June 2010
Mobile: providing a compass for the customer journey
Let’s step away for a moment from the concept of mobile as a tool to make a purchase.
How about looking at the role mobile plays in helping retailers to simplify choices? What I mean is this: consumers are bombarded with so much noise and confusion from so many brands that they often don’t know which way to turn.
Because of the immediacy mobile offers, retailers can drive a message straight from their brand into consumers’ hands. They can steer people towards the desired action and build a more personal dialogue with their customers.
We've just finished a sizeable consultancy project for a price comparison site that's looking for the best way to mobilise itself. One of the things that struck me most forcibly was how much users valued the email newsletter, often more than the site itself. Why? For the very simple reason that it brought the offers to them. It informed and stimulated. It demonstrated an editorial intelligence. In other words, it fulfilled the important role of being a 'choice simplifier'.
This reinforced for me one of the key reasons why mobile will become a critical communication channel for retailers. In a world where retail choice is abundant - seemingly infinite, when it comes to e-commerce - the smart and successful brands will be those that make it as easy for possible for consumers to buy from them.
This is partly about accessibility. Not just being open for business 24/7, but being available to consumers wherever they are. In short, being 'mobile'.
It’s about finding a way to flag your best offers to pre-disposed customers. If you have a database that's fit for modern marketing purposes, the barriers to achieving this are very low in terms of both technology and cost.
A good example is our work with fashion and sports retailer MandMDirect.com. SMS broadcasts to intelligently derived segments of the company’s database have driven average response rates of 6%. And by response rates, I mean 6% of people buying. That's marketing manna.
What's doubly interesting is that by doing this, brands like MandMDirect.com are simultaneously increasing their understanding of customer behaviour. They know who's responded by making a purchase - which means they can explore ways of incentivising and rewarding these high value customers further. They know who's responded but not purchased - which provides important information against which to test refinements to the offer. They even know who's unsubscribed...which probably means these customers have fallen out of love with the brand a bit and may be about to fall into the arms of a competitor. In this instance the mobile channel is now closed to you - but maybe you can do something via email to remedy the situation?
What all of this demonstrates is mobile's ability to ignite or re-ignite the customer conversation by providing them with a 'compass', a guide, a beacon that simplifies or stimulates their purchasing decision.
So long as your offer is relevant and timely, consumers will thank you for bringing it to their attention - and are likely to reward you with their business. And when it comes to relevance and timeliness, there’s nothing to beat mobile.
