The rise of the on-the-go consumer has incited experts to push the importance of integrating mobile into marketing strategies – explaining why many companies are investing heavily in the medium.
As part of a $100 million brand revamp, Dunkin’ Donuts, for instance, has unveiled its first new concept store especially focused on to-go and mobile ordering. The store is one of 50 planned locations the coffee and doughnut giant plans to open this year that offer digital kiosks, dedicated pickup zones, and larger drive-through windows that prioritize customers making orders on mobile phones.
Dunkin’ Donuts’ brand refresh highlights just how significant the shift in consumer preference to mobile has been in recent years, inducing many companies’ marketing departments to burn the midnight oil in order to capitalize on this trend.
At $75 billion, mobile IT currently captures more than one-third of total US media ad spending. By 2022, mobile’s proportion of total ad spend is forecast to reach as high as 48%, meaning that nearly 70% of digital advertising will be dedicated to mobile.
And yet, studies are finding that marketers are neglecting many of the opportunities mobile has to offer.
The Shopper-First Retailing ReportOpens a new window from Salesforce and Publicis.Sapient reveals that the majority of brands are failing to engage on mobile, with the 71% of retail customers who use their phone while shopping in-store missing out on sales opportunities.
Of course, plenty of companies besides Dunkin’ Donuts are doing all they can to target mobile users. Nike, as part of the direct-to-consumer strategy the company implemented last year, has introduced campaigns that give some users special access to exclusive Nike sneakers based on mobile geo-location data.
Mobile marketing has created myriad location-based opportunities that help companies and brands connect with customers in a personalized way, using every piece of data available to build stronger relationships with consumers and improve salesOpens a new window .
But the potential of mobile marketing also goes beyond in-store and proximity marketing. Perhaps more important is what it can offer in content marketing.
Mobile technology is ‘key’
As millennials and generation Z grow up – and their spending power increases – mobile technology has become key to consumer satisfaction. And mobile’s move from a stand-alone tactic to a crucial element of a company’s overall marketing operations is no recent development.
This has, in fact, been the case for a while – the proliferation of mobile has hardly snuck up on us. By 2015, Google announced that users were making more searches on mobile than desktop computers. Similarly, the following year, studies were reporting that over half of global website page views were on mobile devices, likewise surpassing every other medium of content consumption.
In response to this shift in user behavior, Google promised to introduce mobile-first indexing, which it started rolling out this yearOpens a new window . In its own words, “Google will create and rank its search listings based on the mobile version of content, even for listings that are shown to desktop users.â€
This is a significant move from Google that pushes a global emphasis on mobile content. Those that fail to optimize their content for mobile may not only become outdated, but made obsolete.
Indeed, consumer habits are driving rapid growth in a marketing sector that’s only recently begun to explode. Notably, voice-enabled shopping and ordering is already drawing a lot of interest from many industries.
For example, as part of its new strategy to attract on-the-go customers, Dunkin’ Donuts is letting members of its DD Perks Rewards program to order food and drinks vie Amazon Alexa-powered devices for pickup in stores.
Just as mobile, voice-activated services are set to become more popular, which means that entirely new forms of marketing must be developed for this medium which bypasses screens entirely.
Our lifestyles increasingly require on-the-go services, and although mobile-specific apps and services are poised to dominate the response to this demand, on-the-go consumption is clearly already helping to create other new mediums to add to the marketing mix.
And while the relevant tech may continue to evolve, one thing stays the same for marketers regardless of the channel they use: Whether it’s online, on mobile or via Alexa, the most effective strategies require you to know your audience – and where they’ll most likely consumer your content.