Last week, Mike Ricci and I attended the Mobile Marketing Association Forum conference in New York. Having a background in Mobile, this is by far my favorite conference. Mostly because its subject matter, attendees and sponsors tend to be more sophisticated in the Mobile space. It is good to rub elbows and have discussions with people who are interested in taking their Mobile initiatives to the next level as opposed to those looking for ways to get involved in the Mobile arena.
This was the first time since I’ve been at Webtrends that I attended as simply an attendee and not as a sponsor or speaker. So it was awesome to be able to sit in as many sessions as possible and soak in the knowledge being shared. Here are some of the over-arching themes I was able to pick up:
Relevance, Speed and The Cross-Channel Experience
Every speaker came back to the same mantra or derivative thereof: If you deliver relevant content at the right time to a targeted consumer you will have higher engagement and a better experience with the brand. Now while that may not seem all that profound, it is a HUGE struggle for Mobile marketers. With this, everyone acknowledged that Mobile is not a silo or stand-alone channel but rather a cross section of the cross-channel experience. You can’t be successful in Mobile marketing if you aren’t taking ALL of your other channels into consideration.
If I could have had $5 for every time I heard the following words I would have walked away a millionaire: Mobile, Social, Measure, Relevance, Optimize, Engagement, Target, Ads, ROI, Relationship, Privacy and Data. The white board below, drawn during one of the sessions, really says it all as far as overtones of the day:
Leveraging Data is Crucial in Mobile Marketing
It was hard to find a session that didn’t either focus on or mention the importance of leveraging data in Mobile Marketing. While it was a popular topic it was also a source of frustration for pretty much everyone. One of the main reasons it is a hurdle is because of the lack of cross-departmental collaboration within organizations. The Social team has objectives they are measuring, the Sales team has objectives, the Lead Gen team… and so on and so on. And guess what? Mobile falls smack dab in the middle of all of this. So while a department may have a small data set to focus on, it is blind to everything else that is contributing to the brand at large. The question of “how are things working together?” is one that requires internal collaboration and disciplines that are hard to establish at the rate of Mobile growth and complexity.
On the topic of Mobile data, the day before the official conference began, the MMA held a series of workshops – one of which was the MMA Analytics Committee of which Mike is a co-chair and I am a member. When Mike presented, this was the slide that everyone in the room kept taking pictures of:
Naturally a slide like this spurred a lot of conversations – all of which Mike captured as a way to evolve this slide for the Analytics Committee moving forward. It was nice to see Webtrends at the forefront of the Mobile Measurement conversation driving the vision.
Adverting is the lifeblood of Mobile marketing, and privacy is in its way
Delivering more relevant ads to consumers will always be a hot topic. With Mobile it seems the advertising opportunities are nearly endless with the ‘always on, always on the go’ consumer. But there also seems to be endless challenges. One issue that continually was brought up, was understanding the user’s behavior across multiple devices. So if a consumer looks something up on their laptop, then grabs their phone on the go to continue that experience, how do Marketers know this is the same user?
Much like all marketing, advertising is the lifeblood and usually the stats on future advertising spend are the key indicators of how serious you should be taking your Mobile marketing efforts. The ever-changing landscape is the main reason why many attendees come to the MMA conference – so they can figure out ways to be more efficient in reaching their targeted audience.
Mobile adoption continues to climb beyond comprehension
I think it has become tradition for speakers, myself included, to start talking about their topic by reaffirming that Mobile is on fire. At this point no one was bold enough to say “this is the year of Mobile!” since that saying has been driven into the ground every year for the past decade or more. However, the message of “Hey guys, I think we’ve got something here and you should take it seriously!” is still strong.
The numbers are staggering. Here are a few from the AT&T Adworks team:
248.8MM U.S. Mobile phone users in 2012
Non-Smartphone users: 127MM
Smartphone users: 115.8MM
Projected growth of Smartphone users in 2013: 137.5MM
Currently there are 108.6MM tablet users
Oh, and this was the most popular “WOW” picture shared and talked about at the conference that shows the 2005 announcement of Pope Benedict XVI compared to the 2013 announcement of Pope Francis. Nothing says “Mobile Adoption” quite like this pic:
The MMA released the “Economic Impact Study”
On the topic of Mobile adoption, the MMA released the first objective and comprehensive overview of U.S. economic performance across the Mobile marketing industry. The research was conducted by Peter A. Johnson, Ph.D., and Joseph Plummer, Ph.D., of mLightenment with Google, mBlox, The Coca-Cola Company, Target and ExactTarget sponsoring the study.
You can view the study here.
Here are some highlights from the study to show just how fast this channel continues to evolve:
In 2012, the Mobile Marketing ecosystem generated $139 billion of incremental output to the U.S. economy. With a projected annual growth rate of 52%, that number will rise to $400 billion nationwide by 2015.
Despite a recessionary economy and unstable job market, Mobile Marketing created 524,000 jobs in 2012. Focusing on the next five years, Mobile is predicted to generate 1.4 million jobs across the U.S.
To highlight Mobile’s impact on the marketing community, we measured Mobile Marketing spend by industry category. In 2012, marketers and retailers spent $6.7 billion on Mobile Marketing with a projected increase to $19.8 billion by 2015.
Marketing Impact Ratio (MIR) was also calculated by measuring Mobile sales impact against marketing expenditure. MIR peaked at $20.77 in 2012. While we were reviewing the MIR data, an unexpected insight was raised. It seems as though Mobile Marketing has yet to experience the law of diminishing returns. Though this observation requires further exploration, it has the potential to distinguish Mobile as one of the most valuable marketing platforms.
The “MMA Mobile Marketing Impact Study” also introduces a critical concept, the “Mobile-enhanced economy,” in which mobile converts every object into a medium and every place into an opportunity for a message.
It would be impossible to evaluate Mobile’s economic impact without addressing privacy and the current legislative climate. In order for Mobile sales, employee resources and marketing spend to continue to grow, the Mobile industry needs room to evolve responsibly and foster innovation without undue constraint from legislators, regulators or private sector bodies.
Other key points from the conference
Responsive and adaptive design is taking root rapidly and email marketers are beginning to utilize these approaches to remain relevant on the Mobile screen.
There was a lot of focus on the importance of optimization for Mobile Apps and Mobile Web for the small screen. More and more marketers are realizing the importance of optimization to drive greater engagement, relevance, conversion and ROI.
Fascinating focus on real-time bidding and Mobile Ad networks. Players like Turn, X+1 and Rubicon Project were all front and center talking about using data to find given users on Mobile. Real-time visitor-centric technology like Webtrends Streams can be vital to the evolution of these ad networks.
Brands like Home Depot, Target, Starbucks and Macy’s were present and talked about how they now lead with Mobile as a part of a larger omni-channel strategy. The presentation by Home Depot’s CMO Trish Mueller was especially fascinating because she spoke about all the key roles that Mobile is now playing in assisting their customers’ shopping experience and serving localized content (store inventory and locator info, relevant offers, push alerts, etc.) to their Mobile-centric users.
Overall it was an A+ conference and I am already looking forward to the next. Maybe I can convince Webtrends to send me to France in June for the next MMA conference?
- Mr. Diggles