Digital Deep Dive: What’s ahead for mobile marketing

Alexander Längauer

_{Digital Strategy Manager at RE/MAX Europe}

How to overcome the biggest challenges for 2020

The Web Summit is one of the biggest and most influential tech events in the world, and our tech guru Alexander Laengauer came back with exciting ideas about tech that you can put into practice to change the way you do business.

In Part 1, he looked at how digital solutions are putting emotions back into business. Now for Part 2, he’ll share what experts say will be the biggest challenges for mobile marketing in 2020, and how to overcome them.

Smaller screen, smaller attention span

A customer's journey will generally start on a mobile device, so having a great customer experience on mobile is a key criteria of success.

But mobile marketing isn't so easy for brands. There is increasingly more competition for smaller screen space, and user attention spans are shorter than ever. If you aren’t able to catch a customer’s attention at the start of their customer journey, you'll ose.

Fortunately, you already know the two main factors to help you get conversions on mobile devices: motivation and ease of use. The more motivation you can offer -such as a good product or service, innovative solutions or incentives -the more likely users are to convert. And the easier the experience, the better. So focus on making things simpler for your customers by anticipating their needs and addressing concerns before they even come up.

Be there before your customers ask

Helping new customers find you has always been difficult. With a classic search, or intent-based discovery, customers type in their query in a search bar, like the Google search bar. But this means your customers have to go looking for you in particular.

However, in non-intent-based discovery, platforms suggest what your customers might be interested in, and the results will come up on the page without the customers having to ask.

This year, Google introduced Discovery ads to give advertisers a way to engage passive users. Similar to Facebook’s swipeable carousel format for ads, Google Discovery ads are organized into categories that users might be interested in – such as home sales or rentals – which they can customize to even better meet their needs. Best of all, this isn’t just limited to the Google app. Discovery ads can also be run in YouTube’s mobile feed and in Gmail’s social and promotions tabs for better reach.

Mobile gets messier

Creating content for mobile devices is already a juggling act. You have to consider several different operating systems on a variety of devices connecting to a range of platforms and many, many channels. Unfortunately, this kind of fragmentation of users is only going to get more complicated, with the number of connected devices rising. Right now, your customers are spread out on seven different devices, but this is expected to rise to twelve devices very soon.

But don’t think that you have to be everywhere. Although your target is audience is available on many channels, think of your presence as a fortress where you gather most of your resources. Then, whether it’s Facebook, Instagram or LinkedIn, build your fortress on several channels and make sure your presence is solid!

Remember, you need to be present to get recognized and get to the top of mind for your customers.

Recognize your customers

The key to having a cross-platform presence for your business is to make sure your brand is consistent enough across those platforms so that customers recognize you when they see you on another channel. But how do you recognize those customers when they suddenly switch from reading your blog on the web to scrolling through your social media on their smartphone?

Being able to recognize your customers across various platforms, known as identity resolution, will be an important focus for marketers in 2020, so it’s critical to learn about your audience to build a fuller understanding of who your customers really are.

Tools like Google Analytics are easy to use and very helpful when highlighting all you need to know about your customers.

Knowing that a customer looked at your website on their tablet today, but scrolled through the same pages yesterday on their computer, doesn’t just help your business - it also helps the customer feel in control of the experience. Surprise the customer with the right content when they expect to see it. Curating your communications for each step of the customer journey means that they feel engaged and not stalked.

Did you miss Part 1 of our Web Summit takeaways? Check it out to find out how digital solutions are putting emotions back into business.