Category Archives: Technology

The Mobile Marketing Opportunity of Behavioral Routines

An article recently posted on the Mobile Marketer web site urges marketers to think longer term about what they can and should be doing to nurture a relationship with someone who clicks on their ad from a mobile device. While I certainly agree with all of the advice (and assertions of missed opportunity) in the article, I think that this doesn’t push far enough. There’s something more that should added to marketers’ thinking about interactions with customers and prospects on their mobile devices: routine behaviors.

Some time ago, I signed up to receive Groupon daily offers and, as a result, wake up every day to find my Groupon email waiting for me in my inbox. And every day, I read the email. I’ve probably bought 2 or 3 things in the 18 months I’ve been subscribed, but that lack of conversion hasn’t stopped me from checking that email every day. The reason? It’s part of my daily routine. Wake up, make breakfast, check email—including that day’s email from Groupon. The combination of the variety of the offers, the programmed consistency of delivery, and the fact that I always have my mobile device on hand has ingrained checking that email into my morning behavior.

While it may not be the case that every marketer pursuing every type of customer should think in terms of establishing a presence in the audience’s daily routine, the increasing ubiquity of mobile devices makes it an opportunity every marketer should be considering. To aid in this consideration, below are some scenarios that would make “behavior integration” a strategy worth pursuing:

  • A highly competitive battle for mind share and audience attention
  • A need to expand the target audience’s understanding of the range of product, services, or solutions offered
  • Under-utilization of a rich collection of thought leadership resources

In any of these scenarios—or, most of all, in environments in which more than one of these scenarios are combined—a strategy to foster a behavioral routine that leverages the particular usage profile of mobile devices is worth exploring.

How to Generate Critical Mass for Mobile Payments

Mobile payments continue to receive widespread coverage in payments-related media, as various companies pilot and roll out mobile payment products targeted at both consumers and merchants.  In recent weeks:

While these launches are generating a good deal of hype in the industry, and mobile payments are the hot topic in 2012, it is worth noting that researchers assessing consumer and merchant interest in mobile payments are finding that consumer interest in mobile payments is lukewarm at present:

Most consumers are comfortable with established payments methods and feel that they do not have a compelling enough reason to change.  In addition, they have concerns regarding security and privacy.  In addition, most merchants have yet to embrace mobile payments.  The main reason for this is that there is a cost to equipping terminals for mobile payments acceptance, and merchants do not yet see the benefits outweighing costs.

However, with growing smartphone penetration, increased consumer use of mobile phones for shopping, and enhanced mobile payment and acceptance products coming on stream, most observers expect consumer and merchant attitudes to and usage of mobile payments to grow significantly in the coming years.

With this in mind, we have developed the following ten steps to overcome challenges and build a strong mobile payments franchise:

  1. Incorporate mobile payments into a digital wallet.  Although mobile payments on their own have a “buzz” factor as well as enhancing ease and convenience, these attributes on their own will not be enough to encourage widespread adoption of mobile payments.  Some mobile payment providers are looking to leverage power of the smartphone as well as social media apps to develop mobile wallets that will include targeted offer and loyalty program management functionality, in addition to mobile payments.
  2. Identify and target segments who are more willing to try new technologies and alternative payments.  In addition, develop strategies for other segments along the product-adoption curve.
  3. Conduct consumer and merchant research. Focus on identifying what these audiences would look for in a mobile wallet or in mobile acceptance tools, what offers and incentives would drive usage, as well as what factors reduce the likelihood to adopt mobile payments.
  4. Clearly articulate key selling points (over both existing payment methods and other mobile payments products), and incorporate these into all communications.
  5. Establish a partnership strategy that seeks to harmonize the different objectives and concerns of each stakeholder in a mobile payments consortium. (This is particularly important as there is widespread recognition that no one company can go it alone in the embryonic mobile payments space.)
  6. Develop local marketing plans, as mobile payments will tend to be rolled out initially in select markets rather than on a nationwide level.
  7. Conduct mobile payments pilots in select markets to assess and enhance the user experience, evaluate different offers and incentives, and test different media and messaging
  8. Create compelling incentives for consumers and merchants to trial mobile payments.
  9. Build referral programs to encourage initial mobile payments users to recruit friends and family.
  10. Once it has been launched, continually enhance your mobile payment solution to continue to meet changing customer needs, as well as to maintain a competitive advantage.

The Vinaigrette Moment: Marketing and Sales Integration

Drip olive oil and vinegar onto a plate, and you end with little pools of each, unmixed, only really able to be enjoyed with some effort by manipulating your fork to get just the right amount of each to adhere onto the lettuce. However, if combine olive oil and vinegar in a receptacle and whisk them, you end up with a lovely blended vinaigrette. This description of basic salad dressing chemistry is a useful metaphor for bridging the divide between marketing and sales – a topic that was the subject of a panel in which I participated at the recent Tech Marketing Summit in Santa Clara.

Fundamentally, there is a lot about marketing and sales that is different:

  • Marketing tends to be more project (campaign) oriented while sales is more process (ongoing, repeated effort) oriented.
  • Testing and educational failure is (or should be) valued by marketing but is not really part of the sales lexicon.
  • And, most obviously, sales has revenue targets while marketing typically does not.

Oil and vinegar. But, with a little effort in the form of enabling technologies like integrated CRM/Marketing Automation systems, and some shared and defined objectives, the two can work separately but harmoniously to achieve good results.

Where things get really interesting, though, is when the two set aside their natural differences and really cooperate and collaborate. For example, if marketing interviews salespeople and finds that 15-20% of their time is spent creating presentations and doing customer research, there is a huge opportunity to give those sales people another 7-10 hours of sales time every week by creating presentation templates and a customer intel portal.  Likewise, if marketing and sales work together to analyze win/loss rates in certain segments, a picture can emerge of latent opportunities to pursue new markets or better allocate marketing investment to maximize the revenue opportunity. It’s only with this kind of collaboration that you get true go-to-market optimization.  And that’s the vinaigrette moment that produces real results.