The mobile train has left the station: Are you on board?

Brand marketers and retailers are often unsure of the need to up-the-ante when it come to mobile commerce and still consider it something that is too far out into the future. And then suddenly it seems to hit us hard. 

This past Black Friday was the day we realized that mobile shopping would be the future and while the numbers that came in correspond to the US, the trend is what needs to be looked at.

 

On Black Friday 2012, one out of every four dollars spent online at retail websites came from a mobile device. This amounts to more than $300 million dollars in one day alone. 

For those retailers (and brands) who’ve already embraced mobile, it was a day of celebration, a culmination of their hard work and foresight. For retailers who didn’t get their share of this new mobile world, it’s a wake-up call: Get with the mobile program, or have consumers leave you behind.

Read the full story here and if you are a FMCG / CPG brand or retailer talk to us to understand how mobile commerce would work for you and how it can be part of your marketing strategy.

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The evolution of the "path of purchase".

Conventional wisdom has always been that most brand purchase decisions are made in the store. 

But with the new, digitally empowered consumer entering the store better prepared than ever before, is the new reality that most purchase decisions are made at home or on the way to the store?

This wonderful white paper by The Hub seems to suggest that the truth most likely lies somewhere in between.

The white paper goes on to list how can manufacturers ensure that their brands are included in the consideration set and make the final cut. They must identify shopper needs and behaviors at every phase along the path-to-purchase and deliver relevant experiences that shape purchase decisions, from pre-purchase to point-of-purchase, from consumption experience to post-experience reflection.

The consumer’s media consumption methods have changed and therefore the relevance of methods in which a brand can be relevant to them. The 24x7 access to socially connected devices is the single largest factor to change dynamics of marketing. The white paper reemphasizes what we are trying to create with AaramShop – an integration of the Zero Moment of Truth (ZMOT) with the First Moment of Truth (FMOT) of the brand. Read more about it here.

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Saving Abandoned Brand Mobile Apps.

There’s a graveyard of brand apps that were a little more than a flash in the pan in terms of repeat usage from consumers. And the reason for this is simple. The majority of brand apps serve little or no utility at all to users.

The key, unsurprisingly, is making apps that are based more on long-term utility rather than campaign one-offs. The tradeoff is that true brand platforms require a mix of departments while most brand apps originate from marketing departments and are geared to specific campaigns.

“Utility apps have broken the path for the app world,” said Yvonne Caravia, chief experience officer for Mobients, a mobile design and strategy agency. “People who are on the go want to get stuff done quickly, and having a branded app that provides some sort of utility is a good way to get them coming back over and over again.

A study by Localytics found that just one in four mobile apps are never used again after being downloaded. The same study also found that 26 percent of apps aren’t used more than once.

Read more here

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Digital Marketing Spending to Increase Across All Channels

While traditional digital channels such as search and email continue to dominate retailer marketing spending, social and mobile channels are growing in importance. Marketers are also seeking to improve data analytics capabilities to identify the most profitable channels and design the optimal marketing mix for driving engagement and sales. These are the top-level findings of a recent survey of 110 retailers conducted by Lauren Freedman and the e-tailing group, an e-commerce consultancy for merchants.

The report, “Surviving the Current Market Mania with a Solid 2012 Plan,” was sponsored by Bronto Software, the leading marketing platform for retailers and other commerce-focused companies. The free report is available for download at bronto.com.

Regarding revenue generation, merchants surveyed said that they expect top-performing channels will be SEO (31%), Mobile (mCommerce, iPads, mobile application – 30%) email (22%), paid search (22%) and social media (14%).

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