Wireless Week asked me to assess where we are with mobile. Here’s what I told the publication:
“Even in 2013, years after mobile marketing has proven its worth, many brands continue to take tepid steps that leave them trailing their competitors and, even more importantly, disappointing and irritating their customers and prospects.
“A common challenge these marketers face is that they fail to acknowledge that everything and nothing has changed with mobile. The savvier brands know that the what is the same – they need to sell more product and build loyalty. It’s the how that is different.
“There is a large opportunity for those who map mobile strategies and programs to overall business goals.
“How large? Just ask mobile users.
“In survey after survey, we see that consumers are interested in joining a permission-based mobile loyalty club. The numbers consistently register at around one-third, which in the United States equals more than 100 million people. The more interesting number to me is how many say that have yet to be approached by a brand that they trust – more than 70 percent feel this way.
“The takeaway? We actually have a large number of consumers who have raised their hands and said that they are interested in being marketed to on their terms. Yet many businesses fail to pay attention to the customer, which, of course, is ill-advised whether we’re talking mobile or not.
“In my Mobilized Marketing book, Michael Bayle, a longtime mobile executive who is now Senior Vice President and General Manager of ESPN Mobile, said that consumers are rewarding brands that provide a positive mobile experience and punishing others who fail to deliver.
“Bayle assesses the situation this way:
“’They (marketers) have two choices – they can either ride the wave or watch the wave pour over them. We can equip them with a surfboard, equip them with the right tools so that it’s just not an investment and a spend but there’s tactically at the end of the day some return on investment we’re collectively monitoring that is better for their brand.’
“And better for the bottom line, not to mention the customer.
The full article is here - http://www.wirelessweek.com/articles/2013/08/magazine-ups-and-downs-ads-going-mobile
