The Power of Mobile

Would you rather learn about a great sale on your favorite prod­uct from a friend or from an app? A recent study from Criteo shows that 80 per­cent of con­sumers pre­fer dig­i­tal com­pared to 43 per­cent who pre­fer word of mouth. Since we now spend a mas­sive amount of our time on our cell­phones, the results of this research aren’t sur­pris­ing. The con­ve­nience of hav­ing our phones always “on hand” makes life a whole lot eas­i­er. Whether it’s for social inter­ac­tion, news, or shop­ping, mod­ern con­sumers are reach­ing for their phones, and giv­en respon­dents’ reports on retail­er web­sites and apps, that trend is like­ly to continue.

Retail­ers are tak­ing advan­tage of these con­sumer pref­er­ences by lever­ag­ing the lat­est in dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing to con­stant­ly improve the con­sumer expe­ri­ence. Con­ve­nience is the most impor­tant fac­tor for peo­ple these days, and retail­ers under­stand that. As mar­ket­ing evolves, omnichan­nel approach­es are allow­ing retail­ers to reach con­sumers no mat­ter where they are. In fact, 83 per­cent of shop­pers in the UK iden­ti­fy as omnichan­nel. Retail­ers are reach­ing cus­tomers on a vari­ety of plat­forms, rang­ing from mobile web­sites, apps, text mes­sages, and email, offer­ing to con­nect with con­sumers in what­ev­er way works best for them.

Not only are retail­ers giv­ing con­sumers what they want in terms of con­ve­nience, they’re also expand­ing their reach by cre­at­ing new and excit­ing ways for con­sumers to inter­act with their brands. For exam­ple, McDonald’s is ramp­ing up for some changes in its dig­i­tal mar­ket­ing that are going to “flip the mar­ket­ing switch.” In fact, Adobe Adver­tis­ing Cloud just launched a new app that will help mar­keters bet­ter meet con­sumer needs in ways that turn cur­rent brand expe­ri­ences on their ear.

Although word of mouth will con­tin­ue to play an inte­gral role in mar­ket­ing and con­sumer behav­ior, the omnichan­nel shop­per clear­ly sees the poten­tial of apps and mobile web­sites and embraces them.

All of these new advance­ments will be a win-win for con­sumers and retail­ers, dri­ving up usage of new fea­tures and inter­est in new prod­ucts, ensur­ing a more mean­ing­ful expe­ri­ence for everyone.

As we’ve learned, retail­ers are mak­ing a lot of improve­ments in the way they are inter­act­ing with their cus­tomers. Does this make you more like­ly to use mobile means to take advan­tage of it? What mobile invest­ment are you plan­ning over the next quar­ter or year? And how crit­i­cal will mobile (and mobile adver­tis­ing) dur­ing this year’s peak Christ­mas period?