This document provides mobile marketing tips for businesses. It discusses the importance of having a mobile-optimized website and keeping mobile statistics. Tips include using responsive design, regularly evaluating mobile performance, and nominating a mobile champion. The document also recommends implementing beacon technology, both physical and virtual beacons, to send targeted messages to customers based on location. Case studies show how beacons can increase engagement and revenue when used with mobile apps and personalized messaging.
2. SMARTFOCUS | PAGE 2
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
Don’t lose out to your competitors.
Make sure you have the mobile competitive edge
Understanding the mobile user experience
is vital for every marketer to maximize their
campaign effectiveness. Most consumers
now have constant connectivity - whether
this is by smartphone, tablet or computer -
they are ‘always on, always connected’.
Currently, 1.75 billion people worldwide
own a smartphone, with the US having
173 million smartphone users, making
up almost 72% of their mobile market
(comScore).
Online shopping on mobiles has recently
overtaken desktop for the first time -
52% of website visits are now made via
a mobile device, and some impressive
Christmas 2014 statistics in the US from
IBM include:
Mobile accounted for 57.1% of all online
Christmas shopping traffic, up 18.6%
from 2013
Mobile made up 34.8% of total Christmas
Day online sales, an increase of 20.4%
from 2013
Tablet users are valuable - 72% of tablet
owners make purchases from their devices
on a weekly basis (Google), 52% of tablet
users say they prefer to shop using their
tablet rather than their PC (Alexander
Interactive) and tablet users spend 50%
more than PC users and are 3x more likely
to purchase than smartphone visitors
(Adobe).
Whatever message you want to send,
whether it’s personalized content on
a webpage, mobile push message,
proximity alert or an optimized email it is
more and more likely to be received and
viewed on a smartphone.
Add mobile value to your marketing
campaigns using our easy to implement tips.
Avoid a mobile
disaster in your
marketing campaigns
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
21
MAKE SURE YOUR EMAILS ARE
OPTIMIZED FOR MOBILE DEVICES
Sounds obvious? But how many emails do
you still get that aren’t mobile optimized?
Check how your optimized emails appear
across a number of different smartphones
and tablets to make sure they look amazing
across all mobile devices.
30% of mobile shoppers abandon a
transaction if their experience is not
optimized (MoPowered).
OFFER LOCATION BASED STORE
INFORMATION WHEN YOUR EMAIL
IS OPENED
A customer’s local store information
should always be included in your email
campaigns. However, the challenge for
marketers is knowing where the customer
considers local: Close to home? Near their
work? Somewhere else?
Rather than second guess which is the
most important, simply direct them to
their nearest store when the email is
opened on a mobile device using GPS
data as a reference. If the email is opened
on a desktop, then use its IP address
cross-referenced with previous store
purchase data, which will help identify
their nearest store.
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
3
MAKE MOBILE ENGAGEMENT EASY
Dwell time for an email can be as short as
3 seconds. On mobile devices especially,
the key to ensuring the success of a
campaign is the visual presentation of
calls to action. These need to stand out on
the page and be immediately recognizable
when the page is rapidly scanned.
On mobile devices, screen space and
resolution may make it difficult to pick
up on more subtle designs. Ensure that
it is obvious to the reader what the email
is about, why the email is relevant to the
recipient and what they can do next to
find out more.
Mobile best practice for building emails:
On average, email recipients on a
mobile device take 2 to 5 seconds to
decide if email is worth reading
If recipients do scroll down (only 50%
do), most don’t scroll back up
Always design your email with the above-
the-fold mark in mind with at least one
primary CTA visible on open
The email reading order is typically -
headline, bullet points, CTA, then
paragraph copy
Email recipients can click all over the
place including in non-clickable areas.
So, more links = more clicks
Time, location, proximity – understand
when, where and how close your mobile
customers are when they’re searching.
Use these to personalize your CTA
Use geo-location to contextualize your
messages
The ideal subject line length that
achieves the highest click rate is 28-39
characters
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
OPTIMIZING FOR MOBILE SEARCH
Companies who want to achieve mobile
success need to think about how to deliver
mobile content. It is not good enough just
to adapt a desktop strategy to fit mobile
users as they have different requirements.
If your website isn’t optimized you will be
losing sales - check your website
navigation works across smartphones
and tablets
Check the speed of your page loading -
57% of mobile customers will abandon
your site if they have to wait 3 seconds
for a page to load (Strangeloop
Networks) with 70% of tablet users
expecting a website to load in two
seconds or less (Compuware). Vitally,
every 100 millisecond increase in load
time decreases sales by 1% (Amazon)
4
INCREASE CONVERSION RATES BY
TIMING BROWSING BASED EMAIL
CAMPAIGNS
Personalized campaigns triggered by
browsing behavior can drive conversion rates
up to 10x higher than standard promotional
campaigns. In-store, online or social
engagement behavioral data can be used
to automatically trigger a campaign send.
