In a recent iMedia Connection article, Matt Silk, senior vice president, Waterfall Mobile, highlights effective mobile marketing tactics savvy retailers and marketers need to consider.
6 Effective Mobile Tactics
A Waterfall Mobile article by Matt Silk
To draw consumers into brick-and-mortar stores, you need to engage them — and no channel makes it easier than mobile. Here are a few methods that are proven to work.
Santa Claus should not text while driving his sleigh, but this holiday season, smart businesses should be focusing on mobile to drive results. Many retailers kicked off their holiday selling season on Black Friday by opening their doors before dawn and spending millions on advertising campaigns to publicize incredible deals at bargain-basement prices for one of the busiest shopping days of the year.
Yet, despite heavy national TV, print and online pushes for the country’s biggest retailers, many major brick-and-mortar retailers have not begun to implement even the simplest forms of mobile marketing to expand engagement with their customers. They should take a cue from the few mobile-savvy retailers this holiday season.
Amazon.com, the world’s biggest online retailer, launched a new initiative in November called “Text Alerts for Daily Deals,” through which customers could sign up to receive daily text alerts featuring the retailer’s Deal of the Day. J.C. Penney shoppers who visit the retailer’s website can sign up to receive mobile alerts that offer shopping tips or help locate the closest store. And just in time for the holiday season, Sears launched Sears2go, a mobile commerce website that lets customers select and buy products, then sends a mobile alert when the merchandise is ready for in-store pick up.
In addition to basic product and service alerts, savvy retailers and marketers should consider these mobile tactics:
Engaging messaging
Create brand excitement with mobile messaging that engages shoppers quickly and easily by sharing valuable real-time information. Not everyone has a workshop of elves to help with the holiday bustle, so mobile outreach needs to be relevant to holiday consumers.
Major brands like Coca-Cola and Budweiser tweak their holiday season marketing to incorporate polar bears and Clydesdale horses, and just about every retailer has prominent logos and branding that can easily be repurposed for marketing with a holiday touch.
Subscriptions
Retailers can use mobile subscriber lists in the same way they would target their customers by email or direct mail. By incorporating location and demographics data and then targeting customers based on purchase preferences, the nearest store or sales of interest, mobile messaging can be much more powerful.
Santa has his list of which children have been naughty or nice around the globe. Marketers should follow suit by implementing geo- and demo-targeting to segment their mobile messages and maximize their ROI.
Voice messaging (IVR)
Add an IVR element to your mobile marketing campaigns and one-up the competition with the addition of personality and interactivity. With an IVR, consumers sign up via voice menus to receive mobile deal alerts or product promotions with interactive celebrity campaigns. They can also respond to mobile IVR alerts directing them to retailer call centers.
Earlier this year, Maxim launched an IVR campaign tied to its “Hottie of the Month” section and greeted callers with a message from a Maxim girl. This holiday season, retailers can easily leverage voice interactivity to further engage consumers with mobile campaigns featuring prominent celebrity spokespeople and holiday-themed content.
Interactive two-way messaging
Two-way messaging can help retailers extend their brands and communicate with consumers directly, reinforcing the mobile relationship. Irish brewer Guinness recently launched The Great Guinness Pint Contest, asking mobile consumers to rate their pints of Guinness, entering them in a sweepstakes for a trip to the brewery in Dublin. These customer loyalty programs further encourage activity between marketers and their target audiences and strengthen the consumer engagement.
For the holidays, retailers could deliver dynamic gift guides and bargain hunter notifications, invite customer feedback on their holiday shopping experiences, or promote and encourage mobile conversations with Santa himself.
Coupons and discounts
Promote incentives, mobile coupons, discounts and sweepstakes to increase shopper participation. Consumers always identify with special offers, and bargain shopping seems to be the theme of this holiday season.
Wal-Mart introduced a holiday mobile alerts program this season, connecting shoppers with in-store bargains and online discounts. Earlier this summer, IKEA offered mobile coupons that could be redeemed at in-store kiosks. Even Santa needs to be tempted with cookies and milk; your customers are no different.
Mobile ads
Small banners, text links… you know the drill. Retailers just need to miniaturize these ads for the mobile platform. Mobile sites are becoming a mainstream marketing tactic and an easy way to bring the brand to the phones of loyal consumers.
RadioShack ran full-screen ads within mobile games earlier this fall to increase awareness and purchase consideration for its brand. Consumers benefited from the RadioShack mobile store locator and could opt in to receive additional information. All retailers should be leveraging innovative mobile marketing tactics to extend their relationship and visibility with holiday shoppers.
With many consumers expected to tighten their pursestrings this holiday season, retailers should be taking advantage of every opportunity they can to reach their customers. Mobile marketing — the kind that is targeted, trackable and quantifiable — should be a part of every retailer’s plan.
Related articles:
Prove it or Lose It: Mobile Matters Now More Than Ever, by Matt Silk
Walmart’s Holiday Mobile Alert Service, Mobile Marketer
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