Our ever growing reliance on smartphones and the rising capabilities of the most recently released handsets have enabled marketers to offer more sophisticated mobile ads, apps and websites. Having the appropriate mobile ads and fully optimised mobile site or app in place is key, as consumers now have the ability to purchase any time, anywhere and expect businesses to cater to this.
Another reason that mobile marketing has become so important is its involvement in the consumer purchase process, with mobile’s often being the first point of contact or heavily used in the research stage. Therefore mobile is rapidly becoming the core of marketing activities for many businesses and this is only likely to increase.
Juniper Research have recently published a study on “Retail mCommerce” and in this they state that marketers use mobile marketing for 4 purposes:
1) Initial consumer discovery and engagement
2) Relationship building
3) Product purchase (remote)
4) Product purchase (point of sale)
If we consider that these 4 points incorporate branding, relationship management and the actual purchase, we can see how important mobile marketing is becoming.
Mobile coupons will also become more prevalent over the coming years, as brands will harness their power to cement relationships with consumers. Which will in turn allow them to offer even more personalised mobile offers.
Juniper classify mobile advertising by 2 types and together they make it an extremely attractive proposition. Firstly there is transactional advertising, which drives immediate purchases at the point of sale or with location based offers. The other type is brand advertising, which seeks to raise awareness and create positive feelings towards the brand.
The combination of the above factors will see mobile advertising spend soar, rising from $18 billion in 2012 to a staggering $55 billion globally by 2015. It’s time to rethink your mobile approach!
