The figures are staggering: eMarketer says that in 2013 consumers spent 380 million hours a day on their mobile devices, while T-Mobile (News - Alert) notes that there were 25 billion daily mobile screen views. Rightly then, FunMobility, which has built hundreds of mobile engagement experiences, predicts that marketers will be forced to go mobile in 2014.
Given the 2013 figures, you’d expect that marketers to already be on the mobile roll, pouring money into mobile ads; strangely, that isn’t so, as mobile appears to account for only 3 percent of marketer’s ad spend. Perhaps that’s understandable given the perceived and actual complexities and risks of mobile.
However, they won’t be able to put it off any longer; with e-mail analytics firm Litmus indicating that 48 percent of e-mails are now being read on mobile devices, marketers will have to shift gears and link to mobile-optimized landing and promotion pages if they are to improve their conversion rates.
Likewise, mobile opt-ins will become more important than e-mail opt-ins as loyalty and promotional programs are usually directed to junk e-mail addresses that most customers have (but rarely use.) That way, marketers tend to lose out. The only way they can redeem themselves is through mobile messaging, but for that, marketers have to be able to coax consumers to give out their phone numbers. And, that will take some doing.
With CMO’s beginning to adopt a mobile-centric customer approach to build long-term relationships with customers, it’s just a question of time that they adopt the same technique for digital promotions and marketing campaigns. In fact, FunMobility says that it’s the only way to gain crucial competitive advantage in 2014.
One thing, however, is certain: regardless of age, mobile coupons are distinctly preferred over traditional coupons as they have a higher redemption rate, and in the New Year, the trend promises to continue. Marketers will have no option but to yield to customer preference.
Till now, marketers were really not serious about the Telecom Communications Privacy act; but now they do appear ready to pull up their socks and FunMobility predicts that many will begin to leverage vendor or in-house expertise to be fully compliant.
With the winds blowing the mobile way and mobile devices surging inexorably into the communications landscape, marketers are left with no choice but go the customer way. Will Alexander Graham Bell turn in his grave?
Edited by Alisen Downey