Commentary

Go! Mobile

The dawn of mobile-first reality is upon us, but is your brand prepared for the new world, says a new report from Emarsys.  If you’re an e-commerce business, this might be the most important question you must answer in the next five years.

Over the last decade, says the report, people have come to use their mobile devices, especially smartphones, above all other devices to browse and shop on websites. In response, companies across all industries have adopted mobile strategies to keep pace with evolving customer purchasing behavior.

But, says the report, companies don’t get to choose how customers want to buy from them, and, going forward, mobile technology will only become more intuitive, more functional, and more sophisticated.

Over 2.6 billion people (30% of all humans living on Earth) use smartphones, and check their phones 150+ times a day. In 2015, that averaged 2 hours and 8 minutes each day browsing and interacting with mobile phone apps, and that number will just continue to grow.

A little over a year ago, 37% of all website visits were made with mobile devices, and 46% of U.S. retailers deployed beacons, a developing technology that alerts your mobile app when you approach or leave a certain physical place, often a store. Beacons provide marketers with a reliable tool that lets them see where their customers are, and what types of beacon messages they’ll respond to.

For the last three years, mobile e-commerce has continuously grown as other conduits concurrently lose ground. And there’s no sign that this growth will taper off any time soon, says the report. According to a Gartner press release, “Smartphone sales represented 78% of total mobile phone sales in the first quarter of 2016.”

One of the most challenging questions facing modern marketers is: what happened to those customers who seemingly disappeared?. A mobile-dedicated app is one of the most effective ways to get customers to reappear, says the report, by sending targeted messages to customers who are defecting or at risk of doing so.

With the average online cart abandonment rate currently at 78%, one efficient way to mitigate this problem is to use automated triggers to deploy real-time messaging, such as sending a discount code, new feature updates, obtaining user feedback, and other service-related benefits.

The retention rate for apps that don’t use in-app messages is 13%, compared to 46% for apps that do. There’s also a big difference between event-triggered in-app messages and those sent each time the app opens. Event-triggered messages have twice the click-through rate of their launch-triggered counterparts, and event- triggered messages also enjoy four times the conversion rate.

And, finally, Push and SMS messaging are two proven options evolving alongside customer preferences for brand interactions.

Push notifications allow you to more effectively reach out to your customers who may have abandoned a shopping cart, or bought from you once and never returned. An essential part of a mobile-first strategy, push messages allow you to analyze and optimize your user data and deliver price drops, restocked item alerts, and time-sensitive discounts.

These efforts reap rewards, says the report. 50% of customers opt-in for push notifications and find them useful. Moreover, 65% of customers come back to the app within 30 days when push messaging is enabled, and push notifications boost app engagement by 88%. In some cases, push messages have achieved a fivefold revenue increase during promotions.

Push

  • 26% higher mobile app open rates
  • 88% app engagement boost
  • 65% of consumers come back to

the app within 30 days

  • 50% of consumers find them useful

And, as communication platforms go, people prefer texting over phone calls, voicemail, Facebook, and email, says the report. Compared to phone calls, 90% of leads prefer to be texted. Response rates from SMS are 209% higher, and positive or “yes” responses are 295% higher. SMS messages are less intrusive than phone calls, because they can be replied to whenever is convenient, yet most people read text messages within the first 3 seconds of receiving them.

SMS

  • 98% open rate
  • 90% are read within the first 3 seconds
  • 29% of targeted consumers respond to SMS messages
  • 47% of those targeted consumers go on to make a purchase

For additional information from the MobileFirstWorld by Emarsys, please visit here.

 

 

1 comment about "Go! Mobile".
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  1. Audrey Zack from MobiCommerce, September 12, 2017 at 9:17 a.m.

    Mobile phone sales are really increasing day by day. If you’ve not gone through the mobile yet, it’s the best time to go and be in the top trends for upcoming years.

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