Tags containing: "mobile marketing"

Meeting connected consumer digital expectations

April 18, 2018 Rande Price, Research VP – DCN

Digital devices, especially mobile devices, give greater control to consumers whose expectations are high and constantly evolving, according to INMA’s new report “How the Connected Consumer Is Redefining News Media.” Once individuals experience a positive interaction or service with a brand on their mobile device, they expect other brands to provide similar offerings. Unfortunately, this presents a challenge for publishers because so many of these interactions and/or services are not necessarily set by media companies. Publishers now compete with expectations set by Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon, brands that often deliver positive consumer experiences in searching, shopping and connecting.

Therefore, publishers need to rethink how they engage with their audience. Consumers are more digitally connected (and less physically connected) and this constant connection to content can lead to information overload. The INMA’s research suggests that publishers can better meet the connected audience’s expectations and digital relationship by employing “connected marketing” strategies. The approach includes two core principles:

Create, develop, and maintain a brand that recognize the needs of the connected individual.
Strive to merge and coordinate the physical, digital, sensorial, and emotional experiences to best meet the needs of connected individuals.

The brand is sum of total experiences. Connected individuals are looking for ease, engagement, interactivity, experience, and control – all in real time. Basically, they expect to connect with the publisher wherever and whenever.

Publishers should also think about targeting users outside of traditional audience segments and demographics. New audience targeting segments should include more custom and personal audience slices. Additional helpful strategies include:

Build a deeper audience understanding

Understand short-form or long-form content consumption the audience seeks.
Identify your content’s unique offering for each user segment.
Know what they content they are looking for on mobile – app, search, etc.

Understand audience commonalities

Find the commonalities among audiences. Connected consumers expect to be able to choose the frequency and depth of their involvement.

Develop connection points

Allow the audience to comment or even create content.
Help in their content discovery.
Build their understanding of issues through content that helps answers questions.
Help them shape opinions through content that provides options and different opinions.
Allow them to share content they value.

Digital devices present new ways for content offerings to be even more essential to the connected user’s day-to-day life. Publishers must work to simplify the user experience and serve content the audience values. Connected marketing strategies allow publishers to strategically use data, personalization and content discovery to simplify through commonalities, build understanding and and leverage the value of journalism.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

How to engage multitasking, multiplatform consumers

April 3, 2017 Peggy Anne Salz, Founder and Lead Analyst – Mobile Groove

The avalanche of mobile services and apps has led to a sizeable shift in media consumption towards mobile. But the smartphone is not always competing for people’s attention. To the contrary, a new report from Deloitte tells us the smartphone enhances TV viewing experience. But this bright spot can’t disguise the brand imperative to re-think advertising to engage audiences, not annoy them.

Drawing on a survey of 2,131 U.S. consumers Deloitte’s 11th Digital Democracy Survey highlights how key audience segments including Millennials, Gen X and Gen Z (in other words, a broad spectrum of user ages 14 and above) interact with mobile, video, TV and the Internet. While the findings are not surprising, they are an important confirmation of people’s attitudes and behaviors and the trends sure to shape the future of media.

Optimizing Experiences

“The shift to streaming, mobile, on-demand services and personalization are significant opportunities in 2017,” Kevin Westcott, vice chairman and U.S. media and entertainment leader, Deloitte LLP, says in a press release. “Brands can bring new value, services and incredibly entertaining content to the empowered consumers across all age groups in a manner that can be monetized.”

But it won’t be a walk in the park. Yes, there is ample proof that American consumers streamed, “binge-watched” and demanded more media than ever in 2016. However, there is also an increased reliance on social networks (and friends) to make purchase decisions. Social recommendations are proving “more influential” than traditional advertising, the report says. For example, nearly one-third (27%) of Gen Z respondents say an online recommendation from someone within their social media circles can highly influence a buying decision.

