Facebook Home: a mobile marketer’s dream?

by Simon van Wyk ON 19 April 2013

According to IDC, mobile publishers such as Facebook, Pandora, and Twitter are fast taking over the mobile display advertising market in the United States. Overall mobile ad spending in the US increased by 88% in 2012 to $4.5 billion, as marketers spend an increasing portion of their digital ad budgets on mobile. The share of overall spending allocated for smartphones and tablets reached 11% last year, up from 7% in 2011.

With increased mobile ad budgets up for grabs the timing of the launch of the new Facebook Home is perfect. Indeed, Robin Grant, the global managing director of We Are Social, thinks that Facebook Home could very be the holy grail of mobile advertising. He told AdWeek, “Aside from mobile operators, no other company is able to keep track of a consumer’s location at all times – which, privacy settings permitting, Facebook could now do with Home.”

At the launch event Mark Zuckerberg commented, “We’re not building a phone, and we’re not building an operating system… A great phone might sell 10 or 20 million units, our user base is at about a billion. Even if we made a great phone, we’d only be serving one or 2% of our base.”

Facebook Home reinvents the start screen on Google Android-based smartphones to display a Facebook Cover Feed that brings you the latest status updates from your closest Facebook friends and provides a messaging app called ‘Chat Heads’ up front.

So while it’s not the Facebook phone per se, it’s just as good as, if not better. This strategy allows Facebook to confidently enter the mobile market by effectively hijacking proven hardware. It’s a smart way for Facebook to instantly build a strong mobile presence without the risk involved in developing its own hardware or operating system. If successful, Facebook Home will draw more users and encourage them to be more active on the social network. Every time you glance at your phone, you’ll be looking at your Facebook page and giving Facebook more opportunities to collect information about you than ever before.

And it’s this data that is really exciting for marketers. It’s the longed awaited nirvana of targeted mobile advertising and a mechanism to deliver location relevant and timely commercial messages to consumers. While it’s true that Mark Zuckerberg has said very little to date about the advertising potential of this new user experience, it is after all the whole point of the exercise. Facebook makes its money on ads, not on tools and features. By displaying ads in the Cover Feed, Facebook can give marketers the ability to push targeted commercial messages at users, any time, any place.

Putting the social network up front and centre on as many mobile devices as possible, and convincing more people to spend more time with Facebook on mobile devices, Facebook can serve ads to mobile users and fast track its ability to generate substantial mobile advertising revenue.

That said, this nirvana for marketers and the ability to deliver targeted ads to people carrying smartphones could very well turn out to be purgatory for Facebook users. Perhaps it’s just me, but I’m not sure everyone on the planet wants the added distractions of a steady stream of their Facebook stuff (good, bad and ugly) up front and centre on their mobile devices.

While Facebook diehards are sure to welcome the novelty of Facebook Home even if it does restrict their overall mobile experience, I can’t see the prospect of ads overtaking their home screens being so warmly welcomed.

Even so, eMarketer is predicting that Facebook will reap $965 million in US mobile ad revenue in 2013, which is about 2.5 times the $391 million it made in 2012.

Clark Fredricksen, vice president at eMarketer says that there are clear reasons why a deeper integration with mobile operating systems and handsets makes sense for Facebook. “At the end of the day, the more deeply Facebook can engage consumers, no matter what device or operating system or handset,” the better.

The Facebook Home super app launched for select Android smartphones (4.0 and up) on 12 April in the US as a download from the Google play store. Looking at the initial reviews, Facebook Home is currently rating at 2.4 stars.

The new HTC First is shipping with the super app pre-installed.

Mobile is changing the way we think about what we do

by Rohit Dadwal ON 16 April 2013

Gartner estimates that the market for mobile advertising will grow to $11.4 billion this year, driven by smartphone and tablet growth. Globally, that amount will grow to reach $24.5 billion in 2016, and revenue from mobile advertising will benefit all parts of the mobile ecosystem, creating opportunities for app developers, ad networks, mobile platform providers, and more.

In order to realise the value of this growth, Google has made a new service available called The Full Value of Mobile, this online tool is designed to help businesses that use Google’s suite of mobile advertising services measure how their mobile marketing efforts are affecting their business, online and offline. The site provides businesses with simple equations and benchmarks that address the different parts of a Google-deployed mobile marketing campaign, measured across the various services that Google provides.

This is Google’s attempt to address the elephant in the room, the problem of measurement that has plagued mobile marketers for the longest time. But perhaps the problem isn’t simply one of finding the right metrics.

It turns out that mobile is disruptive on several different fronts. In the past, the lines between traditional media and online/digital/internet were reasonably clear. In order to be online, the consumer had to be sitting at a desk or table, in front of a computer or a laptop, equipped with a browser which was used to access web pages on the internet. It made sense to treat the online space as though it was simply another display space, where banner ads could be deployed as part of a larger campaign, with content derived from existing assets.

Then along came mobile and changed everything. Smartphones offer a host of functionalities above and beyond voice and messaging capabilities, and their increased computing power combined with services like GPS and the flexibility of apps have really changed the game. Tablets and ‘phablets’, too, have moved the locus of computing, so users can be mobile within the home (and engage in online activity from the sofa, for example) and seamlessly move out and beyond so now users can be online anywhere, at any time, and can use their devices for almost anything.

Mobile is now being used tactically to gain traction for other, traditional media, and conversely, campaigns are designed so that their traditional media points to or provides ways to access mobile assets. Take, for example, a well-designed augmented reality app that lets users point their phones at print media, and then delivers engaging, interactive video content. Aside from helping consumers make the transition seamlessly to more content, while keeping them focused on the brand message, this app can also bring users to relevant websites, help them engage with the brand on social media networks, and even connect them directly to customer service associates directly via voice or chat, or indirectly via email or SMS.

