With mobile devices basically glued to the hips & ears of most people, they’re a marketing channel filled with powerful opportunities for brand engagement, direct response and relationship marketing. The device, though, gets a disproportionate share of attention – what’s the latest & greatest handset, what new features or software/applications are being introduced, etc…
It’s important to remember that mobile marketing is about people not devices. The devices provide the platform and tools to engage, but you are still attempting to reach living, breathing human beings in all their rational and irrational glory.
Here are three people-centric ways you can go wrong with mobile marketing.
1. Abuse Consumer Permission
The mobile phone is a highly personal consumer extension. For many people it’s the most direct conduit into their lives. It’s no accident that one of the most often bandied about phrases regarding mobile is ‘always on, always with, always personal’. While this presents great opportunities for marketers to gain direct access to consumer preferences and intentions, it can also be a slippery slope if one isn’t careful about they communicate with consumers that have taken that first step and ‘opted-in’ to a marketing program.
Publisher Simon & Schuster recently got dinged for $90 million in damages for sending unsolicited text messages to consumers. If you can get a consumer to engage your brand via mobile, whether through SMS, an application or the mobile web, you have to take care to manage how any future communication is rolled out. The best approach is to explicitly ask the consumer if they want to receive future communications. You can take that one step further by getting a consumer to define the type of communication they would like to receive, when they would like to receive it and how often you can send them information.
This kind of thinking gives you more information about who you’re talking to and increases the relevance of your content. You’re happy because you’re increasing the depth of engagement. The consumer’s happy because you’re offering increased value.
2. Fail to account for context
Since the mobile is always on and always with, it’s intimately tied to what a consumer is doing at any moment and where they are. This creates a fertile ground for offering a deep utility to consumer action and habits. Applications which leverage location based technology provide the best use case for enriched utility, but even SMS marketing needs to account for context. Delivering coupons through point of sale media offers immediate value and can aid purchase intent, for example.
Content should be ’snackable’. Genuine and practical utility should be baked in to any experience. Ask yourself what are you trying to achieve and where consumers are likely to be when they’re interacting with you. More often than not, they will not be stationary, they will be on the go looking to meet an immediate need or want or entertain themselves.
3. Missing out on ‘bridging’ opportunities
Other than abusing consumer permission, creating a shallow mobile experience is the most common mistake I see in mobile programming. This can be as simple as a text to win contest which doesn’t offer an opt-in for future information. More commonly, I see mobile advertising campaigns where the post-click experience simply fails to account for the fact the consumer is engaging via a mobile. This includes linking to a non-mobile optimized website. But I’ve also seen badly designed sites with no functionality such as an automotive advertiser who’s mobile site doesn’t include features like a dealership locator, a test-drive sign up form or even an email submit or click to call for more information.
If you’ve gotten a consumer to click on your ad why would you not take full advantage of this by extending the experience and bridging to another destination – either on the mobile device or into the ‘real world’.
As marketers become savvier at developing mobile experiences, these types of issues will (hopefully) fade into history. Keeping the consumer front of mind in any campaign design thinking is vital. The mobile device is just a tool, though one rich with features and a powerful platform for direct-to-consumer engagement. Focussing on the device rather than the user will lead you down the wrong path. Take care to avoid these three pitfalls and you’ll be that much closer to earning (and keeping) your share of mobile.
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