Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)

Four Reasons to Take Mobile Seriously

The dramatic shifts we are seeing in behaviours are posing enormous challenges for businesses scrambling to keep up with the pace of change. Amaze has identified four key steps that brands must take for commercial success in today's mobile-driven territory:

1. Be aware
   Mobile has become the 'remote control' to our lives, influencing how we shop, inform and entertain ourselves and connect with one another. Businesses must understand the changing behaviours and expectations of consumers across their customer bases within the different stages of the purchasing cycle. The consumer mindset is key. This means understanding not only when people shop but where, how and why, as well as what they are buying and how this varies by device, location and category.

   To attribute a commercial value to mobile, businesses must be able to identify how it impacts across the sales lifecycle, from marketing channels, social media and customer care and support. Pinpointing behavioural 'overlaps' within the digital ecosystem, for example, between second screening and pre-shopping and between payments and customer care is the key to unlocking mobile value.

2. Be optimal
   As the power of mobile 'influence' has quickly overtaken that of mobile 'selling', businesses must make sure that they have the right mobile platform in place, allowing target audiences to engage and use online content and services when and where necessary.

   As well as choosing the right mobile platform for your business, whether a Responsive, Adaptive or Bespoke Mobile website, there are also Apps to consider. Previously assumptions were made about a type of platform being better suited to a business based on its site's content and functionality, however, these distinctions no longer exist. There really is no right or wrong answer; the key is in understanding the target audience and the context within which a mobile platform will be used.

   The ultimate decision about which mobile development path a business should pursue must be built around the 'moment of truth' for the customer. This could be purchasing a train ticket in transit, accessing the latest offer before purchasing in-store or comparing prices before a weekly grocery shop.

3. Be connected
   The third step is all about businesses recognising the importance of connecting with their target audience at the right time and in the right context. It is crucial to identify the 'moments' and messages that will drive a real value-exchange with the consumer.

   Retailers, for example, have shown some initial resistance to the advent of 'showrooming', with 80% of retailers surveyed (by Edgell Knowledge Network and eBay Local) expecting to see sales reduce by 5% due to the practice. Whilst this opposition is in part due to business readiness, or lack of it, it highlights the importance of responding to customers in real time.

   We've all become 'media multi-taskers', habitually second-screening, 'meshing' (communicating via other devices about a TV programme being watched) and 'stacking' (communicating via other devices about other activities whilst watching TV).

   These 'multi-tasking' behaviours are opening up a wide range of opportunities for situational selling, developing more relevant customer and 'household' connections and creating promotional opportunities.

4. Be found
   The final step in putting mobile at the heart of the customer experience concerns visibility. The wide variety of opportunities to 'be found' online demonstrate the level of influence mobile has on consumers. As well as partnerships and strategic media opportunities, businesses need to ensure that they are digitally optimising all of their online brand touchpoints for mobile, from eCRM to geo-targeted ads, digital payments and proximity marketing in a retail or out-of-home context.

"Companies need to think differently. Rather than focusing on 'mobile', they need to consider 'mobility', 'moment' and 'need'. Taking these insights into account will help companies understand how situational relevance can be converted into a rewarding and commercially beneficial customer experience", concluded Bell.

Have you seen The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook?

This comprehensive and practical guide to the latest ideas in customer-focused marketing hands you over 200 packed pages of strategy, best practices, do's and don'ts, practical know-how, facts and figures, and ideas to optimise your marketing strategy, boost sales, market share, increase ROI and profit.

Learn the insider's tricks and techniques to turn every customers into a 'super spreader' for your brand. It's better than free advertising. Once you start this ball rolling, your brand can grow rapidly through word-of-mouth, advocacy, influencers, and customer loyalty. Super-charge your company's marketing strategy, build up your market share, and make more sales through repeat business and customer loyalty.

Find out what works - and what doesn't - and who's succeeded, and how they did it. See how the world's top brands keep their competitive edge against all odds.

The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook walks you step-by-step through the techniques, metrics, reporting, analysis, marketing models, technologies, tools and innovations for successful marketing strategies - both traditional and emerging - with expert guidance from thought leaders in every major market. Find out the best ways to gather, analyse, and act on customer data to increase profitability, build your brand, empower your customers, beat the competition, reduce churn, and increase customer profitability. This is a marketing book you simply can't afford to be without.

This book aims to hand you all the facts, figures and research data you need for the best decisions for a more profitable, more engaging marketing strategy. It also highlights all the facts, forecasts and trends identified by our experts from the global Marketing Factbook's vast database of market data, news, studies, research and articles, and presents you with an invaluable library of ideas and practical support you can call upon at will.

With The Customer-Focused Marketing Playbook at your side, you'll have instant access to a true goldmine of easily adaptable and up-to-date strategies, walk-throughs, trends, research and market data, plus all the supporting arguments you need to build a solid, profitable marketing strategy.

Get it on Amazon (Kindle/Print)