Top Mobile Marketing Predictions for 2014

2014 Top Mobile Marketing Predictions

In 2013, consumers stayed well ahead of marketers in adopting mobile. There are 165 million active smartphones which consumers use for an average of 2 hours and 21 minutes a day, according to eMarketer – a whopping total of 380 million hours a day. According to T-Mobile, consumers look at their mobile screens an average of 150 times a day, creating 25 billion daily mobile screen views. Despite this, marketers have been slow to shift significant dollars to mobile.

According to Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers partner Mary Meeker’s annual Internet Trends report, mobile accounts for only 3% of marketer’s ad spend, and the perceived and actual complexities and risks of mobile has made marketers slow to act.

2014 is the year in which this changes, as marketers simply won’t be able to put off mobile investments any longer. With that in mind, here are FunMobility’s Top 5 Mobile Marketing Predictions for 2014:

1. The “mobile-sized web” emerges as a required medium, starting with email. There are now two web formats: desktop and mobile. According to email analytics firm Litmus, 48% of emails are read on a mobile device. However, many if not most emails link to a desktop-sized web, as anyone who has had to pinch and zoom after tapping an email link can attest to. In 2014, that will start to change, as marketers realized their conversion rates will improve by linking to mobile-optmized landing and promotion pages.

2. Marketers start to adopt a “mobile-first” mentality. Savvy CMO’s are realizing they need to put mobile at the center of their marketing efforts in order to build a long-term brand relationship with their customers. Home Depot’s CMO Trish Mueller is an example of a CMO with a “mobile-first mentality” with “right-sized content” when it comes to digital promotions and marketing campaigns. This way of thinking will become the norm instead of the exception for CMOs, and marketers who adopt this way of thinking will gain crucial competitive advantages in 2014.

3. Mobile Opt-Ins will become more important than email opt-ins: Most loyalty programs use a consumer’s email address as the primary way they communicate with their customers. However, the average consumer has 4 email addresses, and they will more likely than not use their “junk” email addresses for loyalty or promotional programs, contributing to low open and click through rates.

Mobile mesages on the other hand have a 97% open rate, generally within 5 seconds according to the Digital Marketing Association. Marketers need to give consumers a good reason to give up their phone numbers, but the effort will be worth it.

4. Mobile Coupons will continue their march to the mainstream: Consumers have exhibited a clear preference for mobile coupons. A recent Business Insider survey showed that mobile coupons have a 10x higher redemption rate than traditional coupons. Mobile coupons have the added advantage that they appeal to the traditional 35-54 year old coupon user, but also a younger 18-34 year old demographic – in other words, they work for existing coupon users, but also draw in a younger audience.

5. Marketers will get serious about TCPA, and some will be burned:
The updated Telecom Communications Privacy Act or TCPA puts new and clear requirements and penalties around mobile communications. Most marketers will leverage vendor or in-house expertise to be fully compliant, and will begin building new, robust mobile loyalty lists. Others however will play fast and loose with these requirements, or simply will not undertand them, risking stiff fines and penalties.

Those are FunMobility’s Top 5 Mobile Marketing Predictions for 2014!

To learn about FunMobility’s mobile promotion software, visit www.funmobility.com

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