Since the message is sent when the
customer has shown they are ‘in the
market’ to buy, your customer can be
gently pushed to convert without reverting
to price based incentives.
The optimal time to send a campaign
message, and indeed the channel through
which it should be sent, should be an
integral part of campaign planning and
ongoing optimization plans.
5
6. SMARTFOCUS | PAGE 6
MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
Showrooming – where consumers shop
online after experiencing the product in a
physical store
With 80% of smartphone users using their
mobiles for shopping research and 80%
of those doing their research in-store,
price transparency is vitally important
for mobile customers. Showrooming is
on the rise as smartphone penetration
increases. So how do you reduce the
number of store walkouts from the result
of smartphone usage?
How to prevent showrooming:
Reward your shoppers in-store, securing
an edge over online only competitors
Implement staff training to deal with
showrooming enquiries and connected
customers. Set and distribute a company
policy that deals with how staff handle
price match requests
Consider selective price matching instead
of matching online prices for all items.
Alongside stocking exclusive items, this
helps keep customers returning to the store
Offer more unique items in-store to
discourage showrooming. 50% of Macy’s
inventory is made up of products only
available in Macy’s locations
6
Offer a service where in-store out-
of-stock items will be shipped to the
customer’s home for free, thus making
your high street presence an extension
of your online presence
People use mobile devices to enhance
their in-store shopping experience –
make sure you offer extra content
(videos, rate and reviews etc) to give
your store visitors more incentive to buy
Offer free WiFi to help consumers redeem
mobile vouchers/scan QR codes etc instore
Fighting showrooming using beacon
technology:
The US consumer electronics giant GameStop
is fighting showrooming by introducing
real-time promotions, information plus
ratings and reviews to smartphone users
directly in-store via beacons.
Beacons trigger expert content, relevant
data and more when browsing a product
area. Installed on shelving to deliver
an enhanced shopping experience to
their stores, beacons help eliminate the
need for additional online research and
showrooming, while saving shoppers time
and increasing buying power to make
decisions based on immediate information.
MAKE SHOWROOMING WORK FOR YOU
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
47%
23%
46%
36%
37%
PROMOTE WEBROOMING
Webrooming (also known as Reverse
Showrooming) – where consumers
research products online before going
into the store to purchase
Webrooming will result in $1.8 trillion
in sales by 2017
Ecommerce sales should reach
$370 billion in 2017
Webrooming is where retail’s future
winners will dominate
(Forrester Research)
69% of people in the US webroom while
only 46% showroom
(Harris Poll)
7
What makes customers want to come
in-store to make or complete a purchase?
Here are a few reasons customers choose
webrooming over showrooming
(Merchant Warehouse):
like to touch and feel a
product before they buy
will ask the store to match
a price found online
like the option of being able
to return the item if needed
don’t want to wait for delivery
don’t want to pay for shipping
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
How to promote webrooming:
Go omni-channel with highly personalized
cross-selling initiatives delivered to the
right customers at the right time. This
opportunity enhances sales across all
channels
Engage customers with context driven
incentives. Sending location-specific
mobile vouchers and coupons that can
be redeemed nearby can entice a
potential purchaser in-store
Give in-store customers great service
that is harder to replicate online
Offer consumers useful and relevant
mobile accessible information such as
videos, rate and reviews or similar to
drive them into store and encourage
sales conversions
Engage shopper’s opinions – take
advantage of shoppers who are on their
mobile in-store, by asking them to
engage via social media, which could
also be incentivised
A good example of a successful webrooming
technique was shown by Lowe’s home
improvement stores in the US, who used a Vine
mobile campaign tagged #LowesFixInSix
to encourage customers to create and post
short six-second video clips of their home
improvement solutions. This is a perfect
example of how a brand gives consumers
useful and relevant information in a mobile-
friendly way and ultimately drives these mobile
shoppers into a local store. It also landed the
brand a Bronze Cyber Lion at Cannes and a
Silver Clio and a Mashies Best in Show.
If a business commits to offering useful
content, engaging with customers and
republishing their content, sharing images,
videos and insider information, this will
engage and increase audiences.
Webrooming is at a critical intersection of
the digital and physical worlds. Showrooming
may be a problem, but webrooming could
be the solution. Closing the online and offline
loop is now possible, which is more important
for retailers to ensure their marketing success.
Both the retailer and the consumer will
benefit from a single marketing initiative.
At each step, think about what your mobile
customers need when they interact with
your business.
