The opportunities in the mobile marketing and mobile advertising space are growing by leaps and bounds and those marketers and advertisers who are not mobile, literally, will be left in the dust.
I used the words “Even more proof…” in my title because I have written numerous posts on the benefits of mobile marketing and mobile advertising.
The Rapid Rise Of Mobile Advertising And mCommerce – “The number of advertisers using mobile advertising has doubled in just two years and accordingly mCommerce is growing right along with it. Marketers need to grow along with it.”
Another Reason Why Marketers Need To Be Mobile – “… mobile payments are expected to nearly triple by 2015.”
Mobile Marketing Spending To Have The Biggest Increase Over Next Five Years – “Among all Interactive Marketing platforms, Mobile Marketing is expected to grow 38% over the next five years with an estimated $8.2 billion being allocated to it by the year 2016.”
I am a HUGE proponent of using mobile marketing and mobile advertising as part of an overall integrated marketing strategy if for no other reason, we humans, AKA consumers, like our mobile phones… a lot. One third of us would rather give up sex than our mobile phones. I’m not saying which third, that’s for you to figure out. But they are a part of our lives and the trends in mobile marketing and mobile advertising point to an incredible amount of opportunities for those marketers and advertisers
What trends you ask?
Well there are these, from a survey conducted by Brand Anywhere and Luth Research:
51% of consumers more likely to purchase from retailers that have mobile-specific websites
4.8% of U.S. retailers have mobile-specific websites
22.8% of the top retail websites (ranked by Alexa®) have mobile-specific websites
Web retailers could increase consumer engagement by 85% with a mobile-specific website
Gee, do you see just a slight disparity in any of these numbers? David Engle, of Brand Anywhere, states the obvious: “A significant gap has emerged between the number of retailers who have mobile websites and the consumers who want to shop on mobile sites.”
“Significant gap?” Yeah, I would call the gap between (nearly 5%) and 51% significant, wouldn’t you? Hell that gap is Grand Canyon-esque for crying out loud. What in the name of Alexander Graham Bell is going on here?
And did you catch the last bullet, the one about how much retailers could increase engagement by offering a mobile website?
The Future Of Mobile Retail Marketing?
For those not familiar with Tesco, they are a grocery retail chain that was looking to grow its business in South Korea without adding additional stores. So they decided, that since South Koreans are busy enough, they would bring to the store to them, thereby making it easier for people to buy their groceries on their time, during their daily routine and thus save them the trouble of coming into the actual store. Tesco created virtual stores at subway stops in South Korea. Consumers could “walk the aisles” as if they were actually in a store, viewing images of products arranged just as they would in the store itself. Using QR technology, people could scan the codes of the products they wished to buy, place them in a virtual shopping cart and their order would be delivered right to their door that same night. According to the company, as a result of this campaign, Online registrations increased by 76% and online sales increased by 130%.
Here’s a brief video explaining just how they did it…
Pretty cool, right? Well guess what? That’s what you should be doing if you’re a marketer or advertiser in the retail space. And if you’re a marketer or advertiser NOT in the retail space but still like to make money, you better get mobile… fast. Those folks who want and need your products, services and wares and spending more and more time on their mobile phones and while they are on their mobile phones, they shopping, they are buying, they are browsing, on and on and on.