The question, really, is whether this is the best use of mobile, which can in many cases stand on its own as a medium, or which in the bigger picture, is more a mode of engagement more than anything else.

Even measurement can be a bone of contention – while it has become accepted that mobile is an intrinsic part of closing the loop of consumer engagement, traditional means do no justice to the contribution of brand engagement via social networks, or the top-of-mind awareness generated by viral video sharing. It’s clear that these activities are definitely part of the engagement process, but how much of the final value of the purchase decision do we assign to them? How do you calculate the brand equity or the trust generated by positive interactions with the brand? The old currencies of measurement, long used to work out the effectiveness of advertising campaigns, do not include the means to calculate these intangible effects.

It may be that it is time for us to change the way that we think about communication itself. The traditional advertising/marketing/public relations triad has already been blurred by social media, and more and more mobile activity blends utility and entertainment while removing the hard sell. Mobile is challenging the norms of the marketing communications/industry. Brands are already exploring the value of generating and owning their own assets, and moving into the mobile app space previously owned by publishers and developers. The brand-agency relationship may not survive contact with mobile, particularly as brands evolve their own approaches, and as brands need to invest for the longer-term in building relationships with consumers.

Even words like ‘consumer’, ‘customer’ and ‘user’ may be losing their value – new terminology may come as new ways of considering the relationship between brands and these digital citizens arise. What is clear, for now, is that this is a time of change: it will be interesting to see what the final shape of our industry will be, and who is left standing (and where!) when the dust finally settles.

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Mobile analytics to refine multichannel retail marketing: a case study

by Joe Barber ON 15 April 2013

Website analytics provide a wealth of information, and even the free Google Analytics is well supported by myriad graphs and charts dissecting website traffic in just about every way imaginable. Leveraging this data to improve electronic direct marketing (eDM) efforts and refining site structure, however, seems to be a challenge and an ignored discipline.

There are aspects of mobile website usage that, when combined with good analytics, can provide a very valuable insight into the behaviour of your customers and should be used to refine a range of customer engagement strategies. Many of these insights can be derived only from mobile usage.

I was invited recently to join a US-based team that was given the task of analysing their site statistics and using this data to refine many aspects of their marketing tactics encompassing email, SMS, letterbox catalogues, in-store promotions and even site design adjustments. In the past, the primary use of analytics was to see how ‘hits’ or sessions were increasing and when to look at conversion rates to sales (the site was an online store generating around 2.1 times its largest physical store in a network of 780 stores).

The approach to reviewing the site traffic was simplistic and focused on conversion rates and the raw dollars being generated. Very little was done to link back eDM executions and their content to the impact on sales versus traffic.

If a particular promotion generated a 20% traffic spike, everyone got excited. But nothing was being done to see if ‘normal’ conversion rates increased or decreased and how deep visitation went into the site. No effort was being applied to refining the site structure to adjust the journey for a consumer, nor was there any effort to discriminate between mobile and desktop.

Some very interesting insights emerged from the team analysing six months of data, which was provided along with a detailed schedule of all eDMs, product specials, above the line activities and so on. The following paragraphs are some of the more intriguing facets of that analysis work.

With mobile, there is the ability to collect and log location-based data. This will prompt the user for permission to ‘locate’ their device. Interestingly, over a six-month period consumers agreeing to be located went from 32% up to 67%. There are so many applications on mobiles that request this data that consumers are becoming less fearful of accepting.

This location-based data, especially if logged with every progressive page transition, provides some very valuable data when combined with things like search terms used on the site.

Analysing the search data delivered some fascinating information. The search terms were simplistically broken up into three categories: category type words like ‘jeans’ or ‘televisions’, model-specific phrases like ‘Belkin N600’ and then the rest. On the desktop site, model-specific phrases were less than 17% of all searches performed, but on mobile they accounted for a staggering 67% of the phrases.

We then looked at the locationbased data and started mapping where consumers were using specific make/model search terms. I am sure there could have been an easier way, but for us this was a very arduous task! Due to the manual nature of what we were doing, we only had a small sample space, but we found that in nearly 90% of cases when a model-specific search phrase was used the consumer was close to or inside a competitor’s premises. The consumer was price checking!

It’s important to appreciate the number of sessions analysed was relatively small compared to overall traffic. But on mobile, where the consumer was clearly in a residential or office area, the behaviour was more aligned with desktop, and search terms became more generic and less targeted.

Think about what you present to a consumer searching your site for a specific make or model of product, on a mobile you are able to locate. It’s a consumer that knows what they want and are simply after the best buy, or are comparing models and makes for prices. Regardless, they are more than just a ‘site visitor’ browsing through your offering.

Imagine if at this stage in the site design you implemented some ‘close’ sale strategies. You could de-clutter web pages to focus on their requirements. With your top three or four competitors’ locations loaded into the back-end systems, you would immediately be able to discern if someone on your site is inside a competitor’s store and then tailor the search result to close the sale. Or, if they’re located near your own retail outlet, you could drive them into your store.

If there is good competitive understanding on prices, then ensure whatever price you deliver is the ‘best’ price and make it a time-limited offer if less than usual; for example: ‘Our regular price is $X, but for the next 30 minutes you can have it for $Y’.

Drive the customer into your store with special bundles that make the price check more complicated, but your offering more attractive, such as: ‘If you come into our store just three minutes away from where you are we can offer the TV with gold-level HDMI cable, personal video recorder and free delivery for just $X’.