“By placing mobile at the center of the omni-channel strategy,
retailers and brands will enable a new level of interaction,
engagement, conversation and loyalty. And revenue”
FITFORCOMMERCE
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
1. MOBILE OPTIMIZED WEBSITES
The greatest priority is to build a mobile
website that is actually designed for mobile
rather than just a resized desktop site.
There are three ways to do this:
Use responsive web design
Dynamically serve different HTML on
the same web address depending on
the device viewing content
Create mobile-first not desktop-lite
destinations. Build a mobile-optimized
website that you continue to optimize
over time
2. REVIEW YOUR MOBILE
STATISTICS OFTEN
What % of your website traffic and search
enquiries comes from mobile devices?
Look at your mobile data in a timely
manner and react accordingly.
Important points to consider for your mobile marketing plans
Moving forward
3. REGULARLY EVALUATE YOUR
MOBILE WEBSITE PERFORMANCE
AND OPTIMIZE BASED ON WHAT
YOU LEARN
Make frequent updates, for example
allowing users to access store specific
real-time inventory and pricing as well
as product location information in-store.
Include a ‘current location’ search, enable
faster checkout process and offer simplified
website content.
4. NOMINATE A MOBILE
CHAMPION IN YOUR COMPANY
Companies who understand the importance
of mobile and have a person or department
who can carry the message across their
company are less likely to miss out on
opportunities. Those who don’t may lose
out on the sense of urgency that mobile
opportunities bring.
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
5. IMPLEMENT VIRTUAL OR
PHYSICAL BEACONS
Beacons, or iBeacons, are an important
retail technology, being rapidly adopted
by businesses with a bricks-and-mortar
presence. They enable location-based
targeted mobile marketing solutions.
Beacons, both physical and virtual, join
the gap between online and offline
marketing and have a big role to play in
the future of retail. They allow you to
send real-time messages to customers’
smartphones when they are in a physical
environment. This technology allows
contextualized marketing for a mobile
world - beacons tell a marketer when
their customer visits a store; they allow
predictive recommendation technology
that serves up-to-the-second content
at the precise moment the customer
opens their email, offer or visits their site;
and they give insights that effortlessly
generate a truly personalized experience.
If you want the benefits of
beaconing but don’t want to invest
in the hardware, consider virtual
beacons as an alternative.
What is a virtual beacon?
Indoor tracking and navigation is a
fundamental requirement for context-
aware smartphone applications. Virtual
beacons are a responsive indoor
mapping system that is extremely
fast and highly accurate. Pinpoint the
position of a user from smartphone
accelerometer and magnetometer
measurements only, without physical
beacons, equipment or WiFi - the only
required information is a floor plan. This
cost effective, energy efficient approach
to indoor mapping enables always-on
background localization.
Beacons can now be replaced by
virtual beacons, removing the
implementation and management
costs.
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MOBILE MARKETING TIPS
How to successfully drive revenue
using beacons:
UK retailer OFFICE Shoes wanted a solution
that would tie together multiple marketing
channels and provide a seamless in-store
and digital customer experience. Following
the launch of a beacon-enabled app,
OFFICE used beacons and the SmartFocus
Message Cloud marketing platform to
deliver offers and push notifications to their
customers plus an in-app competition.
Real-time offers were sent to app users
in-store using beacon technology and had
over 80% engagement levels. Customers
using the OFFICE app also received
a beacon-enabled personalized email
directly after their visit in-store. This
resulted in an extremely high open rate of
71% and an impressive click-through rate
of 40%, as well as increased revenue from
in-store visits.
True proximity marketing
is now a reality. Marketers
are empowered to create
personalized messages that
are not just context-aware,
but context driven. With the
bridging of the gap between
online and offline, omni-
channel marketing becomes
an imperative. Marketers who
embrace this new world will
deliver more conversions,
happier customers and more
revenue.
12. SmartFocus Inc
18 West 18th Street, 11th Floor
New York, NY 10011, USA
Tel: +1 (646) 356-1169
Fax: +1 (646) 783-7982
SmartFocus UK
Lynton House, 7-12 Tavistock Sq
London, WC1H 9LT, UK
Tel: +44 (0)20 7554 4500
Fax: +44 (0)20 7554 4501
www.smartfocus.com
ABOUT SMARTFOCUS
SmartFocus is an innovator in messaging and communications,
enabling the world’s largest brands – including Mercedes-Benz,
Nestlé and House of Fraser – to understand and connect more
closely with today’s connected consumers; whether that be via
web, mobile, email or social channels.
Through The Message Cloud solution, SmartFocus genuinely
listens to and learns from customers using patented algorithms
and unique location-based marketing tools.
Using The Message Cloud, SmartFocus customers have the
rich data, intelligence and the tools for contextually unique
engagements, through any digital channel.
Get in touch with us to find out more.