With the birth of the internet and cookies, the targeting equation evolved. Not only could ads be aligned with content, but also with behaviors. With the so-called “death of the web ” potentially upon us, meaning a shift from browsing for information to grabbing it via apps, marketers might be wondering how they will apply this same formula to the evolving mobile medium.
Early adopters
Early adopters are already using mobile devices to guide their buying decisions. Applications such as Yelp and Fandango are helping consumers pick restaurants and movies. Yet, according to Nielsen, a quarter of early adopters are not using data on their smartphones at all, but sticking to voice and text messaging. Nielsen reasons that “operators have to do a much better job of conveying the value and utility of these powerful devices.”
If the future of the internet is on mobile devices, marketers need to quickly figure out how to best target today’s mobile consumer. Making relevant offer and content recommendations is key, and figuring out specifically what to deliver, when, for whom and where, is paramount to solving this dilemma.
The solution lies within telecom operator data. Operators need to start turning their customer data into intelligence, and turning that intelligence into action, if they want to deliver a more personalized, relevant customer experience. A superior customer experience that means customers are pitched products and services they want, apps they need, and messages they actually welcome.
We’re not there yet. At this early stage of mobile advertising, engagement with a brand is triggered by a consumer behaviour such as search - which is the opposite of more traditional advertising such as TV. After all, you didn’t ask to see that beer commercial during the football game. The next step for mobile advertising is for operators to leverage the information they have to allow brands to proactively connect with consumers, based on real-time contexts. So you don’t go to your Yelp app when you’re hungry; rather the Yelp app comes to you.
Leveraging intelligence
The exciting part of all of this is that mobile allows marketers to be more relevant than was ever possible before. Operators collect a wealth of data on their users that, when put to good use, provides insights that most marketers can only dream of. By leveraging intelligence about one’s usage, purchases, social networks, location and movement, downloads, adoption tendencies, lifestyle, and interests, an operator is able to determine the particular context in which a subscriber is most likely to respond to an offer or recommendation.
For example, Angie has never tried mobile TV. But we know that someone she is highly connected with, who we have identified as a key influencer, is a mobile TV subscriber. Based on this fact alone, Angie is four times more likely to try mobile TV than the average customer.
But that still leaves an open question - what is the right context for presenting Angie with the mobile TV offer? We know that Angie is most likely to respond to a free trial, that she is a commuter, and that she is most likely to respond to an offer via MMS during her commute home in the evening on any weekday except Thursday or Friday.
Carriers are thrilled about the promise of contextual marketing, seeing that customers receiving a contextually relevant offer are opting out 50 per cent less frequently than those receiving a targeted, but non-contextually relevant offer. After all, what carrier wouldn’t want to establish an ongoing medium for customer communication and product cross-sell and up-sell?
The bottom line is that operators need to start applying their data to drive the next phase of mobile internet consumption. Understanding the right customer in the right context for recommendations and offers will help carriers define the most contextually relevant targeting opportunities, which in turn will help them deliver the personally relevant customer experience we’ve all been waiting for.
No comments:
Post a Comment