The entire world has been exposed to mobile devices, and their use is becoming universal very quickly. This sounds like a good thing, but it can make marketing to mobile users a bit tricky. Often, trying to understand the best ways to reach consumers on their handheld devices proves a very difficult task. Balancing the needs of the marketer and the wants of the consumer has been a struggle for marketers forever, but on mobile things are a bit different. Mobile marketing needs to be quick and effective, either grabbing consumers right away, or not at all. Mobile has indeed opened up a myriad of new doors for marketers, but it has also caused a lot more toil. What we need is to hear from both sides of the spectrum, the opinions of both the marketers sending out mobile ads and the consumers receiving them.
As it so happens, a global report entitled “2013 Digital Marketers Report” from Experian, a marketing services and analytics company gives us the very information mentioned before. The numbers in the report give a good idea of what consumers find most useful as far as ads on their mobile devices go. Therefore, we can assume that what they find most useful are the advertisements they enjoy receiving the most.
Overall, the statistics shown for this year reveal that mobile users are responding much better to mobile ads, when compared to numbers reported in 2009. Of all types of mobile ads, consumers prefer those with coupons or offers, with 58 percent of consumers reporting their interest in them. Compared to the 33 percent who said the same in 2009, we can see quite a significant jump in the usefulness of these ads. Splits like this can be seen with all ad types being represented; Messages sent from a business with permission had 54 percent for 2013 and only 32 percent for 2009. Messages for sales or promotions showed 49 percent of consumers finding them useful, while in 2009 that number was only at 27 percent. The least useful of all however were mobile banner ads, which were still up from 2009 (17 percent in 2013 from 11 percent in 2009).
As for the marketers, Experian asked Australian marketers that came from multiple industries what they thought was most effective in the mobile marketing pool. Among the top choices for these marketers were mobile optimized websites, with 47 percent reporting them effective, and another 51 percent reporting them as being very effective. However, m-commerce was a bit more heavily liked, with 100 percent of those marketers asked reporting it as at least effective. The least favorite among the marketers were custom apps. I was sure it would be QR Codes, but they seem to be making a comeback with only 5 percent reporting them as ineffective.
There is quite a bit of useful information given in the report, and getting the perspective of both marketers and consumers can be incredibly beneficial. Overall, the information here shows that mobile is still on the rise, in a huge way. It may seem like common knowledge, but still few marketers have actually taken things mobile.