Multitasking also makes it tougher for traditional media, such as TV, to grab (and keep) audience attention. The shift to second-screening may enhance the viewing experience. (I’m thinking here of the uptick in mobile app interaction and social media sharing that coincides with the broadcast of cult shows like The Walking Dead). It also detracts from the effectiveness of TV advertising. The verdict from Deloitte: “Enlisting online influencers and creating social buzz” are likely the more effective avenue for getting through to younger consumers.

Remastering Marketing

Another barrier that companies need to overcome is the quality of their advertising – or rather the lack of it. The report reveals the vast majority (more than 80%) of consumers will skip an online video ad if allowed. And 67% of consumers are tuning out mobile ads on their phones because they find them irrelevant. Against this backdrop, a large percentage of respondents are reaching to ad-blocking tech to snuff of unwanted advertising. (Although, to be fair, their motivation is linked with the desire to improve the speed and performance of the content and videos consumed online and on mobile.)

Amid the doom-and-gloom data that leads us to believe consumers hate ads, a few surprise findings (buried on page 12) show the way for brands to improve the experience for consumers and the effectiveness of their advertising. More than half of all consumers say they would be willing to receive advertising on their smartphones based on location. Significantly, 46% said they would pay more attention to an ad if they were able to make the call on whether they view it or skip it.

It’s a report that reinforces what has become my mantra: People want what they want – when, how and where they want it. Consumers crave more geographic relevance in their advertising and they want more control over the advertising they have to view as a condition to access and enjoy content. Clearly, brands are well advised to adapt their advertising approach to these consumer requirements. There is no guarantee the changes they make will trigger a conversion, or win customer loyalty. But it’s sure to grab at least some attention. And in a world where consumers are multitasking and massively reliant on their social circles, a little attention can mean major traction.

Peggy Anne Salz is the Content Marketing Strategist and Chief Analyst of Mobile Groove, a top 50 influential technology site providing custom research to the global mobile industry and consulting to tech startups. She is a frequent contributor to Forbes on the topic of mobile marketing, engagement and apps. Her work also regularly appears in a range of publications from Venture Beat to Harvard Business Review. Peggy is a top 30 Mobile Marketing influencer and a nine-time author based in Europe. Follow her @peggyanne.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Mobile marketing is huge. But how are marketers supposed to make it work?

November 28, 2016 DCN

In the wake of this year’s U.S. presidential election, it’s admittedly difficult to place a whole lot of confidence in data of any kind (regardless of which side of the political isle you reside). Fortunately for us digital marketers, one or two percentage points don’t often have monumental effects on our campaigns. More often than not, we pursue initiatives knowing that online is still an emerging channel, and—warts and all—is still more effective than its offline counterparts, even considering its weakness when it comes to reporting and performance data. Indeed, no matter the not insignificant margins-of-error we digital marketers know to be real and plan for, we also know that online channels provide us with superior insights and performance causality as compared to their offline brethren.

And it’s with these realities top-of-mind that we delve into this issue of Industry Research, where we examine the 2016 Global Mobile Trends Report, produced by Kantar Millward Brown and the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA). These organizations undertook the research, which encompassed MMA’s Global Smarties and Cannes Mobile Lions finalists, to identify mobile marketing trends, and understand the business impact of a winning mobile campaign.

Marketers of every stripe know that mobile-related activity on the internet exceeded desktop sometime around 2014, and has been on an upward trajectory ever since. Yet, though mobile has been a hot topic for several years, marketers continue to struggle to make it work successfully. And with good reason: The ecosystem is evolving at warp speed, so there are no absolute best practices to follow. The Kantar-MMA study provides tips and tricks for how to make the channel work for you. Here’s what you need to know.

Mobile Delivers on Branding Initiatives

Takeaway: Be open to using mobile platforms in new ways to renew your brand’s relevance among your target

Marketers flocked to the digital channel initially for its amazing tracking and conversion abilities. As the channel has evolved, stratification naturally occurred. Today, digital segments — organic search, paid search, display, email, etc. – have been defined and categorized for different jobs. And mobile, for the foreseeable future at least, is emerging as an effective branding tool.

