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(Note: I’ve scripted this post to help work through some of my initial thoughts on the role mobile can play in relationship marketing.)

If one of main factors in building a sustained and economically productive relationship with your customers is the ability to earn their trust, then the mobile channel offers a key gateway for both initiating and growing that relationship.

Mobile is a permission marketing channel. The consumer must initiate a relationship with you by actively interacting with you through a promotional vehicle  (responding to an SMS call to action, downloading an application, clicking on a mobile ad, visiting a mobile site, etc…) or by providing some other sort of explicit consent (i.e. providing their mobile # and designating the mobile as a preferred channel through a web-form). So, with mobile, the pull comes before the push.

The power of the permission is also the power of the personal.  Mobile’s are unique to an individual. They are the most direct media channel to a consumer driven by the relatively high costs of ownership and the variety of communication options they provide. Other characteristics also highlight mobile’s appeal as a relationship marketing tool: mobile’s are always on, always with. You cannot say this of any other medium.

If you’ve managed to get a consumer to engage with you via their mobile, if you don’t respect the personal and the permission you do so at your cost. You can lose trust in a heartbeat.

Here’s some of the implications of these characteristics for relationship marketing:

Always Personal:

• Bridges transaction marketing and relationship marketing
• Powerful platform for peer-to-peer referrals
• A premium must be placed on engineering a consumer-friendly value exchange
• Data collected in ‘listening’ programming has a deep connection to consumer interests

Always On/Always With:

• Mobile calls to action integrated into media can be a powerful acquisition tactic, especially if your promotion/value exchange capitalizes on consumer downtime or contextual relevance.
• Contextual relevance provides opportunities for stimulating intent to purchase. You can give the consumer what they want/need, when they want it.

Sample Mobile Tactics:

SMS:

• For acquisition via media tie-ins (database opt-ins, providing initial rewards and spurring push to web)
• Rewarding via points, coupons, tickets. I’d include the use of QR codes here but you can easily do couponing through PINs and barcodes
• Creating alert services based around product attributes or lifestyle associations

Mobile Internet:

• Customer acquisition. For example, an automotive marketer could use a mobile site to help customers book test drives or get brochures mailed out to them
• Providing location based value such as finders, product comparison/recommendation services
• Providing supplemental brand and product information that might influence decisions at point of purchase.
• Generating referrals using SMS or email or as a coupon delivery platform

Mobile Applications

• Loyalty management platforms. I don’t think it will be too long before plastic ‘points’ cards will be replaced by mobile apps (or at least exist as an option). What a great platform for pushing out redemption opportunities and driving to retail.
• Value -added experiences/services (see Kraft and their recipe helper application)
• Product browsing, sharing, customizing (see Reebok and their custom shoe design application).
• Building community and help encourage brand friendly lifestyles (see Nike and their Training Club application)

Mobile’s other features also have a place in the relationship development and management process. Mobile’s can take photos and record video for example. Each could be leveraged to help consumers build custom shopping lists or provide product feedback through image recognition and augmented reality applications).

Smartphones are also email devices. However, operating systems do not always render HTML emails properly. Any email marketing effort should have mobile-optimized versions to ensure a positive experience for all recipients no matter where they are digesting the communication.

Who should be playing in the mobile space:

The most fertile opportunities are for B2C brands in the retailing, CPG and QSR sectors.  I’d definitely include food and beverage, sporting and other lifestyle brands here. The Pharma industry could also do a lot with mobile as part of their lifestyle marketing efforts.

These are just some inital thoughts. Each point here is a juicy subject in it’s own right and I haven’t even touched on the measurement / segmentation / targeting side of relationship marketing.  But what I do see is how mobile can be a powerful platform for relationship marketing across the attraction-acquisition-conversion-retention-loyalty cycle.

Earning share of mobile is a huge first step in forming a meaningful consumer relationship.

What do you think?

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The big sexiness in mobile right now are iPhone apps. No question they are impressive and the opportunities for brand communications are many. But as they only reach a sliver of the overall mobile audience and are expensive to build, I wouldn’t recommend jumping in with an app unless you can conclusively prove it will reach a huge chunk of your target audience.

Here are three relatively easy and cost-effective tactics for getting started in mobile:

• Build a mobile database: In Canada, you can’t buy a list of mobile numbers. If you find someone who will sell you one, say ‘no thanks’ and walk away slowly. Not only is it illegal it also undermines a key strength of mobile marketing – it’s permission based. Don’t be a spammer. There are a few ways to go about building your mobile database but the easiest is to add a mobile number capture to any web contact/sign up forms. Include a short ‘what’s this‘ description stating that the numbers won’t be sold or rented to any third parties and will only be used to deliver product or service information from your company. Now, I’d recommend working with a mobile services company to execute your database build and any subsequent programs but you’re taking a big first step by building a qualified audience and have a leg up for any promotions, CRM programming, or product/service alerts.

• Register Your Mobile Domain: Whether or not you’re ready to launch a mobile internet site, you should at least ensure that your brand site isn’t being squatted on. The dotMobi initiative has brought together many leading mobile carriers and technology companys to support a special domain extension for the mobile internet. This lets consumers know that ‘yourbrand.mobi’ is optimized for browsing on their handsets. Opinions do vary about the necessity of having a dotMobi domain. Many brands have used an m.yourbrand.com format for their mobile internet sites. But for about $20 a year, its a good investment to own your dotMobi domain. DotMobi domains can be purchased through most (maybe all) domain registry services.

• Optimize Your Email Content: If you send out B2B or B2C email communications, you should make sure your emails are optimized for reading on a mobile device. The increasing adoption of smartphones means that a significant percentage of your recipients will be viewing your emails on their handsets. This is especially true if you’re communicating with business professionals. There are two ways to go about this. The first is to strip down your HTML coding and simplify your email format/layout. Here’s a good resource for more on email to mobile optimization. The second is to include a link at the top of the email to a mobile version of the email. When clicked, the reader would then be taken to a mobile web page hosting your email content. Either way, you are ensuring your recipients don’t have to navigate through a jumble of HTML code to get to the substance.

There are nuances in each of these steps to make sure you’re getting the most out of your mobile marketing efforts, so I’d again recommend connecting with a mobile services company to help you navigate the landscape and ensure you’re implementing best practices.

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