The Rise and Rise of Mobile Marketing (and Why marketers Need to Pay Attention)

Mobile marketing is growing at lightening speed. It’s no wonder as marketers grapple with the fact that people are now spending 38 hours per month on their mobile phones – an increase of 7 hours from just 12 months before.[1]  For home usage alone the average Australian spends 7.9 hours per week on mobile.[2] That’s kind of staggering when you think about how much time we actually spend at home these days in a 5 day work week with commutes, school pickups etc.!

We know the appetite for mobile is increasing but is the mobile spend? Not according to a Neilson report, which found only 4% of ad spend was on mobile. However, this figure is anticipated to change significantly as more marketers hear the call from consumers who are naturally expecting more. More in terms of phone functionality, app innovations and relationship building – i.e. please deliver exactly what I want and be authentic when you speak to me.

The forecasted growth of mobile marketing as a proportion of overall digital spend is huge. Referencing mobile the former Managing Director of Amobee ANZ – Matt Hunt – told B&T recently: “It’s going to be a $4 billion market in 2018”. [3] Hunt also quoted an e-marketer statistic that shows just how fast the prophets are predicting the tides to turn. E-marketer projects that 64% of all digital spend in Australia will be on mobile devices by 2018[4].  Indeed just last year e-marketer reported that Australian advertisers spend just short of $1 billion on mobile Internet ads in 2014 – and that’s not even including the messaging based ones like MessageMeDirect.

The statistical incline – mobile usage and the marketeer catch up

Mobile usage is certainly on the rise. On a global scale mobile has now surpassed desktop in terms of number of users with upward of 1,800 million now using a mobile worldwide. Mobile’s incline is also steeper than desktop and it doesn’t appear to be slowing.[5]  And get this: there are three times more smartphones being activated every minute around the world than there are babies being born.[6]

But what does the dramatic consumer uptake of mobile mean to marketers? Naturally, we need to embrace it as a channel of great power - something many marketers are now striving to do. Highlights of Salesforce’s State of Marketing Report indicate as much.  “71% of marketers believe mobile marketing is core to their business, and 68% have integrated mobile marketing into their overall marketing strategy.”[7] What’s more 58% have a marketing team dedicated to all things mobile. The report also revealed that 70% see mobile marketing as a critical enabler of products and services – that’s big recognition for a device that’s only just starting to gain serious appreciation with some marketing teams.

So why pay attention to the rise of mobile (if you haven’t already)? 

Reason One: Everyone else is doing it

Not a great reason to give your kid but an excellent one in the case of mobile. Think about it. If your competitor in the shop next door is sending a text message with a special offer to a customer who lives around the corner who do you think they will visit first when they’re next looking for a dining table or new dress? The one that asks them to present the text message in-store to receive a discount or free hat, that’s who.

Marketing through mobile is, as you can see, especially great for retailers. So behavioural targeting will be key to making mobile marketing offers relevant to consumers like never before. Now that we can send highly targeted texts using over fifty profiling options (e.g. location, special interests and age) marketers can take a truly focused approach to make smarter more targeted offers.

Reason Two: People are buying and reviewing on mobile more than ever 

 The stats speak volumes here on why marketers need to place mobile high on our priority list:

• 58% of Australian mobile users make mobile purchases at least once a month. [8]
• 63% of Australian mobile users have performed a mobile search after seeing an offline ad. That’s higher than any other ad location i.e. TV, in shop, magazine, billboards.[9]
• 57% of consumers use multiple screens (i.e. PC, mobile and tablet) to access retail sites.[10]

“If 52% of people saying mobile is their first screen isn’t enough to show that mobile is important, I don’t know what is.” Nileem Jani, Director of Advertiser Strategy for Production & Brand at Verizon Wireless.[11]

The fact is people are giving mobile a leading role in their life. As marketers we now have plenty of exciting tools in our pocket to include our brands in that story. So what’s stopping us? And how much of that digital budget are we are willing to invest in mobile?