Marketers Have Shifted Mobile Efforts from Sales to Equity & Engagement

Takeaway: Top performers consider deepening consumer engagement as important a mobile campaign objective as increasing sales

The study illustrates case studies from Samsung and Sony Pictures to show the impact that mobile techniques can deliver on mobile efforts aimed at getting consumers involved. Samsung used a campaign to get iPhone users to experience the Galaxy S6. Sony relied on mobile advertising to engage consumers about an upcoming movie (Goosebumps), which eventually landed in the #1 spot during opening weekend.

Mobile-First Campaigns Out-Perform Mobile Bolt-Ons

Takeaway: Mobile forms a creative cornerstone and can be bolstered by other channels

To say ‘great mobile campaigns put mobile as the cornerstone’ may seem redundant, obvious, or both. But mobile ads only accounted for about ⅓ of the U.S. marketplace last year. While mobile is growing faster than desktop (50%+ annually, versus ~5%), desktop will continue to be the majority digital advertising channel for at least a few more years.

So for all of the focus on mobile by Google and the other digital titans, mobile advertising is still adolescent and a needs to mature aggressively in order to evolve into a digital marketing best practice. In the meantime, sophisticated marketers who develop a genuine understanding f the channel will reap benefits until others catch up.

Tim Bourgeois (@ChiefDigOfficer) is a partner at East Coast Catalyst, a Boston-based digital consulting companyspecializing in strategic roadmaps, digital marketing audits, and online marketing optimization programs.

Perspectives

Forget apps. This year, SXSW was all about experience.

March 24, 2016 Mark Glaser, Founder and Publisher – MediaShift

Unlike past years in which an app dominated conversations at Austin’s annual South by Southwest Interactive festival, it’s safe to say that the talk of the town at this year’s South-By was the “experience.”

First, there’s the experience of virtual reality, which proved to be a buzz term in multiple realms: marketing, storytelling and more. Then, there’s the experience taking place as consumers transition more from the broadcast-like social media networks of Facebook and Twitter to more narrowcast-apps such as Line, WhatsApp and Kik — places where conversations, hyperlinks and other media disappear into “dark social” and are less traceable.

NYT, brands get into VR
Both of these experiences have huge implications for marketers and digital media makers, so it’s no surprise they attracted so much attention at SXSW. The festival even had an entire virtual reality track for the first time, with the New York Times being a huge player in it. Times president and CEO Mark Thompson and media columnist Jim Rutenberg spoke on a panel discussing the risks — and now, rewards — of plunging into VR journalism.

The Times also hosted a huge bash on Friday night that, as Capital New York’s Joe Pompeo put it, was “appropriately futuristic, with a gaggle of tipsy attendees checking out NYT VR on Google Cardboard viewers.” But the Times’ foray into VR isn’t just for fun; Pompeo figures its efforts creating VR experiences for brands has brought in $8 million.

Sam Dolnick, an associate digital editor and one of the journalists who helped launched the Times’ VR efforts, said that nearly every desk is pitching stories on VR. It’s forcing journalists like him to zero in on what kind of story works best on the platform, and why.

Beyond media orgs, brand marketers are also testing VR ventures. Brewing company Anheuser-Busch, for example, transformed a part of a garage into a “4-D Immersive Reality Budweiser Brewery Tour.” During it, participants with VR headsets were transported into the company’s headquarters in St. Louis, where they went on a journey sparking all of their senses so they could see, hear, smell and finally taste how Budweiser beer is made.

McDonalds also had a breakout VR experience created by VR company Groove Jones, in which attendees were transported inside a giant Happy Meal box and given two plastic tools to paint inside the box. “The experience was in 3D, so you could walk around your artwork and construct your dream image,” CNBC’s Michelle Castillo wrote. In the end, people were able to take home a GIF of their VR experience.

