such as:
- Creating and delivering beautiful, responsive, interactive, and mobile-ready emails
- Personalized SMS, which can be incorporated into any cross-channel strategy
- Mobile app engagement and personalization
- Deliver mobile experiences anywhere in the customer journey to gather customer permissions and other zero party data
- Lastly, loyalty program management and mobile wallet.
Now is the time to evolve your digital strategy to ensure mobile is at the heart of it. As mobile integrates into consumer behavior and customer journeys, driving engagement means creating an interactive and personalized experience for customers that ensures they keep the conversation going with swipes, taps, and clicks, while engaging with your brand.
In The Marigold Engage+ best practices guide, we share some tips and recommendations for acquiring mobile subscribers, engaging them during valuable mobile moments, and measuring the results of your campaigns.
