Why Marketers Should Care About Mobile

Getting Close to Your Consumer

Mobile is arguably the closest a marketer can get to consumers. No other device is as personal or as accessible. Mobile phones give the consumer various opportunities to connect with your brand, allowing the marketer to expand their reach and become embedded in the consumer’s life. Marketers should seek to understand, and leverage, a consumer’s buying journey. 84% of mobile owners use their devices while watching TV, which is about 2x higher than the last two years, according to statistics obtained by Nielsen.

“Social media usage is now standard practice in our daily lives. Almost two-thirds (64%) of social media users say they use social media sites at least once a day via their computer, and almost half (47%) of smart phone owners visit social networks every day.” - Nielsen

With the adoption of mobile devices, it has never been more important to know your consumers and their behaviors.

Huge Impact Results

In recent years, MMA did a case study for AT&T. According to their findings, 92% of AT&T’s campaign budget was used on TV. MMA’s findings also revealed that mobile, which consumed only 1% of the campaign budget, delivered nearly twice the impact per dollar spent compared to TV. After realizing these results, the company reallocated the budget for TV to mobile campaigns.

“For every dollar spent on mobile three people were impacted -- whereas  for every dollar spent on TV, only 1.5 people were impacted.” via the Mobile Marketing Association.

How Big is the Mobile Marketing Opportunity?

The digital revolution has accelerated its pace of change, and with this, the opportunity for winning brands to exploit innovation and grab a competitive advantage has grown immensely. Agile marketers who see the opportunity, move first to embrace it and then act analytically to test, learn, and continually optimize their mobile execution, will WIN!

Based on MMA’s sophisticated ROI analysis of mobile, the optimized level of spending in mobile advertising for U.S. marketers is 7%, on average.

What are the Challenges?

Measurement/ROI: Forbes.com states that mobile is currently hard to measure. However, Google, a tool used by SyncShow, will allow clients to measure these results based on mobile usage.

“Mobile App Analytics measures what matters most at all key stages: from first discovery and download to in-app purchases. You’ll get a clear view that you can act on to make users happier - and to make your app a success.” via Google Analytics

Smart phones are here to stay. A recent headline in KPCB Trends states that it is clear that the ability for leading marketers to tap into one of the most important and heavily used devices should wield tremendous dividends. While I know I can’t wait for my next upgrade, imagine how migrating into this bright, and vastly growing, industry might affect your consumers and ultimately the way marketers target consumers.

Search Engine Ranking Results: Google has recently changed their algorithm to reward mobile friendly sites and penalize non-responsive sites in mobile search. With mobile search growing at 10x the rate of desktop (thenextweb.com), businesses that don’t keep up and ensure their websites are mobile friendly will lose up to 1/3 of their traffic. Even if you don’t feel ready, now is the time to invest. Otherwise, expect to see your traffic significantly decrease.

As showcased in the points above, mobile is the way of the future for all industries. People are moving away from desktop and if businesses are looking to attract and keep customers, it’s important to adapt. We see a significant uptick month over month and year over year for our clients’ mobile traffic analytics. The internet is adjusting usability for this and if your company doesn’t catch up or keep up, you’ll be left in the dust.