If it sounds like VR got to the point where it was overhyped, that’s true, as others have already cautioned. But the premise for brands to jump into this field is that they can bring audiences closer with immersive engagement. It can also offer them a way to market to consumers in a digital world where attention is at a premium, said Shiv Singh, SVP, global head of digital & marketing transformation at Visa, in a Q&A with the Holmes Report.

Visa, for example, had a “biometrics bar” where people could “pay” for drinks with retina scans or fingerprints, so they could understand how payments are evolving.

Analytics issue on mobile messaging
Yet if VR was the Cinderella of the conference, then mobile messaging was its ugly stepsister. “This trend stands to create a significant shift in how marketers talk to consumers and will make it even more difficult to collect user data,” Shae Carroll, social media director at Saatchi & Saatchi NY, told The Drum.

Marketers and publishers, then, are faced with the huge task of capturing the imagination of the younger populations on these platforms, and figuring out a way to measure it. The typical analytics provided by social media networks don’t work on messaging platforms. With some 40% of U.S. teens and young adults using a mobile messaging app like Kik, according to AdWeek — and more than half of all online sharing happening via “dark social,” according to a recent study by Radium One — marketing firms can’t ignore it.

The issue will always be that marketers very much want to play where people gravitate, even if those places like VR and messaging don’t deliver the data that’s needed today. The hope is they will tomorrow, when they also become mature enough to properly monetize.

Industry-Research

Navigating mobile hurdles in 7 charts

March 8, 2016 Michelle Manafy, Editorial Director – DCN

The case for mobile has been made. But it comes as no surprise to anyone developing content for mobile, creating mobile experiences, and developing monetization strategies that there are many issues that need to be address to pave the way for success.

Finding your audience

Mobile is certainly a given in any content delivery plan. However, there are demographic segments that must be prioritized in terms of mobile development.

Deciding which platforms to prioritize in terms of app development can’t be based solely upon gross popularity. Certain platforms attract specific demographic segments and verticals experience distinctly different levels of conversion success depending upon platform.

The State of App Marketing – H2 2015, AppsFlyer

Monetizing mobile

The average monthly per-app revenue is in the range of $5k to $11k depending on the platform. Windows Phone is the highest money-maker at $11.4k per month per app. Those that develop for the Apple iOS make an average of about $8.1k per month per app. For Android, the average revenue is $4.9k per month per app.

It is interesting to note that, since Windows has only a niche audience, the app store is not as fragmented as the Android and iOS counterparts. Thus app discoverability is much easier and the competition among apps is less. Thus developers on the Windows App Store seem to enjoy the highest monthly revenue.

State of Mobile App Developers 2016, InMobi

Making ads work

Regardless of platform, the majority of app revenue is generated through advertising. Unfortunately, the ad experience on mobile has not been one users have reacted to favorably. Thus, it is important to be aware of what mobile content consumers don’t like about mobile ad experiences in order to address these issues. Significantly, these opinions vary based upon types of mobile users.

As important as it is to understand what annoys consumers in terms of mobile advertising, it is also useful to know how mobile content consumers react to a variety of formats and factors in order to create effective ad experiences.

Consumer Intelligence Series Mobile advertising: What do US consumers want? PwC

And, of course, once ad experiences are optimized for consumers on mobile, marketers have made it clear that it essential that the effectiveness of these campaigns be accurately measured.

Industry-Research

How mobile is changing marketing

November 13, 2015 Research Team—DCN

According to a new study entitled State Of The Industry, How Mobile Is Changing Marketing from Marchex and Digiday, in the five years from 2010 and 2015, time spent on mobile has grown a startling 700%. Together, mobile and tablet use now account for 60% of the time spent on digital media. The study points out that not only are phones getting smarter, that they are evolving into a sort of “Swiss Army Knife of communication,” on which users are increasingly reliant.

Thus, it is no surprise that mobile ad spending, which currently accounts for at 19 to 28% of ad budgets is expected to triple in the next few years. This report examines the ways in which mobile is transforming marketing.

