Bring-on the Mobile Brand Experiences

Photo by Alfonso Scarpa

Bring-on the Mobile Brand Experiences. Fast, easy, convenient, with video, storytelling and matching Customer insights. Have you ever sat down and used your website on mobile, to think how your users are feeling, and what possible areas might be of trouble to them? It only needs an open mind and a cup of coffee….

Bring-on the Mobile Brand Experiences

Small-medium size Business owners and Content creators, when it comes to “digital”, usually start with their website. It is their precious (only?) ‘child’ in the digital transformation. Until 2008, they used to full-it-up with ‘blah-blah’, as if it was their digital version of a corporate brochure. Same goes for e-shops, where no advisor ever told them, that you don’t market 100 product codes but a unique story… before the selected e-shop template…

Most people want to excel in the online economy, but they either are misguided or they are resisting to learn more, before implementing. They basically don’t realize how critical is their offering in the mobile side. When you are 50, you still believe that the global economy is sitting in front of a desktop.

Mobility is so fast, we can’t realize it

From the very first 3G network of Motorola, Ericsson -and a bit later Nokia- only 22 years have gone by. It took us 100 years to connect 1 billion places with phones, and mobile connected 6 billion consumers in 24 years.

The online economy is happening on-the-go, mobile, in our hands, and very personal (by me, for me). The 1000 operators who feed-in the yearly Ericsson Mobility report prove through their data analytics, that 5 billion people use more and more their mobile handset. The same figure is expected to be 7,5 billion by 2023.

Business owner, habits changed

Any company which investing money in IT/fixed/desktop/server systems should not overlook that mobile is taking up faster than any scenario. The shift to mobile is driven by habit. You carry 24/7/365 your phone. The 50% of data passing through networks is already the video on the mobile.

As an example, the Guardian mobile news apps, peak consumption is in the evening, between 9 pm and midnight. This is the time when people are at home surrounded by the mobile device, laptop, smart-TVs. But people reach for their phones because they’re habituated to them.

Do you think that the marine broker, the wholesaler in China, the FMCG logistics partner, the defending lawyer will wait to reach home and sit in front of a desktop to search for your company? The 85% of pre-sales’ search of (even) the B2B is happening on mobile…

Match your business with the Mobile UX

What some call ‘mobile first’ is in truth already ‘mobile majority’. So, being mobile-friendly, having content that is quick, usable, graceful and compelling on smartphones is not optional, no matter the segment you’re in. To not be mobile in the digital world is fast becoming simply to not be.

Tom Grinsted, the Guardian, said “Consumers on smartphones are in many ways more demanding and less forgiving than those on other media. Phones are used in highly distracting environments, on connections with variable speeds and have unique interaction concerns.”

Personalization

If you are working for one of the old giants (from the past century), you are probably stressed out by the rigorous processes originating from ‘ancient’ corporate culture. Due to the intensified globalisation, Customers suddenly have a vast variety of options. Meanwhile, your business model is being copied, launched and marketed at an unpredictable pace.

Most organisations are not evolving with their customers, and the number one reason is the complexity of managing speed. In today’s business environment, how swiftly your company can adapt to rapidly changing market conditions is more critical than ever before—ultimately it will determine the chances of future success or failure. Many owners, organisations, chains gather around the perception that: if we fall behind, sales will decline and someone else will replace us. Do they do something for this?

Oasis

Oasis is a U.K. fashion retailer that’s fusing their e-commerce site, mobile app, and brick-and-mortar stores into a simple shopping experience. If you walk into one of their stores, you’ll find sales associates armed with iPads that are available to give you on-the-spot, accurate, and up-to-date product information. The iPad also acts as a cash register, making it easy for associates to ring you up from anywhere in the store. And the cherry on top? If it appears that something is out of stock, the staff can instantly place an online order for you to have the item shipped directly to your home.

(source: Hubspot)

Bank of America

Lancome

Lancome boosted mobile revenue 17% with Progressive Web App. Lancôme is showing the world of beauty a new way of serving mobile shoppers by embracing Progressive Web Apps – the new disruptive mobile web technology pioneered by Google. By partnering with Mobify, the only platform for Progressive Web Apps (PWAs) for commerce, Lancôme is profiting from a brand-new approach to mobile commerce and engagement. The move to deliver an app-like experience on the mobile web is a natural progression for a company obsessed with connecting richly and deeply with consumers. State-of-the-art customer engagement, individualized shopping experiences, and innovation based on diversity are all part of the DNA at Lancôme and its parent company, L’Oreal. So it made sense to create mobile shopping experiences with the same type of relentless focus on what the customer needs – according to his or her behaviour, lifestyle, and preferences at that moment.