The interception of search terms with location-based data delivers a new level of insight about the digital consumer. It gives you back the ability to use sales strategies to close a deal that can be customised by behaviour almost in the same way as in-store staff would approach a consumer. Remove the generic one-size-fits-all approach to their online experience.

A similar strategy was implemented for click-through off eDM pieces where location-based data was known. The consumer location was analysed to discern the type of page and content being presented and was customised based on proximity to a physical store, time of day, whether they were in transit or a fixed position and the type of promotion being delivered.

Time of day was very important and saw some big variations in search terms, navigation behaviour, page views and transaction rates on mobile. Multi-product purchases on mobile, for example, were significantly higher after hours than during normal shopping hours.

The next interesting discovery was when we started looking at basket composition by desktop and mobile, along with conversion rates and shopping cart abandonment. Per transaction, average session page views were almost 50% of that for desktop. In other words, on mobile, consumers browsed far less before concluding a purchase. So, on mobile we turned off banner adverts and simplified navigation and saw a 1.1% increase in conversion. Unfortunately, I haven’t seen the data over a long period, so I am unsure if this is a related spike or not. But hopefully what this example is doing is getting you thinking about how to take the volumes of data and actually use it to refine and improve sales.

The other interesting thing was the structure of the shopping carts between devices. Single-product purchases on mobile were seven times higher than on desktop. This is where some statistics can hide the nuggets of valuable information. The early site reports showed ‘average items per transaction’, but we wanted to know how many consumers purchased a single item.

The other piece of data we had was cart abandonment rates, which were noticeably higher on mobile than on desktop. I am sure there are many ways to explain this, given mobile online usage is far more ‘interrupt’ driven than someone sitting at a PC. When your phone rings, you receive a text message or arrive at your destination, then the online session is interrupted.

We implemented two changes on mobile. This is always dangerous, as it can be hard to correlate what impact each change had. First, we changed mobile to be single-click checkout by default. After checkout (we removed the shopping cart), consumers were offered other products to add to the order. This reduced abandonment rates by 9% and had no material impact on multi-product purchases.

The second change was to ask for an email address at the time of displaying any product detail page. This was intended to enable a follow-up email for anyone not concluding a sale or abandoning at checkout. It also provided the ability to link the consumer to previous purchases, gauge their ‘loyalty’ status and engage them more personally.

Originally, we actually asked for email at the start of a session and found less than 3% entered. When prompted at the product-level page, on the basis of ‘we can email you all this product information’, it jumped to a 35% collection rate. Of those emailed with a ‘hot offer’ after abandoning a checkout process, a further 4.3% were driven in-store showing the emailed coupon or went back online to conclude the transaction.

The analysis, recommendations, site changes and rule guidelines extended to a 200-page report and changed entirely the way the in-house team now thinks about analytics and website design. The significant efforts that physical retail invests in store design, merchandise layout, structures, approaches, visuals, consumer flow, register positioning and pricing has traditionally never been so deeply applied to online. But after six months of many changes and a significant ‘rules engine’ implementation, the overall sales volumes and revenues have increased far more than natural growth and have generated a measurable increase of in-store foot traffic.

Use the wealth of data that can be collected and leverage all aspects of the online experience across different devices and times of day to ‘personalise’ every online experience. Leverage location-based data and start to plot access trends by location and device and transaction ‘styles’. Online is not a one-size-fits-all experience. Online websites are being positioned as ‘middle ground’ to try to suit all consumers with a compromise. It doesn’t have to be that way. Marketing to the mobile audience can be very granular and very tailorable with the impact on sales potentially quite significant.

Buggy apps hurt customer experience in mobile banking

by Marketing ON 10 April 2013

Banks aren’t using online banking properly, Australian mobile marketing firm, BanterMob, has claimed. The group studied 42,000 ratings and about 2000 reviews of Australian banking applications available in the four major app stores.

BanterMob director, Kelly Slessor, says the results show high levels of negativity and sub-optimal customer experience.

“Nine of the 13 banks reviewed rated average or below average, while 73% of consumers suggested improvements, detailed bugs or technical issues or expressed negative sentiment towards the bank reviewed.”

“The findings also show that 29% of users reported bugs or technical issues, with the most common relating to problems with logging in, concerns over security information and apps crashing unexpectedly,” Slessor says.

Mobile banking is proving to be more popular than online banking, with more than six million using a mobile service, according to the Market Intelligence Strategy Centre.

Slessor says the problem falls with banks repurposing existing web content for their mobile apps and they should instead be focusing on creating content that is specific to smartphones or tablets.

“Few, if any, mobile app development teams think about the mobile experience first and remove any learned behaviour that may limit their thinking and, therefore, functionality and design of the app,” she says.

“This presents a real opportunity for any of the leading banks to develop a differentiator in the market. If not, there is a huge opportunity for market disrupters to take advantage of an increasingly mobile-dependent society.”

Mobile and offline media: bridging the gap

by Melle Staelenberg ON 27 March 2013

In this age of digital marketing, one might believe the days of outdoor and other traditional advertising platforms are numbered. However, the emergence of new media platforms has provided several opportunities to use these traditional media in interesting ways.

The inclusion of digital services within traditional marketing creates a call to action scenario, ultimately transforming a push message into an interactive pull communication.

The three most common forms of mobile calls to action are commonly referred to as text, scan and tap.

Text: Long before there were smartphones, brands have been using SMS as a tool to provide one-on-one communication. Today, SMS remains a commonly used marketing channel because of its simplicity and ubiquity.

