The holidays are only a few short months away, and it's time for retailers to evaluate their marketing strategies. This season will likely be the culmination of 2014's mobile marketing explosion, which should prove exciting for professionals and consumers alike.
Considering four out of five people utilize their mobile device to shop online, it seems obvious that businesses should currently be investing more in mobile marketing. All the recent studies point to its mass adoption: incredible message open rates as well as high customer responsiveness and satisfaction.
At the Mobile Marketing Summit: Holiday Focus 2014 conference, Twitter marketing manager Ori Carmel reported on the value of mobile marketing and the various ways in which retailers could enhance business strategies and mobile initiatives.
"There are two seismic shifts that are already happening," said Carmel. "The first one is mobile, driven by the consumers. It's going to impact the entire industry in the sense of individuals having information readily available for them and the mobile device changing the way people make decisions and become aware of products, specifically in the holiday season."
The second shift, he went on to explain, has to do with capitalizing on marketing "moments." Moments, as defined by Twitter, are divided into four categories: planned, spontaneous, big events and everyday moments. As an example, Carmel cites Ellen DeGeneres's selfie at the Oscars as a message that successfully made a "big event" even bigger. When retailers understand these categories and learn to use them in combinations that provide fresh and entertaining content for consumers, then retailers will enjoy a huge step ahead of the competition.
This is an almost unprecedented time in marketing strategy growth, and this holiday season should provide a few answers to questions about the latest trends and the viability certain methods will hold in the future.
However, not all businesses are poised to take advantage of the boom in mobile shopping. According to ClickZ, the average brand spends only 5 percent of its budget on mobile marketing, which is surprising given that consumers spend over half of their leisure time on a mobile device. Businesses cite the lack of hard data available on mobile phones as the reason for failing to invest larger amounts in mobile advertising. Email marketing, in contrast, provides retailers with hard numbers indicating success rates and purchase conversions.
"As mobile purchasing continues to grow exponentially, a lack of investment in mobile commerce this holiday season provides retailers who have made this a priority an opportunity to capture significant market share if they can provide the best mobile experience," said Mark Lavelle, senior vice president of eBay Enterprise.
Retailers willing to adopt mobile marketing before some of their more conservative counterparts will therefore be rewarded.
Consider staying ahead of the curve and raising revenue by implementing mobile marketing services for your company this holiday season.