Among the key findings:

Over 60% indicated that a consumer’s location – at home, in a store, in transit – weighed heavily when determining what content or information to serve them through their mobile device.
Close to 50% cited driving in-store purchases as a desired outcome to achieve their mobile advertising goals.
Almost 40% of respondents sought to drive click-to-call to achieve their goals.
Respondents’ prefer mobile web display to in-app display by a 17% margin.
The top challenge that mobile marketers face is measurement and attribution.
When it comes to evaluating effectiveness, marketers cite mobile coupons as the top method for matching ad exposure to purchase.

According to the report, the effect of mobile has been to allow marketers to refocus their new digital tools on the traditional, brick-and-mortar marketplaces. By doing so, mobile is closing the gap between digital exposure and real-world sales, leading to noticeable advances in challenges like attribution.

Industry-Research

Instant messaging use rises as more people opt for closed platforms

October 7, 2015 Research Team—DCN

The popularity of instant messaging (IM) has soared over the past year, with a 12% uplift in daily usage as more people opt for closed messaging platforms such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and Viber. Over half of internet users worldwide (55%) are now using instant messaging every day, while 76% are using it on a weekly basis, according to Connected Life, a study of over 60,000 internet users worldwide from global research consultancy TNS. Despite this, social platforms are still rising in popularity with a 6% uplift in daily usage. As people’s online habits become ever more fragmented, TNS asserts that brands need to tap into the growing popularity of IM and other emerging platforms. The research shows an increased need for a content-driven approach across IM, social and traditional channels.

Among TNS’ key findings:

The US still lags the ‘mobile-first’ markets with 35% of US internet users using IM every day, but is catching up quickly (up 10% compared with 2014).
Instant Messaging (IM) is particularly dominant in emerging “mobile-first” markets, with daily usage rising even higher in markets like China (69%), Brazil (73%), and South Africa (64%).
Facebook has maintained its position as the world’s favorite social platform; almost one third of global internet users (30%) say they use it every day.
Facebook’s dominant position among US internet users is even stronger at 53%, followed by YouTube (26%), Instagram and Twitter.
TNS found that although IM users are wary of brands interrupting them, they are more concerned with how content they share impacts their own image.

TNS data reveals that consumers are even more connected to each other, and across multiple platforms. While IM popularity is rising, traditional social media platforms are still holding strong, allowing content to go viral more quickly. The challenge, says TNS, is for brands to create content that consumers actually want to share.

Industry-Research | Perspectives

Marketing Success is Dependent on Getting Digital Right

June 29, 2015 DCN

“If you aren’t getting digital right, you’re getting marketing wrong.” It seems simple, but the reality is that digital has taken over the everyday lives of consumers, and marketers are still scrambling to understand and take advantage of the opportunities that an evolving digital landscape provides.

This statement opens the study Getting Digital Right 2015, Millward Brown Digital’s second annual look at the state of digital marketing. The study, based on input from more than 400 U.S. marketers spanning brands, media companies and agencies, uncovered the primary challenges and opportunities facing marketers today.

Three key findings emerged that marketers need to address in order to get digital right:

Only 14% of marketers stated confidence in their team’s use of big data.
Consumers are generating multitudes of data, but marketers
are struggling with how to use it. Marketers agree: “utilizing big data to create actionable insights” is the top opportunity facing marketers today. However, most aren’t confident in their organization’s usage – only 14% of marketers stated confidence in their team’s use of big data. Even further, that represents a significant drop in confidence from the Getting Digital Right 2014 study, where 39% of marketers expressed confidence.

The volume and complexity of data is clearly causing marketers heartache. In order to be successful, marketers need to determine the right mix of research tools for their business or clients, and work with partners who can assist in combining that data with internal and third-party data to create insights that can fuel growth.