Scan: A more recent tool for mobile engagement is the QR code. QR codes aren’t new but the fact that your smartphone’s camera can scan and read data from a QR code has made it a popular choice for out-of-home engagement. Commonly, QR codes will simply open up a URL but they can be programmed in different ways.

Tap: Near-field communication (NFC) is a technology that uses radio fields for contactless communication. Tags can be hidden in stickers or integrated into posters or billboards. Many new smartphones now support NFC, enabling devices to simply tap a tag without having to open any apps.

When integrating text, scan or tap mobile interaction into offline advertising platforms, there are five key considerations to keep in mind.

1. Placement

A good call to action should always be prominently visible. Simply putting a tiny QR code or NFC tag at the bottom of a bus shelter ad is not going to drive much engagement. Try to reserve some dedicated space for your call to action so that it is easily noticed and not lost in the display. Walmart Canada had a great campaign with Mattel where outdoor ad space in busy train stations was used to create a virtual toy store for busy parents, featuring the must-have toys for the 2012 holiday season. With a clear, eye-level call to action, passersby were made aware of how to interact. One of the key selling points, free shipping, was featured prominently.

Walmart virtual toy store

Billboards and other large outdoor ads are typically seen from a distance. When scanning or tapping is not possible, SMS is always an option. Make sure both the keyword and SMS number are clearly visible.

2. Reach and limitations

SMS is supported by all mobile handsets and therefore has the biggest reach. QR codes work on most smartphones, either natively or via a free QR reader app. NFC devices are growing in popularity with most new Android and Windows phones having NFC chips built in. SMS works well for competition entries, text-based alerts or simple vouchers. Interactive, media rich promotions are normally targeted at smartphone users where QR codes are more suitable. NFC offers the most seamless option but tags come at a small cost and are not suitable for all print media. When running a joint QR/NFC promotion in Australia today, expect to see a 75/25 split with NFC growing steadily.

3. Relevance

The type of call to action you want to generate will influence what channel you use and how to market it. If a movie distributor wants to run a campaign with the intention of getting consumers to watch a movie trailer, it would makes sense to use a QR code as viewing the trailer would require a smartphone and the code can take them directly to the website hosting the trailer. If the call to action is to get consumers to enter a competition, SMS campaigns work well with most consumers willing to pay the cost of sending a SMS for the chance to win something. A recent study in the UK showed that 90% of consumers believe that interactivity makes an ad more effective in capturing their attention with three in four likely to interact again. Even so, don’t expect consumers to interact with you if there is no clear benefit. Campaigns that entice, educate, reward or surprise tend to drive the best interaction rates.

4. Device targeting

If you use one of the mobile channels to direct users to a URL, make sure you use a good redirection platform so you can serve up content that looks and works best on the user’s phone. This way, you can show a link to your brand’s new iPhone app exclusively to users on an iOS device – no need to show an Android user what they can’t get. Similarly, you might want to limit mandatory fields to the bare minimum for users on non-touchscreen devices as typing can put people off when using a numerical keypad.

5. Reporting

SMS campaigns, when set up properly, are a great way to build up an opt-in database of mobile numbers, a clear advantage over NFC/QR-based campaigns in some cases. Whether you use SMS, QR codes or NFC, make sure you use different identifiers for all your campaigns and if possible even for every individual ad you run. That way you can measure the performance of every single ad, any time of day. Whether your goal is to drive site traffic, Facebook likes, newsletter subscribers or sales, mobile technology can make traditional media fully accountable on a micro level.

Google launches insights hub for marketers

by Marketing ON 18 March 2013

Google has launched a marketing insights website making freely available mobile and digital marketing statistics even more accessible than before.

Described as an insights and inspiration hub for advertisers and agencies, the ‘Thi nk Insights’ site features consumer behaviour research, brand campaign case studies, opinion and strategy from Google employees and interviews with CMOs.

“We built google.com/think to help you do it all – stay up-to-date on the latest in digital marketing, arm yourself with data to support your business cases and create inspiring campaigns,” Lisa Gevelber, head of Global Ads Marketing, writes on Google’s blog.

The site also integrates Google’s real-time insights tools into an ‘insights finder’ application that lets users search by what people are watching, talking about, looking for, clicking and saying about specific brands by region and time.

Launch content on the site includes the search giant’s ‘Understanding the Full Value of Mobile’ report; a case study on how adidas drives brand value on mobile beyond mcommerce; Hyundai’s ‘Elantra: Driveway Decision Maker’ – a campaign which lets people take a virtual test drive using Google Maps Street View, projection mapping and real-time 3D animation; and YouTube’s Ads Leaderboard – a monthly top ad list.

Sony’s ad for the new Playstation 4 topped February’s ad leaderboard, while Super Bowl campaigns from Samsung, Jeep, Pepsi and Oreo were catapulted into the top 10 on the back of the game’s hype.

The site has its own email newsletter, Google+ and Twitter accounts.

Big data, big savings: automation best practice guide

by Marketing ON 15 March 2013

Big data can save big money if leveraged effectively, a global non-profit IT body claims in the release of a set of guidelines for managing data.

The Information Systems Audit and Control Association (ISACA) today announced the release of its ‘Big Data: Impacts and Benefits’ guide as organisations invest significant amounts of money in data handling software.

“Enterprises are investing significant capital to develop and deploy big data analytics to obtain an early competitive advantage,” Richard Chew, senior information security analyst at Emerald Management Group and a co-author of the white paper says. “While big data can reap big rewards, it also poses significant risk, including misleading data and unexpected costs. It is critical for enterprises to put in place a governance program to ensure that information remains accurate, consistent and reliable.”

