Circles of trust: Use mobile to engage . ?· Circles of trust: Use mobile to engage better. 4 “The…

Circles of trust: Use mobile to engage better. 1

Circles of trust: Use mobile to engage better.

Circles of trust: Use mobile to engage better. 2

Introduction.

Engagement starts with trust.

Enter the circle of trust.

Enter the evaluation circle.

Enter the information circle.

Enter the location circle.

Enter the monetization circle.

Engage with trust.

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Table of contents.

Circles of trust: Use mobile to engage better. 3Circles of trust: Use mobile to engage better. 3

Customer engagement is exactly what it sounds like: your

customers engaging with your brand. But in this age of

constant connectivity, getting your customers to engage

has become more important than ever before. Why? Because

today, there are more opportunities (i.e., more channels) to

help customers see the value of your brand, and to invite

them to engage with you. Retailers used to have just a handful

of channels: advertisements on billboards or the radio, and their

actual store. But now, online stores, comparison-shopping

websites, mobile apps, and geo-targeted advertising create

new opportunities for brands and customers to connect.

These modern channelsespecially mobiledefinitely give

your customers new ways to connect with your brand. But as

engagement grows, so do customer expectations.

In general, customers engage with you because of two impulses:

need and want. Whether these impulses are coaxed out by

Introduction.

your products and your messaging or by some other

influence, your customers engage with you when they feel

they have something to gain. In our customer-centric world,

the brands that succeed are the ones that speak directly

and effectively to a customers need.

Because mobile is such a huge part of this new status quo,

you need mobile marketing strategies that help you speak

to your customer on a personal level, and help them stay

engaged across all channels and devices.

Lets face it. Mobile devices have fundamentally changed

the way customers engage with brands. They provide

new and convenient ways to explore and interact with

your products, services, and experiences. And beyond

that, smartphones, tablets, and other deviceslike smart

watches and other wearableshave empowered customers to

engage with brands completely on their own terms.

With a world of information and accessibility in their pocket or

purse, they can engage whenever and wherever they want.

Because of this flexibility and convenience, mobile technology

has become an essential part of the way both customers and

businesses approach each other. But while consumers are

finding these changes to be natural and rewarding, the advent

of this mobile culture is forcing businessesand marketers

specificallyto change the way they think.

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The biggest challenges that retailers face are not really

coming from competitors, says Faisal Masud, the chief

digital officer of Staples. Its really coming from the customer

because the customer has been trained pretty well in having

an appetite for things where and when they want something.

They want to be able to just search for products, find them,

purchase them, and then they expect to receive it within

two days or less. And that drives a pretty distinct behavior,

especially when compared to what retailers have been used

to in the past decade or so.1

So the ability to browse through a stores inventory on your

phone, for examplea feature that was until fairly recently

considered a luxuryhas become a top priority. And to

complicate things even further, many brands are realizing

theres a fine line between engaging customers and creeping

them out.

To make it all work, then, you need to strike a balance

between what you know about a customer and that same

customers ability to choose. In other words, you need to let

customers engage with you on their own terms. But you cant

do this without gathering and using data about each customer,

so the challenge is to find ways to collect and use that data to

provide opportunities, without popping up too frequently

to remind them how much you know about their purchase

history, their preferences, or even their location.

And then, once you have that data, you need to do

something with it.

The biggest challenges that

retailers face are not really

coming from competitors.

Its really coming from the

customer Faisal Masud

According to the Adobe Digital Index, in 2013 smartphone users spent

three times longer on mobile apps than on the average mobile website.2

According to Gartner, there will be 310 billion

app downloads by 2016.3

Get the stats on mobile apps.One of the main ways to engage customers on mobile is through the use of mobile apps. While the mobile web is still crucial for success, consider the growing prevalence of mobile apps in the

market, and how customers are responding:

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Clearly, getting your customers to engage with youespecially

through their mobile interactionsis crucial to your business

success. But how do you make that happen? How do you

change your existing mobile strategy to deliver what your

customers want, when they want it?

There are probably a number of answers, but one of the most

important is to fit the optimization of your mobile customer

experiences into the larger cycle of your strategy.

Optimization is crucial in creating the kinds of customer

experiences that capture your customers attention and keep

them coming back time and time again. Its at the heart of any

kind of personal interaction because its through the process

of optimization that you really come to understand customers

behavior and then refine your mobile experience in response.

Engagement starts with trust.

Effective optimization involves the following seven steps:

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Gather accurate data about your audience and their usage of your mobile offerings.

Use that data to identify improvements you can make at will to help you better achieve your business goals.

Develop hypotheses on how best to create these improvements through experience redesigns.

Put those hypotheses to the test, using thorough A/B or multivariate testing.

Analyze the results for a clear winner or for good ways to segment them.

Implement the changes suggested by your testing.

Repeat the process over and over again to continue to find the best ways to engage and convert your audience and to create loyalty.

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The end goal of this process is to deliver powerful customer

experiences that feel personal and intimate and that, ultimately,

convert. If done right, the experience will feel authentic and

your customer will develop a relationship with your brand

thats genuinely beneficial on both sides. To get there, however,

your plan for creating and improving customer experiences

needs to account for a critical building block to any

relationship: trust.

Think about it. From your perspective, a customer benefits in

many ways from engaging with your brand. Youve got a great

offering, and you understand whats happening on both sides

of the exchange. For your customer, however, things are not

so clear-cut. When you ask for personal information,

location, or for financial information, youre asking that

customer to trust you. And youd better be ready to justify

that trust when they do, because if they dont trust you, you

may as well go home.

As youre considering where to optimize thenwhich

audiences to target and which features and experiences to

testtrust can be a helpful assessment tool. Ask yourself,

in what ways am I asking my customer to trust me?

Pay special attention to those areas as you analyze data,

develop and execute tests, and then take action.

In this paper, were going to look at four situations in which

you may be asking your customers to trust you, and then

well look at some ways to consider optimizing in light of

those situations. Obviously, not all of these areas (or circles,

for you De Niro fans) of trust may be relevant to you, or you

may have other circles that are more specific to your brand.

Feel free to adapt as necessary.

The three Cs of mobile marketing.

As you win the trust of your customers, its crucial to remember

the three Cs of mobile marketing.4 When you focus on how,

where, and when your customers receive mobile experiences,

youll consistently hit the mark with your marketing efforts.

ContextPay attention to time,

location, device of your customer, and

of your content.

ConnectionMake sure you always

deliver high-quality, relevant messages with personalized content.

CadenceCoordinate messaging and outreach across channels to create

seamless experiences.

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