Mobile marketing: Real-time, targeted and relevant

According to Experian APAC’s Managing Director of Marketing Services, John Merakovsky, some industries are clearly leading the way when it comes to customer engagement via mobile.

“The entertainment and hospitality industries, for example, are already using location-based mobile campaigns to encourage patrons to step inside their venues,” he said.

According to a whitepaper about mobile marketing in the region, of the mobile marketing tactics that are currently being used, the most popular are in fact QR codes, email marketing optimised for mobile, and m-Commerce.

Merakovsky further detailed, “QR codes, in particular, are especially popular within the entertainment, travel and hospitality industries, and typically feature promotions and offers to incentivise action by consumers. Cinema chain Golden Village, for instance, recently announced they will be using QR codes to let people through the gates and into the cinemas, as well as to buy the tickets.”

But those aren’t the only applications of QR codes. Elsewhere, they are found on the majority of posters and print advertisements – and many Singaporeans are comfortable using them. The whitepaper however, revealed that QR codes will likely be abandoned – 21% of marketers say they will discontinue using this strategy.

Relevancy is top priority
According to (another) Experian whitepaper released last year about multi channels, Singapore consumers are increasingly frustrated by the sheer volume of information they receive from marketers and no longer respond to blanket marketing.

In fact, 30% of respondents actually said they now ignore the emails, direct mail and social media messages they receive.

Merakovsky observed, “Evidently, consumers do not respond well to ill-targeted and irrelevant marketing information. Therefore, it is vital for brands to cut through the marketing noise by maximising the relevance and precision of their communications and creating meaning and value for their target audiences.”

He added, “The adoption of mobile technologies is growing at a much faster pace than the mobile marketing trend, and brands can no longer afford to stay rooted if they want to narrow the gap.”

However, the challenge here is to deliver the right information at the right time in the right place.

“Our mobile phones are truly an extension of ourselves and marketers need to be able to leverage on this phenomenon. Failure to resolve databases of customer phone numbers, email addresses, and social IDs to a unique identity is costly. The over-messaged consumer is a fatigued consumer with little patience for brands that do not know who what their needs are. Relevancy is the best tool for high engagement,” said the Managing Director.

Fundamentally, in order to overcome the challenges, marketers need the tools and know-how to both implement mobile marketing strategies and align these strategies with all other channels.

Other tactics
Across all of the tactics currently available to marketers – including mobile-optimised websites, m-Commerce, QR codes, location-based mobile services, SMS and MMS campaigns, mobile-optimised email, custom apps, in-app ads and mobile barcodes – mobile tickets/barcodes are most likely to be used in the next 12 months, with 72% of Singapore marketers planning to use this tactic.

Merakovsky explained that this is due to consumers increasingly using mobile phones to seek out store locations, and businesses are drawing on this trend and using mobile marketing as a way to drive customers in-store, where face-to-face conversations can take place.

Other tactics most likely to be implemented by marketers in Singapore in the next 12 months include in-app ads (67%) and location based mobile services (56%).
According to Merakovsky, the focus on in-app ads is a nod to the growing prevalence of tablets in Singapore, which provide marketers with more real estate to play with, as well as a great opportunity to connect directly with individual consumers.

“On the other hand, vouchers and mobile tickets provide a real opportunity for marketers to engage with customers who are seeking better deals in store, and with the new passbook functionality incorporated into smartphones, this form of mobile marketing is expected to dramatically expand.”

Multi channel coordination 
Ensuring that campaign themes and messages are integrated and consistent across all channels – remains a major challenge, with 50% of marketers citing this as the biggest difficulty of the past 12 months.

A further 18% believe that combining the data captured through online and offline sources is the major challenge.

With so many channels in the mix, it is becoming more difficult for marketers to obtain a clear picture of their customers. A 360-degree view can help measure success of the different customer touch points and allows fine tuning, so that there is overall gain. It also provides a full snapshot of what a single customer looks like and a history of the interactions and transactions with the brand.

Marketers who lack a 360-degree view run the risk of implementing a fragmented strategy. Experian has also observed a profound paradigm shift in the industry.

Merakovsky explained, “Instead of collecting every piece of information about a customer and building a single, physical data repository, a ‘current customer view’ leaves data assets in the source systems and then uses technology to gather real-time information about that customer.

“This information is then used to make an informed marketing decision and execute a campaign that is highly targeted and relevant to that individual.”