A recent McKinsey report found that value gained from data in the US healthcare sector alone could be more than US$300 billion every year, highlighting the benefits of using big data correctly.

One of the challenges listed is the dual tendency of big data to turn some companies into competitors and others into cooperative partners, such as Netflix and Amazon, whose video streaming services compete, while Netflix uses the Amazon.com cloud infrastructure to support its streaming.

While the need for governance of big data environments is clear, big data governance is still at an early stage of maturity, the report says.

Genemar Arthur Lazo, manager of vendor evaluation at Walt Disney Studios and research chair for the paper lists SCADA systems, social media and financial institutions as presenting enormous amounts of data to sift through and manage. “In addition, the lack of presentation of the data in meaningful data sets and the inaccuracies of real-time data are daunting and challenging. Frameworks such as COBIT help facilitate the balances for managing risk and reward when working with big data for enterprises.”

3 key digital marketing trends to watch: optimisation, personalisation, monetisation

by Paul Robson ON 5 March 2013

It’s such an exciting time to be a digital marketer in Australia. Every year we see the emergence of new trends as well as familiar ones moving further towards maturity, but in 2013 the pace and potential for pushing the boundaries is greater than it’s ever been before. This year is going to be the year we see the next generation of customer experiences delivered, driven by rapid optimisation for mobile and app based experiences, the evolving dichotomy of personalisation and privacy, and the explosion of retail integration.

In late 2012, ‘The APAC Digital Marketing Performance Dashboard 2012‘ was released by the CMO Council in partnership with Adobe, which highlighted how these trends were gaining traction. The report lifted the lid on what digital marketers across the APAC region were expecting in 2013, with Australia leading the charge in many areas. Key local findings included that:

Companies are directing the largest amount of their digital marketing budget to website content development and performance optimisation,
67% of Australian marketers surveyed said that customer preference as their reason for investing in digital marketing,
50% of Australian marketers said that social media optimisation, including boosting community growth and engagement, is a priority this financial year,
84.5% of Australian marketers surveyed are using digital marketing analytics and reporting, and the 4 key metrics being used by are: website performance data including traffic and traffic sources (76.5%), click-through rates (74%), response rates (72%), and conversion rates (64%), and
APAC will be home to some 2.15 billion mobile phone users this year – nearly 55% of the global total – and will represent nearly 60% of all mobile phone users by 2016.

It’s clear that consumers have begun to prefer mobile experiences, and based on the survey results, it’s also clear that marketers are starting to invest in the tools to get them right. Even though mobile apps are often preferred by consumers, digital marketers are moving more towards mobile-optimized websites and content because it’s easier to publish and more importantly it also gives marketers real-time access to analytics data through the cloud. We are at the inflection point now where we have as many mobile devices as there are PCs and if you don’t have mobile-optimised content, you will be left behind very quickly. In the coming year, it will be very interesting to see how apps compete against mobile-optimised content.

Mobile or not, the combination of increased optimisation and sophisticated analysis that we’re seeing from local digital marketers ultimately leads to more personalised consumer experiences and clearer ROI. With the right data, you can provide a powerful bespoke experience for individuals, rather than a website designed for everyone that relates specifically to no-one. In doing so you can gather and analyse more finite data to get accurate ROI, as well as creating the utopia where advertising stops being perceived as ‘advertising’ and becomes relevant information. However, this hinges on the availability and accuracy of the information given – which leads people to the fundamental question: How much of my personal information do I want known by organisations that want to sell things to me?

Whichever way you answer, there is a trade-off to be made: personalisation or privacy. Essentially, the more information you’re willing to give about yourself, the more targeted and more relevant experience you’ll get and vice versa. This is a decision that must be made by each individual, but given the polarity of opinion on the subject it will also be interesting to see if governments legislate on it in future, or use it as a point of discussion during this election year.

Retail in this country is also set to change dramatically during 2013 as a result of optimisation, personalisation and analytics. Thanks to the ubiquity of mobile, wherever we are now, we’re in a retail store making purchasing decisions – and if the company marketing to you gets the experience right, the sales potential is huge.

By integrating retail into optimised personal digital experiences, calls to action become more effective and both organisations will benefit. This means that during the content creation and optimisation process, marketers also need to think in terms of how the experience can lead to sales, rather than just blanket awareness. Again, those who don’t will be left behind.

There is a lot to do and a lot to watch this year, but one thing is certain – the end of 2013 is going to look completely different to now. 2012 saw marketers starting to rapidly innovate their content strategies, but this year the successful ones will be those who continue to evolve and push the boundaries of optimisation, personalisation and magnetisation. The question is, will that be you?

The nine rules for making a great brand app

by Danny Gorog ON 21 February 2013

The rise of mobile devices in Australia – we have one of the highest smartphone penetrations in the world – means the market is now at a place where brands must have a market leading app as a key part of their digital strategy.

Businesses are starting to recognise that native apps (basically any app specifically designed for the platform it runs on, whether it’s a mobile, tablet or desktop) are becoming an effective way to engage with their customers.

But developing and maintaining an app can be expensive. So before you start, first ask yourself, do you actually need an app? If all you want to do is provide a list of store locations for your customers you might be better off developing a mobile website.

However if you decide an app is the way to go, following are nine rules for ensuring its success.

We’re constantly approached by brands convinced they have the next big idea for an app. Apps are for life and can’t be built and forgotten about. Poorly designed and developed apps don’t reach any level of success in the App Store – there’s a lot more involved with app development than a big idea.

1. What makes your app unique?

The next question is what makes your app unique? There’s currently about 1.5 million Android and iPhone apps on the market, making it an extremely crowded space. Ask yourself, does your app have unique content? Has a competitor built a similar app and if so, why is yours better and what can you do differently?

