5 worst mistakes made by brands in mobile marketing

5 worst mistakes made by brands in mobile marketing

Mobile marketing has gained tremendous popularity in the recent times. The reason is the increase in the number of mobile users and the continuous surge in mobile usage. No wonder, marketers are tapping on this opportunity. It is not difficult to guess why industry-wide marketers are eager to enter the mobile marketing segment. This is even more evident in the retail market segment. It has been observed that around 47 percent of the retail sales are influenced by purchases made through mobiles. There has been a drastic shift in the customer’s purchase behaviour. Their purchase journey begins on their mobiles before they physically walk into a store.

Most campaigns that are being targeted for mobile consumers are not effectively implemented. This is delivering poor results for many mobile marketing initiatives. Making mistakes are not acceptable for brands. It leaves an unfavorable impression on their customers. It is the responsibility of the marketers to provide the customers with a seamless purchase journey. This can only be achieved if mobile marketing is done right.

Here are some common mistakes made by brands with their mobile campaigns and how to avoid them.

Mistake1: Not delivering optimized content

Providing optimized content in any mobile campaign is essential as it adds value to the customers. While most of the brands are aware of an optimized mobile content, there are still a number of brands that have missed the mark.

The best example of this mistake is Amazon. When executing their Black Friday and Cyber Monday email campaign in 2013, they sent out emails that were not mobile friendly. It was unexpected from a brand like Amazon,who sent emails with links to non-mobile site despite knowing the fact that 50 percent of the consumers use mobiles to check their emails.

Another example of brands who missed out on the mark of delivering mobile optimized content is the execution of messaging campaigns using MMS. When you share an ad campaign over MMS, it often degrades the content quality, because it uses one-size-fits-all approach. Different mobiles or other PDAs have different screen resolutions. The content received on these devices either doesn’t work or is not legible.

If a mobile campaign has flaws, then there are chances that the campaign might not reach its desired objective. The planning of a flawless mobile campaign is important in order to make it succeed. The marketers have to focus on the customer experience in order to fulfill the brand’s objective. Previewing the content on various devices is an alternative solution. Content like videos or GIFs should be optimized for mobiles  by using interactive content.

Mistake 2: Creating a complicated opt-in process

QR codes are one of the most complicated processes that have witnessed poor results in the mobile marketing segment. Firstly, the advertisers took the plunge by incorporating QR codes in their mobile campaigns depending on the current audience who use smartphones. But they missed out on a big chunk of consumers who are still using feature phones. Secondly, not every smartphone userhave a QR code scanner app installed on their phone. QR scanner apps do not come pre-installed on mobile devices. If consumers have to opt-in to your campaign, they will have to take an extra step of downloading the app, learning on how to use it, scan the QR code and then probably enter the campaign.

One of the best examples is RadioShack. They included a QR code in one of their direct mail campaigns. After scanning the code, it redirected them to a mobile website, wherein the consumer information was recorded online. Most of the customers initially thought that by scanning the code, they might get special offers and the process would be then complete. By adding an additional step in the mobile ad campaign, the brand actually lost a lot of customers. The reason was quite obvious as customers lost interest in the campaign.

The idea is to keep it simple. In case of the RadioShack mobile campaign, they also had an SMS opt-in option that saved them from a major crisis. An alternative to fix this mistake is to use the mobile opt-in as a promotion, as most of the customers are willing to share information to get a discount or a special offer in return.

Mistake 3: Not spreading the word amongst customers

Brand promotion is one of the most important part of the marketing mix. When brands plan out a great mobile campaign, they often forget ways to lure customers to participate in the campaign.Just because a campaign is made, doesn’t mean customers will participate and interact. Whether the aim of your campaign is to drive traffic to the websites or download apps, it is important that you put in efforts to make your mobile campaigns make your target audience respond to your “call to action”.

It’s an open secret that a well-promoted campaign can generate good results. Avenue, a retailer for real-sized women, achieved a 6,600 percent return on investment. They spread the word to its customers through its rich media messaging, mobile campaign shared on social media, in-store, online promotions and email marketing. The brand sent out compelling images and gave out attractive offers that encouraged customers to opt-in and through social media, they also offered suggestions to their friends to opt-in as well. The retailer touched base to see a drastic increase in footfalls to the store and their overall sales also surged.

Mistake 4: Missing the call to action

Along with promotions, brands also need to have a strong call-to-action. One of the best examples is that of Target. The retailer made a critical error while introducing their in-store app. Customers were told that there is an app available for them to have a better shopping experience. But the in-store signage  totally missed out the value proposition for downloading the app. Target’s aim was to provide a better experience to the shoppers. It would have been helpful if the retailer could provide some information about the app and where to download it from.

Mistake 5: Not making mobile campaign a powerful multichannel experience

Brands who consider mobile as a separate piece in the overall campaign are missing out on a major marketing opportunity. The main aim of the marketers is to get the consumers engaged with the brand. It is known that the customers tend to choose a unique way to make purchases. It is a reality and brands need to understand and design a strategy on how to direct the traffic bearing in mind that you integrate other aspects into your mobile campaign.

The foremost step is to know your customers and the devices that they carry with them. You can make use of the rich media messaging tool that can allow you to receive information in real time. This will give you information about the customer and then you can drive him to the next interaction page. If you need to provide a better customer experience and also improve your brand presence, then you need to integrate these aspects when designing a mobile campaign.

Final words

While perfection cannot be always attained while making a campaign, but there are ways which can help avoiding these mistakes in the future. So, it is always important to integrate mobile in the overall marketing campaign, deliver optimized content, create user-friendly opt-ins, promote and include effective call-to-action.

These tips can help you deliver real results with your next mobile marketing campaign.