July 3, 2011
Repost: Four Mobile Web Experiences You Can Offer Customers

NOTE: This article original appear on Mobile Marketer.com. You can find it here:http://www.mobilemarketer.com/cms/opinion/columns/8657.html

In a previous post, I outlined a framework for describing mobile websites.  The goal there was to outline a set of experience and execution standards and site features that can help marketers evaluate the evolution of their mobile web presence.

In fact, what should precede the development of your mobile website are decisions about the type of experience you can and want to offer your customers. Each potential experience can be linked to your business and brand objectives. And there’s no reason why any particular approach shouldn’t be viewed as an evolutionary step towards a deep mobile web experience.

Here’s a survey of four types of mobile web experiences you can offer your customers:

1. Conversion-Led

The conversion-led approach prioritizes customer acquisition. Generally speaking, you’re looking at mobile as a channel extension of your CRM or promotions funnel.  These sites could be mobile optimized versions of your contest micro-sites or loyalty programs. And it’s likely they’re having traffic driven to them via other channels – either mobile like SMS or mobile advertising or through non-interactive media prompts like print or TV ads.

It’s fair to say that the conversion-led approach is more akin to a landing page strategy where light weight sites are used to provide a frictionless continuation of a brand experience. Key to a successful conversion-led approach is appreciation and iron-willed adherence to a customer-centric value exchange. Make it very clear what you want the consumer to do. Give them an offer that makes it worth their while. Make the design experience suit the medium.

2. Look-up-Led

This approach is arguably the best starting point for any brand marketer looking for a sustained mobile presence. It sets a foundation that can be easily built upon. Its intent is to address the most pressing needs for the widest variety of customers.

The essence of the Look-Up-Led approach is the recognition that a customer visiting your site on their mobile phone is most likely there to find a very specific piece of information which they can they apply to their daily tasks or current circumstances.

Contact or location information would be the best example of this but it would also include price or schedule checking or other product background information (nutrition information, for example, if you’re a QSR or CPG company).

3. Transaction-Led

With a transaction-led approach you’re focussing on driving product purchase. That may mean enabling on device transactions. But it can also be about increasing purchase intent through more immersive product experiences or bridging customers from device to retail through incentives or concierge-like interactions.

Consumer comfort with on-device transactions is definitely on the rise and you can encourage that behaviour by porting familiar shopping chart cues to your mobile site. Existing account authentication, transaction security and clear progress metering are important. Customer support channels should be prominently displayed and will minimize shopping cart abandonment.

Having on-device ordering with in-store pick up is a complementary feature to direct on-device commerce and one that also stands up well on its own. Many customers may come to your site with look-up intent. Price comparisons or inventory availability may be their initial focus but by allowing customers to reserve goods on device and schedule pick up at their preferred location can turn window shopping into revenue.  You can also manage that ‘clicks to bricks’ experience through mobile couponing where site visitors can unlock coupons good for their next visit.

4. Content-Led

Publishers, TV networks, and others whose business is based on producing a steady stream of content are the obvious candidates for this approach. But they are not the only ones.  The content-led approach can be the evolution of the look-up-led approach and a companion to the transaction-led approach.

The main attributes of this approach are well structured category architecture, a deep and searchable content library, multi-channel sharing (email, SMS, social media, etc…) and multi-media content formats.  A content-led approach also benefits from allowing visitors to specify content preferences. While easier to do on a native app, a minimalist registration option can allow for saved preferences and make for meaningful and frequent visits. That can be a real benefit if you’re looking to monetize your content through advertising.

Your own mobile web presence may not fit neatly into just one of these categories. As I mentioned with the content-led approach, combining elements of each may make the most sense given your business and marketing objectives.

What should be front and centre regardless of the chosen approach is an evolutionary view where initial efforts are monitored and visitor traffic data is fed back into your content and design strategies and implementations.

The mobile web is becoming increasingly important and many expect it to overtake native applications as the primary source of customer mobile data consumption. Be prepared. Take advantage.

