Mobile marketing according to Wikipedia is

Mobile marketing is marketing on or with a mobile device, such as a smart phone.[1] Mobile marketing can provide customers with time and location sensitive, personalized information that promotes goods, services and ideas.[2] In a more theoretical manner, academic Andreas Kaplan defines mobile marketing as “any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device”.

Practically the entire world has a mobile phone and a whole bunch of them are smartphones.We all know that every single day more and more people turn to their smartphone, tablet, etc. to do pretty much everything they can do on a computer.

There is no shortage of statistics to back up and support the fact that the use of mobile as part of an overall marketing strategy is no longer a luxury but is, in fact, essential.

Following stats are sufficient to understand the seemingly never-ending rise to the proliferation of mobile among consumers.

150* Number of times consumers check their mobile devices a day 79% Smartphone owners use their mobile devices to buy products or services

According to Econsultancy, that there will be a 67% increase in mobile marketing budgets in 2015.

The following 5 key things you need to know when it comes to Mobile Marketing:

Unifying mobile technologies to deliver orchestrated experience Use smart data and signals to inform your mobile communication strategy Create a holistic view of customer interactions Personalized marketing experiences ROI of mobile marketing strategy that can be proved

Let’s discuss each one of them in detail.

Unifying mobile technologies to deliver orchestrated experience

The first and the foremost move to be made is the move from a focus on single-channel marketing campaigns—to focus on the entire customer journey, you need to do it now.

The solution, however, isn’t in buying a slew of individual mobile technologies to execute—such as SMS, push, mobile advertising, and Passbook. Operating in silos can only deliver fragmented experiences that frustrate customers and result in missed opportunities for marketers. Instead, the opportunity lies in unifying mobile technologies and delivering orchestrated experiences that monitor signals from all channels (including connected devices).

These experiences speak to customers offering solutions based on who they are as individuals and how they’re interacting with your brand in their moments of need. By having the ability to send marketing campaigns out across channels, you can also track results that aren’t limited strictly to mobile. Automation makes the options for measuring success and running marketing campaigns a much more robust offering.

Push Messages as an example

Let’s look at Push as one example of how to create a cross-channel orchestrated mobile experience.

Push is a permission-based, mobile customer communication channel. By opting into your Push messages, a customer gives you access to their most intimate communication channel.

Today, there are more than 8.7 billion connected devices. This has led to a huge marketing investment in mobile apps—they command 80% of the time people spend on mobile.Mobile devices are fundamentally changing the way customers interact with businesses.As a result, customers expect to engage with brands to get any information or service they desire immediately, and in the right context. To capitalize on this opportunity, marketers need to take an orchestrated approach to mobile interactions and push notifications to make them part of their integrated, cross-channel marketing efforts.

70% of consumers find all types of Push notifications—including order updates and location-based messages—to be valuable for their engagement with brands. 50% higher open rates on Push notifications 50% versus email

The solution lies in technology that enables marketers to extend their cross-channel marketing strategy to the world of apps—technology that collects all user behaviors and unlocks valuable information about how and when your app is being used. By understanding the behaviors of your mobile users, marketers can better inform all their other channels and drive more valuable conversations with prospects for improved sales effectiveness. Integrated with the right technology, marketers can, in turn, deliver Push notifications across devices as part of an orchestrated customer path, helping to drive new revenue, improve loyalty, and strengthen customer relationships.

MOBILE COMMUNICATION STRATEGY USING SMART DATA

Apps on connected devices can collect information such as: Device Type, App Engagement, App Operating System, Loyalty Information, and Geographic Location. By focusing on collecting these new types of smart data, marketers can sense and respond to real-time contextual information about the customer, giving them the ability to deliver relevant information in a way that was never before possible—both on the mobile device and in an orchestrated way across traditional marketing channels. This information gives you the ability to further develop customer profiles and improve customer journeys.

DELIVER DISTINCT CUSTOMER JOURNEY

The way to do this is to centralize all of your customer data and connect customer identities across touch points and channels. Marketers can’t deliver a personalized experience if they don’t know who their customers are and what they’re buying, when they’re buying, and how they prefer to buy. Today’s technology enables marketers to collect information on how individual customers are interacting with distinct channels and to analyze those interactions to glean information on what customers want. Marketers now have the ability to know not just what their customers are purchasing but also the different ways they use mobile to live daily lives. For example, maybe they prefer to use their laptops in the morning to shop for household products before they head to work and their tablets in the evening for entertainment and consuming content. What’s more, you can use that information to deliver distinct customer journeys. For example, if a customer clicks on a dress offered in an email message, a mobile marketer can know whether the best next step is to send a Push or an SMS offering a discount on that same dress.