United eXtra

United eXtra Electronics grows e-commerce revenue by 100% with web push notifications. eXtra is Saudi Arabia’s leading and fastest-growing consumer electronics and home appliance retailer. They serve over 12 million shoppers at 40+ stores across Saudi Arabia, Oman, and Bahrain. These Push Notifications sent via the mobile web look and feel exactly like native app notifications, and work even if the browser isn’t currently running on a device.
eXtra saw an incredible, instant customer reaction. Within six weeks, they noticed that those who had opted into receiving Push Notifications were returning 4X more often and spending twice as much time on the site. eXtra’s new web Push Notifications provided a 12% click-through rate, which worked perfectly for sales alerts.

“Consumers on smartphones are in many ways more demanding and less forgiving than those on other media. Phones are used in highly distracting environments, on connections with variable speeds and have unique interaction concerns.”

Tom Grinsted, the Guardian

Work for the mobile-web experience

The mobile visitor to your website has a predisposition to go into the details fast. Doesn’t want to waste time, unless he is browsing his or her past time. So here are few suggestions for your development (these are almost the same items that every mobile operator is checking when they’re testing their services):

Have clear insights of the target audience, competition, best cases
Hire a UX (real!!) expert; design together your page-flows
Be cautious on the images’ file size (delays the download time)
Hide from your WP back-end all the items that can delay the user
Always test the loading speed (use GTmetrix or Google page speed)
Have video, but short (users always check video first)
Secure text visibility, easy to read (again, be cautious of its length)
Minimize pop-ups (offers, newsletter, privacy lengthy page)
Test analytics on the pages flow, observe, and correct

Mobile experience? Activations!

A mobile responsive template won’t save your business or your differentiation if you don’t create Content and Activations that engage audiences for good! Don’t ever forget: Stories were always attracting, well before Instagram stories! What kind of activations can you consider? Here are some examples that you should consider for your website:

Video on demand, on demand: Nothing on social media is as eye-catching as good video content. That doubles in criticality on your web/mobile presence. With YouTube, viewers watching a billion hours of video each day. You can’t be out. Product demos, consumer stories, employee testimonials on Culture, team/about videos. There’s a huge variety of formats, from 360-degree videos to live streams.

Mobile advertising: The 65% of US Marketers are preparing to increase their budgets for mobile ads, to focus more on video, in 2018-19. The mobile ads can drive directly to your website, offer, special scheme (after getting their permission – thank God, GDPR) and be deployed to all kinds of channels (Viber, apps, software platforms).

Partner with the right / Brand-fit influencers: Mediakix reports that influencers are accounting for $1 billion increase every year in the US alone! They are the new (type) of paid media! But you should do/build it on your website and throughout your communication. Stop believing that a social media post, which is not integrated with your own media, will save the day, or will build brand awareness, affinity, and engagement (in this particular order). Be cautious; just look at Louis Vuitton’s 2016 partnershipwith Selena Gomez. It ended abruptly when rival fashion brand Coach managed to sign a new deal with the same celebrity influencer, leaving Louis Vuitton out in the cold.

Use Chatbots, they’re taking over the world: 2018 will be the year that brands need to start thinking and prepare seriously for social media bots. Chatbots have been around for years, but they’ve seen bigtime AI improvements recently. More and more brands are working on using chatbots for customer support and perfecting their chatbot marketing strategy. Right now, chatbots are mostly used for customer service –61% of consumer-chatbot interactions are centred around customer service-related questions. The future of bots is looking bright, too, with an estimated 85% of customer interactions managed by chatbots by 2020. The eMarketer presented a survey where the 18-34 who have used a Chatbot were remained with a positive experience by 70% (Retale survey Feb. 2017)

Storytelling activations with mystery, sensuality, and creating curiosity for more: With their growing popularity, social media “stories” will be impossible for marketers to ignore in the coming years. The “stories” format pioneered by Snapchat has now become a staple of the social media world. Instagram stories, YouTube reels …stories capture the best moments from a day and most vanish after a set period of time. Their temporary nature creates a sense of FOMO for users who don’t check them out before they disappear. They’re also just a fun, bite-sized way to present video content.

Do it all with GDPR in-place!

Basically, the GDPR, now live, gives EU citizens more control over their personal data and all companies should comply. All the activations you can do should aim for data, from location to name or their email, but be asking them first!!

Closing

The mobile experience for the visitor/prospect of your business should be fast, easy, convenient. It should feel right from the Google business information, the posted reviews, up to the flow and user facilitated experiences in the main website (discovering things, downloading, discussing, commenting).

It should look modern and true to the Brand you say you are. It should remind what do you stand for and do it in a mobile way. Otherwise, they will swipe away, after 7 seconds…

Have you ever sat down and used your website on mobile, to think about how your users are feeling, and what possible areas might be of trouble to them? It only needs an open mind and a cup of coffee.