2. It’s not just about the iPhone

With Android market share overtaking iPhone’s in Australia, you need to consider developing for both platforms. Android development now accounts for over 20% of our revenue, up from nothing 12 months ago. The benefit of developing native apps for each platform is they provide a better experience for your customers and can also be monetised more easily than mobile websites by either requiring users to buy the app up-front or via an in-app purchase.

3. Determine your list of ‘must-haves’

You won’t have the budget to include every single feature into the first version of your app. For example, live video streaming is great for engaging customers, but does your app need this feature first time round? Work out the content that’s most relevant and necessary to your brand for launch and everything else can wait for later down the track. This approached worked well for the official AFL app for Telstra which maintained a 4.5-star rating through the year thanks to constant feature enhancements and updates.

4. Have a clear idea of what your app will look like

It sounds obvious, but you’d be surprised at how many brands don’t actually visualise what their app will look like before they send it off for development. Designing an app is similar to building a house – you wouldn’t expect a builder to start building without the architectural plans or a full set of drawings. We like to spend a lot of time upfront in the inception and scoping phase to ensure brands know what their apps will look like once it’s developed. Making changes in this initial phase is also a lot less expensive and time consuming than when the app’s in its development phase.

5. Plan realistic timeframes

The most common mistake marketers make is not factoring in enough time for testing the app. From a customer perspective, it’s better for them to experience a quality app that has been well tested than something that has clearly been rushed to market. Also remember that when submitting to Apple you need to allow yourself at least an extra two weeks for submission – so factor all of these aspects into your timeframes.

6. It’s never too late to fix your app

The app landscape has changed significantly over the last two years. Photo quality on the mobile has evolved and features such as live radio and video streaming were not possible two years ago. Many brands have not adapted to the current climate and have poorly rated and performing apps that are damaging their reputation. I call it ‘negative’ ROI that results from negative customer comments and app ratings.

7. Schedule frequent app updates

Users like to see apps get better over time. Make sure you schedule in regular small releases or updates rather than long big ones in your planning. This way users will see the improvements and keep coming back to try the new features you have added.

8. Market Your App

Finally, you can have the app idea of the century but it won’t mean a thing if you don’t have the funds to market it. Marketing an app can often be more capital intensive than actually building the app. But without proper marketing you can be sure your app will drop to the bottom of the store.

The user-technology-brand disconnect

by Joe Barber ON 19 February 2013

In 2013, we are facing a whole new paradigm in digital marketing. The past 18 months have seen a shift in consumer habits in respect to devices and technology platforms that is now all but complete. But, surprisingly, many campaigns are still failing to succeed in the ‘final mile’ of connecting with a consumer.

At a recent conference in the US, the lack of mobile device quality engagement was squarely blamed on the agencies and intermediaries sitting between the brand and the consumer – those who are supposed to be the experts and the wise guiding hand in generating brand awareness and leadership.

Mobile, in many regards, is no longer a relevant term for the category. With the launch of the iPad mini and the overall uptake of tablets, consumers are now connected online more often, in more diverse places and doing more things than ever before. When we talk ‘mobile’ we really mean portable devices – this encompasses tablets, but we need to exclude laptops. I’m hearing more often now the phrase ‘highly-portable connected devices’ (in the UK) or ‘in-hand devices’ (in the US).

I was asked to help analyse a recent campaign and provided with a wealth of statistics and reports that on the whole were pretty meaningless. But what was very clear was that more than 90% of the audience (B2C campaign) were using ‘in-hand devices’, with almost 35% of those being tablets. The campaign was simple: register for the launch of a new range of products and receive an invitation to a special event.

The first email went to half the list and was a typical marcomms piece containing images and a highly- structured layout. It received around 7% conversion – considering it was a highly targeted list, this was somewhat disappointing. The second half of the list received a text-based email with all the same messaging, but written like it was for an SMS: short, to the point and very succinct. This received a 22% conversion.

What these conversion statistics are showing is not that people prefer text email, but that consumers no longer sit at a desktop PC to focus on their emails.

They are on the move and socialising everywhere at any time. The short, to-the-point email resonated with the very short attention span: it loaded almost instantly, presented an immediate value proposition and contained a single link to click as a clear and in-your-face call to action.

The final statistic of most importance to this article regards mobile data. We head to an era where high-speed 4G LTE networks in Australia are available.

In fact, my iPhone 5 now connects to data at around five times the speed of my ADSL2+ at home. If I’m really in need of something fast, I now share the connection from my phone.

But this doesn’t solve a lot of the challenges. Higher-speed mobile networks will start to create new problems of data costs. At the moment, the speeds are almost a self-governing throttle on the overuse of data. As a consumer, I find that I tend to use my phone now for more general surfing, simply due to the speeds.

And for the first time ever, I received a text warning about hitting 90% of my data allocation. So 4G is fantastic, but doesn’t alter the need for efficient, lean and highly-optimised content when delivering to any in-hand device. Don’t get lazy like on the desktop and start entering the two-megabyte homepage levels – it may load quickly, but consumers will start to realise that it’s wasting their data.

Tran Hang, head of travel industry at Google, believes 2013 will be the year of catching up to consumer behaviours. “We’re going to see mobile this year represent 35% of all searches. Next year, it will be about 45%,” says Hang. Some analysts predict that the adoption of QR (quick response) codes will double in the US and social gaming (or brand gamification) will become a dominant consumer engagement model. Irrespective, numbers of mobiles, tablets and even new Android watches are expected to grow at record levels.

