After completing the desk research, analyzing apps and conducting the survey, we can draw up conclusions on how retail brands leverage mobile to build brand loyalty, and come up with suggestions for improvements.
- Loyalty marketing. Most of the apps analyzed earlier employ coupons, vouchers and points. Mobile is great for loyalty marketing. The user does not need to carry physical cards with them, which they might lose or forget. Everything is on their phone, which is always with them. New offers can be communicated instantly via push notifications. Collection of points can be gamified.
- Gamification. As discussed earlier, a significant amount of the time users spend on their mobile devices is devoted to gaming. Mobile games are more engaging because the touchscreen gives users the feeling they are directly manipulating the content. Therefore, brands could apply gamificaton to their mobile marketing campaigns in order to engage the audience and lay the foundations for brand loyalty; brands could even launch separate game apps as an addition to their main app. Finally, brands can also invest in in-game ads.
- Social media marketing. We have found that users are more social on mobile devices than on desktop computers. On mobile, social media apps are used even more than the browser. However, of the five analysed apps, only two integrate social media functionality. Free People report a 42% rise in same-session conversion rate after launching their mini social network, FPme. Thus, we can suggest that brands should invest in social media advertisements when going mobile.
- Location-based marketing. As explained previously, mobile devices can acquire a very precise location of the user by using the built-in GPS. This has allowed for completely new marketing techniques. Brands can detect when users are physically near a shop and alert them with push notifications, offering discounts if the user walks in. Location marketing can be applied through check-in applications such as Foursquare, which are already popular with users. Whenever a user checks-in at a brand store through Foursquare (or similar), they can automatically receive discounts by the brand.
- Visual marketing. As earlier established, mobile users are less-focused and they prefer images over text (which has caused the mobile web to evolve into a visual web.) Thus, in order to communicate more effectively with users, brands need to go more visual.
- Visual and social marketing combined. Pinterest, Instagram and Tumblr are the current leaders of the visual social web. Pinterest's target group is generally female and very broad, bu the biggest segment are 30 or older females (sit-at-home mums). Instagram has a "hip" young audeince, both male and female, aged 20-35. Tumblr's audience consist mainly of teenagers.
- Content marketing. Users constantly look up information on their mobile devices. If a brand can provide its customers them the information they need, they will quickly develop loyalty for that brand. When brands understand the needs and interest of their target groups, they can provide valuable content. This can be illustrated by the Mothercare app, providing resources for mothers and pregnant women: baby name generator, pregnancy calendar, etc.
- Transmedia storytelling. This concept describes a marketing campaign or advertisement being carried out on multiple platforms: print, television, digital, etc. Mobile is the new step in transmedia storytelling.
Types of Mobile Marketing:
- App-based. The aim of this strategy is to get users to download an app with promotional content. According to ???, 45% of US mobile marketing campaigns include app downloads.
- Mobile search ads. This is a form of SEM (Search Engine Marketing) that has been directed specifically at mobile.
- Mobile image ads (native). These ads show up inside the native applications as images - usually a banner or a full-screen ad.
- QR code. Such codes are called a "physical link." They are similar to a barcode and scanning them with a mobile device causes the device to perform a certain action - in most of the cases, load a webpage. They are often placed in strategic locations and allow users to gain more information about a product.
- Location-based. As described previously, this strategy involves bringing content or notification to a user based on their physical location - for instance, their proximity to a brand store.