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How many big box retail stores do you see on a weekly basis? I mean, let’s be serious, it seems like they are everywhere. Walmart, Best Buy and Target to name a few combined have nearly 7,500 stores. And these aren’t small stores, they are really big retail superstores. With all of these stores accounting for hundreds of billions of dollars in sales every year, why would they even want to consider engaging in a mobile strategy? After all, how much bigger do they really need to get in order to be successful? Also, does the customer really want to receive promotional content on their smartphone when it already is the hub for everything else in their life too? Well, that’s a great question. Did you know that mobile device content consumption is growing at warp speeds and what once was 18 minutes per day just three years ago is now almost 3 hours a day. You can pretty much bet on some of that time is retail promotional offers.
The mobile consumer wants the retailer to offer content and promotions relevant to the total consumer based on personal interests. This is only made possible through cognitive computing, harnessing the potential of big data. – Bernie Borges – CEO, Find and Convert
Mobile and Big Data Collide
Retailers now have the ability with mobile to collect valuable customer data from their customers’ buying habits. Marketers love this data because it provides them with a real life snapshot of the customers’ purchase behavior. All of this information helps create deeper insights and customer profiling that can be used for future digital and mobile enabled communications that trigger customer purchases. If you’re a retail CMO and you’re not sure if now is the right time to invest in mobile, here are a few facts that just may convince you otherwise.
- More than 2 billion mobile users will make a mobile commerce transaction by the end of 2017 -Juniper Research
- 84% of customers say they use their mobile devices before and during in-store visits –RISNews
- Starbucks has 8 million mobile transactions weekly –Loyalty360
- 74% of smartphone users use their phone to help with shopping -HubSpot
What About The Consumer?
We know that today’s brands are investing additional funds and resources in their mobile strategy. That’s great for the business, but how does a brand’s mobile strategy actually help the consumer? When brands start to think about how to really create value for the customer, they will discover that mobile is most likely in the conversation. There are several ways to engage your prospective and existing customers. Typically retailers big and small use coupons, promotions, location based messages, beacons and even contests to show value. This is integral for increasing customer engagement, and what brands like to call mobile wallet.
Here’s the strange part, retailers tend to be on the lower end of the mobile consumer engagement spectrum. That can be bad news for the consumer if they are highly inclined to conduct research before they make an in-store purchase. Although, more and more customers day in and day out walk into brick and mortar stores and also into malls to shop right after they have been targeted with a promotional offer. That can be a result of deeper mobile customer analytics, a mobile friendly marketing strategy and an engaging, relevant and timely offer.
Source: Thomas Husson of Forrester
Mobile Energizes Brands
Mobile has definitely become the energizing x-factor for retail brands. The benefits are recognized not only in mobile wallet, but also in virtually every other facet of the business. Mobile has the unique ability to reach people anywhere, anytime, based on-location, time, behavior and a myriad of factors that all help the CMO of a retail brand exceed business goals.
Increased mobile customer engagement can be attributed by many factors. Some brands create a tangible result marketing teams can’t wait to get their hands on. It’s no wonder customers are using their smartphones at record levels because brands are making the buying process from first touch point to conversion much faster and easier for the customer. If that isn’t energizing for brands, than I am not sure what is.
YourBrandExposed is designed to look at digital with an eye into the future using a creative, analytical, innovative marketing perspective. We’re a consultative and tactical resource for companies looking to leverage the power of digital, web, social and content marketing strategies. Contact us if you’re feeling the digital squeeze on how to best market your company.
Scott MacFarland
Linkedin | Huffington Post | Twitter: @scmacfarland
Email: Yourbrandexposed@yahoo.com
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Source Links:
https://static.pexels.com/photos/4970/fashion-person-woman-hand.jpg
http://risnews.edgl.com/retail-news/Retailers-Enter-New-Era-of-Mobile-Focused-Consumer-Engagement99847 – Molly McCombe
http://loyalty360.org/loyalty-today/article/how-starbucks-pioneered-mobile-and-reaped-rewards
http://www.slideshare.net/HubSpot/50-mobilefactsdeck62812
http://blogs.forrester.com/thomas_husson/15-02-09-the_future_of_mobile_wallets_lies_beyond_payments
http://blogs.forrester.com/thomas_husson/15-02-09-the_future_of_mobile_wallets_lies_beyond_payments