Despite this, the number of mobile- ready websites and mobile-educated brands and organisations in general is way below the predicted 45%. Consumers are overtaking what agencies are delivering on behalf of their clients.

Despite the investment and marketing for the Windows phones, consumers aren’t buying them. RIM (maker of the BlackBerry) has all but ‘gone dark’. Metrics firm ComScore reported that in September all Android device manufacturers (Samsung, LG etc) grew the combined market share to 52.5%. Apple alone grew more on a percentage basis (1.9%) to achieve a market share of 34.3%.

Let me quickly summarise the year ahead:

faster data (upwards of five to 10 times faster) on mobiles
mobiles and tablets are now replacing desktops
consumers are using mobiles for personal email
HTML5 rich mobile web content is becoming the standard
mobile web will dominate with brands for both B2B and B2C
mobile video will be the fastest growing digital channel
email (B2C) will decline
it’s a two-horse race in devices: Apple’s iOS and Google’s Android (on LG, Samsung, etc devices)
the personal ‘cloud’ will dominate, as will enterprise use of things like Dropbox instead of maintaining expensive in-house file servers, and
retailer-agnostic initiatives will dominate.

I could go on for pages about statistics, adoption rates, consumer behaviours and usage patterns, but all that’s pretty well- documented. So, why then do agencies still get it so wrong when it comes to mobile?

In many regards, it’s the failure to engage technologists in the process. Many agencies have migrated digital gurus to the mobile world and remain convinced that it’s a basic extension to their current thinking. Take a look at numerous other industries: the world’s leading accounting packages weren’t developed by accounting firms. Manufacturing software wasn’t developed by manufacturers.

It seems, however, that agencies are convinced that they understand enough about mobile to produce campaigns that will succeed with limited or no consultation with technologists who understand the ecosystem.

Some have suggested that this disconnection is not a technology barrier as much as a pricing barrier. There is no doubt that mobile campaigns offer the greatest potential ROI of any medium. It allows for a connection at an individual consumer level like no other. But the ability to connect to a single user for 12 cents (SMS) or an entire target audience for less than $2000 (promotional landing page) discombobulates the revenue- driven agency world. Where’s the value in formulating a strategy that generates less than $5000 in billable revenue with slim or non-existent margins?

In the UK, the trend is different and it’s changing in the US. Agencies far more frequently partner with mobile technology players and create brand plans that embrace all aspects of mobile.

They now bill for their strategy with the final mile of media buying being a minor line item on the monthly invoice.

After consulting to agencies working for the same brand in two different countries, the approach and attitude difference was staggering. Not just the usual cultural and creative differences, but also the attitude towards mobile and the way partnerships are forged with brands is completely different. But it’s not just the agencies that need to morph their models; brands also need to respect and value the creative understanding of the ecosystem and be ready and willing to properly fund long-term planning and engagement strategies, and not leave agencies scrambling for dollars from rebates on media spends.

There are two great examples of this agency disconnection, which unfortunately simply creates the disconnection between the brand and its customers. There is a high-profile beer brand that ran a mobile QR code campaign at a music festival. The idea was brilliant, but the execution lacked the finesse that could have been achieved by bringing in a technology partner. Patrons went into the marquee for this brand of beer, walked up to a computer screen and entered their details and a personal message. A QR code was then printed and could be stuck onto their jeans, back or anywhere. Whenever anyone scanned the code they would receive the personal message.

The campaign seemed like a success. A marquee full of staff and computers and printers and people lining up to get their personal QR code (branded, obviously). At 500 printed codes, it was deemed a great event at this outdoor music concert with thousands of people in attendance. Now think about the way a technologist (like me) would have approached this campaign.

First, a tent in a fixed location with lots of computer gear is not efficient. Waiting for printouts and lining up with helpful staff everywhere simply couldn’t keep pace. Why not use the concept of a self-registering QR code? I helped a firm recently create a self-registering code that meant you could print 1000 codes on labels, beer coasters, stickers etc. When scanned for the first time, the consumer can ‘own’ the code by registering from their mobile – validating their mobile number at the same time – and then continually update and change the code as they wish.

This would deliver:

staff could be wondering through the crowd handing out stickers
instead of 500, they could have given out 5000
those not used wouldn’t have been wasted, as they could have been saved for another event
the tail on the campaign would be massive, as consumers would be encouraged to keep their code forever, continually updating what’s said or what it links to, all fully branded by the beer company, and
follow-up activities to registered users could engage them in a range of models from SMS through to producing more codes for themselves.
The cost? Wouldn’t need a marquee, 10 computers and power, laser printers and all the staff trying to help. Would just preprint all the codes and look for an economic distribution, like at the entry gate.
This style of QR code campaign has been run many times and they all suffer from the same delays, costs and challenges. But the revised approach of the self-registering code means a whole new process that’s more efficient, faster, has a longer tail and is far more exciting for a consumer. In fact, in Japan a jeans manufacturer offers a range with printed individual QR codes on the back pocket.

There are many other examples of the same kind of challenges. I met with a retailer and its agency installing ‘free Wi-Fi’ for its customers. When quizzed as to the scope of extended analytics this could produce, I was met with blank stares. Free Wi-Fi could enable consumer movement tracking, intercept competitive shopping activities with immediate price matching vouchers, track and understand what consumers are seeking through their surfing behaviour, and so on. The power of the data with free Wi-Fi services is incredible. But this particular retailer was implementing the service because the agency felt it was a great marketing idea to promote the offering to customers or only allow VIP members access. But add a technology partner to the planning mix and the ability to leverage the ecosystem to deliver a vast amount of market intelligence, all while interrupting competitive shopping habits with offers and vouchers, and the investment in free Wi-Fi could now produce a real, measurable ROI.