Approximately half of media and agency marketers, and only 25% of brand marketers are confident in their media mix. As digital evolves, so do consumer behaviors. Cross-device media consumption has complicated the way in which marketers reach consumers. Naturally, these changes impact media budget and resource allocation. Since the 2014 study, the biggest increases in channel usage have occurred in the digital space, with Mobile up 4%, Social up 2%, and Search up 1%. But still, marketers aren’t sure they have it right – only about half of media and agency marketers are confident they have an optimized media mix, while even fewer brand marketers do – only about 25%. Instead, they shared what their ideal mix of budget and resource allocations would look like:

To capitalize on the opportunities at hand, marketers need to understand where and how to reach the dynamic, changing consumer by examining the wide array of consumer journeys that exist and the impact of multiscreen consumer behaviors.

Over 70% of Marketers would increase resource allocation to Mobile, Digital, and Social channels if ROI measurement improved. Accountability is a requirement, and tactics that can’t prove their effectiveness will be pushed to the wayside in lieu of digital channels that can provide a wealth of data and ROI measurement capabilities. In fact, nearly 50% of marketers indicate “an ability to demonstrate ROI” as a top criterion for determining media budget allocations. For publishers, this can mean a big impact to their business – over 70% of marketers indicated they would increase their media spend with Mobile, Digital, and Social channels if ROI tracking for those tactics improved; conversely, only 47% stated they would increase spend in traditional advertising with improved ROI measurement. Given the need for marketers to provide proof of success, working with partners to measure the impact of marketing activities for individual channels, as well as the varying combinations of channels to maximize ROI measurement is essential.

In the end, it’s no longer a question of whether to include digital in your marketing strategy; instead, the questions have shifted to when, where, and how much? Unfortunately, there is no magic formula. Marketers need to begin by finding the right mix of KPIs within their available data, understanding the dynamic consumer and the touchpoints they engage with, and the resulting impact on their brand.

Feel free to download a copy of Getting Digital Right 2015 if you are interested in learning more.

Industry-Research

Mobile Marketing on the Rise

April 28, 2015 Research Team—DCN

The IAB Mobile Center has released the third edition of its Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising research. Based on the responses of 200 top-level brand marketing executives, the new figures show that two in five (41%) marketers agreed that mobile programmatic advertising would help them reach their target audiences. However, only 27% of marketers in total are actually buying inventory in this way, with 18% using private exchanges and 17% using open exchanges (some use both). The 2015 survey also asked about sources of mobile ad budgets. While a large share of mobile ad spend represents new ad dollars, about one-third came from substitution, in which funds from other media were shifted to mobile advertising. Print, PC, and TV budgets are all affected by the shift of dollars to mobile.

Key findings from Marketer Perceptions of Mobile Advertising:

Marketers expect that their spending on mobile advertising will increase over the next two years: 14% anticipate it will rise by more than 50% while 57% expect it to rise by less than 50%.
About one-third of mobile advertising spend is substitution from other channels, with print media hit hardest (58%), followed by PC digital and TV.
Marketers in our 2014 survey show a high level of satisfaction with the results of their mobile marketing activities. The majority is either satisfied (50%) or fairly satisfied (37%) while a further 8% completely satisfied.
Marketers show a strong interest in mobile programmatic, as 41% agree that it will help them reach target audiences. However, relatively few are actually buying mobile inventory programmatically today: 18% via private exchanges and 17% via open exchanges.
Marketer uneasiness over potential data privacy issues is pronounced: 37% of respondents in 2014 cited privacy as a very important issue compared to 22% in 2013.
In the current survey 29% of respondents said multiscreen advertising is very important to their
digital advertising strategy, compared to 21% in the 2013 survey. A further 48% of brands in the current survey view multiscreen as important, compared to 46% in 2013.

New to this edition of the study, marketers were asked about another development of interest: advertising opportunities with new-generation connected devices. Connected TVs generated the most enthusiasm (73%), followed closely behind by connected cars (69%), and wearables (66%).