As mobile offers increase in popularity, marketers have to be prepared to understand the entire flow from distribution to redemption. This post attempts to explain the 3 key elements about mobile offers that marketers should be aware of as they take advantage.
The first key is location. Location targeting is the simplest way to target consumers. Although we mentioned that targeting users by location may have mixed results as people are usually doing something and may not want to redeem an offer immediately, the amount of ad inventory for location based advertising is quite limited if we start overlaying location with demographics. We can expect these macro trends around 'geofencing' (advertisers targeting users when they are in a certain location) to change as more and more consumers allocate their budget more into the impulse buying and instant solutions vs 'planned'.
Another important term to note is: DMA or designated market area. DMA, a term coined by nielsen media, groups counties that make up a particular television market. Each county belongs to one DMA. We can expect political, auto, telco and financial ads to be more in the DMA categories vs restaurant, retail and travel which are best categories under geofencing. Lastly, audience segmentation targeting will be more auto, financial and consumer goods.
Location is usually detected using GPS or triangulation technology built into the mobile device. One can also track a more general location when someone connects to the local internet using a computer or laptop. Location can also be requested for by asking for an address (or even a zip code) within a mobile site or app. Peoples' location information can also be derived from location-dependent searches within a search engine. Lastly, you can provide interactivity at the store or wherever consumers walk by such as scannable QR codes and such.
The next important aspect is engagement. Tweaking the offer to gain a better response is a natural second step in the process of getting a higher response. As you gain more data, try specifying which days and times you want to run the campaigns. Another thing to think about is the particular offer. Is it directly tied to sales? Are there any other actions you can drive such as a free sample that will help funnel the consumer along the purchase funnel?
Marketers have an arsenal of tactics they can utilize when connecting with consumers. They can:
- Deliver a coupon for a time sensitive deal
- Deliver a message highlighting friends' social activities at a business
- Display local ads
- Deliver detailed product information when someone is in front of a product or scans a product
- Incentivize location-based activities such as going to a location multiple times
- Provide utility by making it easy to find things such as ATMs
- Provide social opportunities
The important idea here is that invasive tactics will ultimately fail. As detailed in our previous blog post, having a permission-based strategy is of the utmost importance. By asking prospects to opt-in to value-adding activities such as receiving personalized offers, you can minimize annoyance and maximize the chance of conversion.
The last step is to the close the loop at the point of sale. You have already been capturing data about your consumers: where they were when they first saw your offer, what they did with it, how far they traveled as so on. Analyzing this data will help you map out your conversion funnel and attribute the purchase correctly. Once the transaction has been made, use loyalty to continue the dialogue with a consumer. We recommend social call-to-actions that allow you to gain Facebook likes and Twitter followers as long as these can be gained efficiently.
Mobile payments are in their nascency due to:
- lack of awareness about mobile payment functions
- perceived risks
- fragmented technology at the POS
- retailers who have not yet invested in new POS infrastructure that accommodates mobile wallets
Offers can now directly be connected to the mobile wallet which allows users to pay directly with their phones. The ideal solution is to automatically give consumers loyalty points for paying with their mobile wallets and to store this information securely.
In a future post we will discuss the area of privacy, a topic that is affected by evolving policy matters, lack of awareness and accountability issues.