I believe that brands need to engage agencies to create holistic strategies across the whole ecosystem, and to engage technologists who understand the medium at the low level. Then they can leverage the mobile properly and immerse the consumer into an engaging proposition, driving awareness and sales back to the brand. Being properly remunerated and empowered to collaborate and invest time creating new models will see agencies spawn some amazing executions. But leave out the technologists and squeeze the agency for unpaid ideas and strategies and we will continue to fall even further behind the rest of the world.

MMA: Despite growing pains, mobile’s stellar run to continue

by Rohit Dadwal ON 8 February 2013

It doesn’t take a lot of crystal-ball gazing to see that this year is likely to be another one of great highs for mobile devices, and mobile marketing.

Australians continues to ride the crest of the mobile wave, as Telstra approaches the one millionth device connected to its 4G network, While infrastructure continues to improve (including the on-going rollout of the National Broadband Network) the mobile space still looks like it might be going through its own growing pains.

A report from Deloitte suggests that the continuing interest in mobile devices will drive demand for wireless broadband data, and that this will be a problem because Australia, like many other countries, has a limited amount of wireless spectrum available. This may create bidding wars and higher prices as telcos bid for available spectrum, but could also risk creating monopolies as successful bidders could charge premium prices for their wireless services. With demand outstripping supply, this will be an interesting space to watch. Additionally, communications infrastructure in rural areas is still less than optimal in certain places, with the reverse problem (excess load) being an issue in urban areas.

But that’s all gloom and doom – for the average mobile user, this year may be the time for rejoicing, as more services migrate to the mobile platform, and more marketing campaigns compete for user attention. Because mobile audiences are far from passive, brands that best engage with their audiences (either over social platforms, or specially-created apps) may be the ones with the most impact. More local/location-based services, too, are likely to appear, providing more relevant content, and making that mobile device much more valuable.

The tablet form factor is also improving in popularity, and in many cases is not quite as dependent on freely-available mobile data. Many tablet users find that wifi access is sufficient, enough to let their tablets shift the nexus of computing from the desktop or work table to the couch. This leisure computing is also prevalent on the mobile phone, as mobile games continue to be popular.

For mobile marketers, greater awareness is good. Many companies are taking pains to ensure that their online offerings include a mobile-friendly alternative, as a must-have alongside social media presence. For marketers, this is probably also a sign that the time is right to ask ‘what about mobile’ when planning campaigns – organisations that are savvy enough to take mobile into account on one front are more likely to include it on others.

Improvements in analytics technology also allow better modelling of the customer’s purchase journey, and where once the final decision might have been over-valued, analytics make it possible to measure the contribution provided by various touchpoints throughout the process. Today’s consumer is less likely to be persuaded by single exposure to a brand, or by a single ad, but instead is more likely to watch a TVC, see a print ad, check out a website, download an app, and otherwise engage with the brand (including checking online review sites and comparison shopping) before taking that final step. Attribution modelling and analysis can make the contribution of separate media more explicit – and this will also help break down the silos between media channels and pave the way to more holistic marketing campaigns.

It won’t all be blue skies and meat pies, but at least on the mobile front, it looks like there are numerous ways to go, and most of them are good ones.

Trend report: CMOs and CIOs will end 2013 as either friend or ‘frenemy’

by Marketing ON 15 January 2013

CMOs and CIOs will begin 2013 as peers and end the year as either friends or ‘frenemies’, as the CIO becomes more actively involved in marketing automation decisions, a trend report says.

Business analyst IDC’s ‘Chief Marketing Officer Predictions’ expects CMOs to become ‘masters of data’ this year and be required to produce a strategy for how market-driven data will contribute to corporate objectives.

Failure to do so could result in a sticky end, the report warns: “CMOs will find that their positions are in jeopardy if they fail to produce a robust data-analytics function – or even a game plan to get there,” the prediction reads.

IDC believes outlay on automation could approach 10% of marketing’s discretionary budget in 2013, with two-thirds of the total outlay coming from marketing and one-third coming from IT. Among best-practice organisations, the analysts predicts the balance to hit 50:50 by 2014, as marketing assumes more of IT’s budget.

In response to these trends, 50% of new hires in marketing teams are expected to come from technical backgrounds this year, as organisations realise they do not have the skills in place to cope with the data challenge.

“The challenge for the CMO is dealing with self-educated buyers,” Rich Vancil, IDC group vice president, adds, hinting at the consumer trends driving the uptake of data-driven initiatives. “These are the smart, resourceful, and socially-connected consumers who do their own research before ever entering the formal channels of a vendor’s marketing and selling apparatus.

“In the wake of all of their self-education is a stream of data that the CMO will have to understand.”

Other trends forecast by the report include the adoption of ‘mobile first’ strategies, the movement of social media into functions outside of marketing and the upgrade of CRM systems as the demand for greater insight into the revenue impact of marketing and sales increases.

Eight out of ten companies will see social media initiative growth take place outside of marketing, and by the end of 2013, 5% of CMOs will have adopted a ‘mobile first’ strategy.

CRM is also expected to become more nimble. As high-tech pipeline conversion metrics improve, IDC expects a 20% improvement in target-to-deal ratios and a 10% reduction in time to create a customer, due to better automation and analytics-driven process improvement.

Automation will also allow content to become more nimble. “Content isn’t king – it’s a wild beast. In 2013, CMOs will be pragmatic, shifting focus less on big platform projects and more on linking access to audience needs,” the report concludes.