Two Important Points

SEGMENTATION

The needs of each customer differ, so it makes sense that marketers create different offers for each segment of the market. Consumers in each segment should exhibit similar types of behavior as shown by the data, ensuring that they can be marketed to in a similar way. Mobile offers a unique opportunity for marketers to capture their prospect’s device type, physical location, in-app usage, and behaviors. Marketers can now capitalize on this rich customer data gathered to identify ideal customers and target specific audience segments. Segmentation is vital when it comes to establishing engagement trends. With the ability to identify the physical location of consumers, marketers can now even segment their audience by location, enabling them to connect with their audience at the right time and place. Behavioral targeting allows marketers to reach out to customer segments based on behavioral patterns such as past actions and purchase intent. Once segmentation is in place the insights derived can ultimately ensure campaign success.

Data Management Platforms (DMPs).

Advertisers need a sophisticated technology platform that addresses the unique challenges of mobile data collection, media organization, and campaign execution. This technology tool is called a data management platform, or DMP.

A DMP is a centralized platform that ingests, organizes, and segments an advertiser’s first- and third-party mobile and desktop audience data assets in one place for audience creation, analytics, and execution. Mobile DMPs give brands control of their ever-growing mobile advertising programs. Mobile advertising offers a huge opportunity to capture a consumer’s immediate location-based, in-the-moment interests. Customized mobile advertising, when done effectively, delivers extremely high brand engagement and conversion rates. The most sophisticated mobile DMPs enable marketers to integrate mobile campaigns with wider digital and offline advertising initiatives to improve cross-channel targeting. For example, a brand could target a consumer on her smartphone after she takes an action on her laptop, or target a user on his computer after he visited a retail store (as captured by his mobile device), and then track conversion across the device.

DELIVER PERSONALIZED MARKETING EXPERIENCES

Let’s take a look at SMS messaging as a tool to deliver personalized messaging with content that matters to the customer and offers that are based on their needs at that moment in time to strengthen customer relationships and loyalty. In recent years, mobile SMS marketing has pushed forward to become one of the most desirable forms of marketing available. The number of people with cell phones capable of texting has grown rapidly in the past few years and so it makes sense that texting is swiftly becoming the best way to reach a customer. The low cost and flexibility make it great for businesses while its ability to deliver offers instantly leave customers wanting more. SMS is lightning fast, literally putting your message into subscriber pockets or purses seconds after you send. The average time for all mobile carriers and SMS services is less than 7 seconds from send to receive.

Compared to email marketing, SMS has a staggeringly high open rate. Essentially, almost every SMS sent is opened (and read), whereas only a fraction of emails sent are read. When a subscriber feels that friendly buzz in their pocket or hears that Pavlov’s Dog tone signaling a text message, they always look. In some cases, text messages are automatically opened, where emails aren’t. Subscribers have a choice to open your email. Consumers can get thousands of emails a month. Empowered by the technology at their desks and in their hands, consumers can fast-forward, delete, or tune out any messages they don’t like.

Planning an interactive SMS promotion is a good way to make your message fun and engaging, and there are plenty of ways to do it. Posing your message as part of a questionnaire or poll encourages your target audience to read more closely and become an active participant. Offering up a toll-free SMS reply option is an extra incentive for users to engage with your brand. Meanwhile, including a link to an entertaining video or images with more details about your promotion encourages users to investigate further.

PROVE THE ROI

Many mobile marketing platforms now have a link tracking capability which allow marketers to embed branded short URLs in their SMS messages to get deep insights into how well campaigns perform by monitoring SMS click through rates, conversions, and click recency. SMS click recency behavior is recorded at the individual level and can be used for targeting. For example, marketers can use a mobile-specific landing page toward which they direct customers that will allow them to glean metrics on conversion, geo tracking, and device detection. Or a specific call to action such as “Order now and you’ll receive a $5 credit toward your next purchase” alongside a point-of-sale code specific to one particular mobile campaign can track the success of that campaign.

Marketers can then use response data to monitor, track, and create more relevant campaigns. This results in better conversion rates and a faster return on investment. It is important to set clear goals that are tied to business objectives from the outset. Marketers should set up custom events based on KPIs, such as installs, in-app purchases, or time spent on the app. If the custom events are set up properly, these third-party tracking companies are invaluable tools to measure which traffic sources drove the most revenue at most efficient ROI. This then allows marketers to optimize their marketing spend and shift their budgets accordingly.

MOBILE MARKETING: POINTS TO REMEMBER

Your website must be web friendly.

You need the SMS and Push features.

You have to have the data from both online behaviors and offline purchases.

You need to track and use preference information to truly personalize the experience.

You’ll probably be asked to quantify to justify and show ROI.

Note: This ARTICLE is broadly based on a white paper published by Oracle cloud.You can get the complete Research white paper here