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Is 2014 Finally The Year Of Mobile?

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Attention: Announcing 2014, the third annual “year of mobile.” Yes, we have been hearing this line since 2012, but it seems that 2014 is poised to finally be the year that mobile becomes a mainstream marketing solution. Consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets is now ubiquitous. Take for example my parents, considered part of the “Silent Generation” (precursor to the Baby Boom generation). Both retired prior to widespread adoption of computers and now lay claim to four Apple computers, one PC, two iPads, one mini-iPad, and two Android phones. The result of such broad acceptance of computing and communication devices can be directly attributed to the explosion in mobile.

According to Craig Hayman, General Manager of Industry Solutions for IBM and leader of IBM’s Smarter Commerce Initiative, the numbers really tell the story. Data from IBM’s Digital Analytics Benchmark indicates mobile traffic steadily drives 25 percent of total online traffic to retail sites. Even mobile sales are consistently driving more than 20 percent of total online sales. It seems mobile really reached its apex this year, with mobile sales up more than 55 percent on Cyber Monday 2013 as compared to 2012, with one out of every five online sales coming from a mobile device.

To better understand how mobile is evolving and what marketers can do to stay ahead of the technology, I reached out to experts from IBM (Jay Henderson, Strategy Program Director) and the Mobile Marketing Association (Greg Stuart, Global CEO of the MMA).

1. Is 2014 the year of Mobile?

According to Jay Henderson, Strategy Program Director at IBM, the trajectory of mobile adoption suggests that 2014 is the year that will determine if marketers are leaders or are losing ground when it comes to mobile.  Not surprisingly, marketers are following consumers to mobile.  The numbers are just too large for brands to ignore and while the marketing industry has been keenly aware of mobile’s impact,  2014 will likely be the tipping point where companies seriously embrace mobile.

Greg Stuart, Global CEO of the Mobile Marketing Association, the trade group for mobile marketers, suggested that one of the bigger misnomers about Mobile has been the Year of Mobile concept.  It’s like trying to call the stock market; once you know a stock is valuable, it’s too late to capture maximum value.  With Mobile, this means that it will be tough to tell exactly when Mobile hits a tipping point, until after it occurs.

However, now may be the time. Over the past year, the buzz around the marketing community has been how some leading firms are investing 10 to upwards of25 percent of their campaign budgets in mobile, far above the average of two to three percent today.  This surge of interest in mobile is in part because mobile has grown in penetration and testing has demonstrated its potential.  We saw a similar pattern in Internet advertising a decade ago — marketers paid attention once broadband penetration neared 35 percent.

Because these leading firms are having success with mobile, we may look back in 2015 and find that 2014 was the tipping point that moved mobile into the mainstream.

2. How are leading marketers using Mobile to leapfrog competitors?

According to Henderson, a lot of companies are still struggling to get mobile right. In fact, some brands are still taking a “baby-steps” approach into mobile by simply adapting their existing websites.  While this might seem logical, this approach rather quickly begins to cause issues. The best approach to embracing mobile is to take a “MobileFirst” approach.  Henderson encourages marketers to build mobile sites from the ground up, rather than force fitting an existing website into a smaller format.  IBM’s Hayman further suggests that mobile must be integrated into the broader plan and can’t be managed in isolation.

Forward thinking marketers, according to Henderson, blend the mobile experience with the physical experience (in-store, branch, etc). He further indicates: “Marketers are investing in their mobile apps to include maps of the store, special promotions, and location based targeting.  Companies are adding QR codes and NFC to their in-store display to help bridge from physical to mobile.  We are also seeing businesses offering guest wifi, to encourage customers to use mobile while in-store (especially big box stores which are not known for having good cell reception).   This allows brick and mortar retailers  to embrace showrooming and turn it into an advantage.   They can combine mobile apps (price comparison, ratings/reviews, etc) with instant gratification of store purchase.”

Ultimately, leading marketers are learning and refining their mobile capabilities to help consumers at home (curled up on the sofa with a tablet or smartphone for some couch commerce), in the store (for price comparison, reviews, store maps, discounts and coupons), or even on the go (to locate the nearest store or make a quick purchase).

3. Any specific examples of what smart marketers are doing?

Henderson pointed to ING Direct Canada as an example of mobile innovation. They have merged banking activities with their ‘customers’ Facebook pages, based primarily on target understanding. Given the ubiquity of Facebook engagement among younger banking consumers, ING Direct Canada asked a fundamental question: “How can we use technology (in particular mobile) to enable consumers who prefer Facebook to do their banking through a site they trust. As a result, ING Direct Canada found a way to take banking directly to the consumer so that the consumer doesn’t have to go to the bank.  ING Direct Canada extended this insight and further developed a mobile app that delivers a customized dashboard view for the customer based on their most frequent banking activities.  Clients who opt-in to the app are able to view account balances, history and pending transactions and receive account notifications.  More about ING Canada and the mobile experience here.

IBM’s Presence Zones are another example of what retailers can do to leverage mobile. Presence Zones essentially transform the in-store experience by using intelligent location-based sensors that help retailers engage shoppers with real-time promotions as they move through the store.  As the customer moves through the store, IBM’s new technology allows the retailer to extend relevant and timely offers based on their time spent browsing different aisles and products.

Stuart suggests that the Mobile Marketing industry has been capturing best-in-class case studies for several years now and now has a rich library of great mobile marketing. The MMA has over 500 detailed case studies that are available to members (click here). However, there is broad and varied usage of mobile marketing across the different cases studies, indicating that marketers are still struggling to “figure” mobile out. The MMA suggests that a marketer start with the core premise that “mobile is the closest you can get to your consumer.”  Then you need to understand how to implement that with Mobile Apps, Mobile Advertising, Mobile Messaging, Push Notification and more.  This varies by category and strategy.  But all of it takes advantage of the fact that consumers check their phones on average 150 times a day.

4. What advice would you give marketers to make the most of Mobile in 2014?

In jest, Henderson says: “As a technology vendor, I’d love to say that all you need to do is buy some technology, but it isn’t a one dimensional problem.  You have to pick the right technology and invest in the right people and re-imagine your internal processes. While it sounds easy, the key is to make sure you’ve got the right people and the right skills to design mobile. That’s the foundation. The more challenging part is to complement people and skills with the right process to design mobile. And of course the right technology is important too. People, process and technology continue to be the magic trifecta you need to balance.”

Stuart suggests that there are a number of CMOs who understand the importance of identifying windows of opportunity during which consumer patters shift to the marketer’s advantage. These windows don’t stay open for long and the leaders tend to disproportionately win (e.g., Ebay , Amazon, etc.).

Stuart further indicates that the marketing organizations that tend to be better are those that either have a CMO who: 1) is committed to change (and has the knowledge and bandwidth to figure mobile out), or 2) hires a senior level leader who can help drive change within the organization. Unfortunately, Stuart indicates that there are few CMOs who fit into the first bucket. As Stuart’s friend, Bonin Bough of Mondelez has said, “aspirations without allocation is meaningless”.

Regarding budgeting, there is enough data to broadly suggest that allocation to mobile efforts should be as close to 10 percent for maximum performance as possible as that appears to be, generally, the optimal level. While this is a general guideline, we are in the process of implementing more research to get a more nuanced understanding of optimal investment.

Whether 2014 is the Year of Mobile or not, it is definitely a point of departure for marketers. It’s now or never. Given Q4 2013 consumer engagement via mobile, marketers will either engage or be left behind. And according to the experts at IBM and Stuart at MMA, mobile is an important quiver in the arrow of most marketers.

Join the discussion: @KimWhitler