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The power of mobile engagement

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Whispir Team

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Oct 3, 2018
4 min read
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Smart businesses are embracing the potential of mobile marketing to transform how they engage with their customers. And with good reason - the steady increase of mobile users means that mobile commerce revenues are set to reach 50% of all U.S. digital commerce revenue by 2017.

The functionality of mobile devices has increased dramatically over the past 10 years and businesses are now engaging in seamless customer conversations across multiple mobile channels — whether SMS, voice call, rich media messages, email, social media networking, or mobile app push notifications.

And this functionality is set to expand further: Gartner predicts that in 2017, more than $2 billion in online shopping will be performed exclusively by mobile digital assistants, such as Google Now and Siri.

Right customer, right message

SMS marketing enables smart businesses to match the right communications channel to their ideal target audience.

Companies are using well-considered mobile marketing strategies to move beyond delivering generic messages to broad customer segments, towards sending personalized content that offers tangible, immediate value to the recipient. A great example of this is Uber using push notifications to notify customers when surge pricing periods end in their area.

Innovative retailers are offering experiences optimized for mobile phones that offer customers more choice in how they pay for goods and services. Starbucks’ own mobile wallet now accounts for 7 million transactions a week in the U.S. (16% of all Starbucks transactions). That’s a lot of coffee. Marketers are using mobile-only promotional offers and mobile advertising to make customers aware of the range of ways they can engage using their devices.

KLM - mobile engagement in action

Let’s examine how the leading global airline, KLM, increased customer awareness of their mobile offerings. During a three-week campaign, KLM offered an incentive of free airport lounge passes to passengers who used its mobile booking engine. Passes were sent to customers as a mobile coupon within their passbook (Apple) or Google Wallet (Android). When the customer was close to the lounge, these apps sent a location-based push notification, prompting them to redeem their coupon.

The results? A 17% increase in visits to KLM’s mobile site, generating 34% more bookings and 38% more mobile revenue.

Turning notifications into conversations

Mobile technology provides a broad range of options for customer conversations:

  • British Airways are using SMS messages as a key customer service channel, cutting airport wait time and inbound passenger calls.

  • Major banks safeguard customer information by sending unique codes via text message for 2-factor authentication.

  • Email marketers are tailoring their email campaigns to smartphone screens, as research suggests that up to 65% of all emails are now opened on a mobile device, particularly for smartphone users

Empowering customers to choose how they communicate

As the functionality of mobile devices becomes increasingly sophisticated, customer conversations with businesses are spanning an ever-growing number of channels.

What’s fundamentally empowering about mobile devices is that once users have received a communication on their device, they then can respond on their terms — continuing the conversation in the channel they prefer

How does this work in practice?

A leading Australian department store uses Whispir to improve its out-of-store digital marketing campaign with targeted offers & promotions, and for enhanced satisfaction, brand awareness, and loyalty using surveys and tailored notifications. Two of the ways the platform is used include:

  1. Seasonal Campaign Catalogs - time to market is reduced when generating seasonal catalogs while maintaining an App-like experience. Video content can be showcased, providing an all-in-one shopping experience targeted at seasonal events.

  2. Loyalty offer rewards – integration with CRM and marketing databases allows businesses to use the existing contact information and send customers relevant information - such as personalized offers - when relevant.

Customers can reply to offers or respond to surveys, and embedded sharing links allow messages to be immediately forwarded to their personal networks.

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To recap

The growth in mobile capability and reach means businesses now have an unprecedented opportunity to leverage the full power of their customers’ devices to have more rewarding conversations and create more robust digital marketing strategies.

Sending marketing messages directly to mobile devices requires a solution that combines engaging content, and provides your audience with the ability to interact in a multitude of ways, with the capability to embed workflows into your communications. This allows for a response, escalation, and continued engagement on a mass scale.

Whispir can help you create engaging, automated, and human-centric mobile marketing campaigns. Use our simple drag-and-drop editor to build and send bulk SMS messages, check engagement levels in real-time, and turn potential customers into returning ones. Put your marketing efforts to good use - discover how Whispir's text messaging platform can help you.

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