8:05am  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfaoHx6iWRWb
(Notes: 9)
  
Filed under: UX mobile mobile internet mobilemarketer.com published 
July 2, 2011
Repost: Launch and Learn – Driving Campaign Success with In-Flight Optimization

As advertisers devote an increasing share of their media budgets to mobile advertising, experimental campaigns are morphing into sustained efforts.  Even those brands just getting started in the channel will have heard the success stories and won’t be satisfied with ‘seeing what happens’.

Results matter and maximizing ROI or driving toward pre-defined, tangible goals places increased pressure on effective campaign management and optimization. Clear and measureable campaign objectives are the essential starting point. Acknowledging mobile as a powerful direct response channel and building in conversion points will improve targeting efforts.

However, simply setting up your campaign and letting it run its course denies the opportunity to leverage the rich data set that mobile advertising generates. Device, time, content, creative, destination and conversion metrics are among the points across which a campaign can be evaluated. Knowing how to interpret and translate that data into in-flight campaign optimization can mean the difference between a successful campaign and a failure.

 

Let’s get some assumptions out of the way:

  1. You’ve done your homework and have a good sense of which devices your target audiences are likely to be using (or you’re casting a wide net across mobile users).
  2. You have a mobile-friendly post-click destination. If you’re driving to a wired web destination go back to the drawing board.
  3. You have access to media and conversion performance data in the shape of publisher/network reporting and post click tracking using Google Analytics or a mobile analytics service.
  4. You’re a savvy enough planner – or work with one – so your media buy is leveraging properties with good content affinity to your message and your audience.
  5. You’re working with a publisher/network that will let you adjust campaign targeting in-flight.  (I’ve yet to work with one that won’t; it’s in their best interest.)

At the very least you’ll be seeing the top-line reach and response stats – impressions, clicks, and click through rates (CTRs). These are helpful in providing a baseline for measuring your optimization efforts.  Content, geographic, time and device-specific reporting are the next level of mineable data.

The second baseline measure will be conversions. If you’ve managed to get consumers to click on your ad, don’t simply direct them to a flat landing page. Instead, have some response or engagement points to take advantage of the click. With that in place, you’ll be able to generate conversion rates or engagement levels.

Now that you have your campaign set up and you’re collecting performance data, here’s a list of questions you need to ask yourself to identify opportunities that will enable performance improvement via ongoing optimization:

Media Metrics

  1. What are you CTRs by creative unit? Run multiple calls to action or creative treatments and adjust weight according to performance.
  2. What are you CTRs by time? Focus on day parting to deliver more impressions when your message has the greatest currency.
  3. What are you CTRs by device? Device metrics go a long way towards validating audience profile assumptions and ensuring relevant offers, content and design strategies.
  4. Which content or context (e.g. location) dimensions are performing best? Cross-reference those results with creative, time and device CTRs.
  5. Are your mobile search keyword groups fully exploiting aligned location or urgency searches? Search is a low cost, high conversion channel when deployed sensibly and managed properly.

 

Conversion Metrics

  1. What content is generating the most views on your landing pages? Remember, mobile content consumption will likely follow a different pattern from web browsing.
  2. Are there choke points in your conversion funnel? With multi-page interactions (e.g.registrations), you may notice drop off at certain points. Streamline the process to minimize friction and maximize familiar behaviour triggers.
  3. What are the conversion comparisons between different devices? Could your content or design strategy be adjusted to take advantage of device browser or feature capabilities?
  4. How do your conversions compare across geographies? What happens when you layer on device data to that metric? How about time of day metrics? Tweak your media to follow those patterns.
  5. If you’re attributing revenue to your conversions, are some sources more profitable than others? How are different offers translating to conversion rates?

While some of these might seem obvious and different conversion points (e.g. landing pages, downloads, coupons, commerce, etc.) have unique dimensions to address, the fulcrum for mobile advertising success is the effective use of the added data layers that mobile devices, context and design/content strategies offer.

Be Smart. Tip the scales in your favour by acting on in-campaign reporting.

NOTE: This post appears as part of Mobile Marketer’s Classic Guide to Mobile Advertising 2010 package. You can get the full guide here.

4:06pm  |   URL: http://tmblr.co/ZfaoHx6h8QiH
(Notes: 1)
  
Filed under: mobile advertising mobilemarketer.com published 
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