Mobile marketing series: Relevant, tailored and meaningful – how mobile data can influence consumer behaviour

In a series of Q&As, The Drum speaks to leading mobile industry insiders to get their views on the big issues driving the space.

As part of The Drum's latest mobile supplement, due to be published this Friday, 8 November, we are publishing a series of articles exploring the big issues in mobile marketing.In today's article, members of the mobile marketing industry share insights on how mobile data can influence consumer behaviour. Tresilian Segal, head of marketing Northern Europe, Adobe Marketing Cloud Relevancy is key when it comes to influencing and enhancing consumer behaviour. It seems an obvious statement but the better the experience the customer has, the more likely they are to buy and recommend your product. Brands need to give customers the best possible experience regardless of the channel they select during their path to purchase. For example, if a customer is in-store, use this opportunity to send a message with a relevant offer or discount. When customers are on their mobile device, the likelihood is that they are on the move. Use geo-location to provide relevant experiences, for example, if it’s the evening and they are near your restaurant, send them a message to entice them in, as well as perhaps pairing this up with a special offer if they 'check-in' online. This is just one example of how brands can make the mobile experience more meaningful.A new statistic or report seems to be released every day about device adoption, app downloads or the changing ways in which consumers are interacting on mobile channels. Behind these statistics are significant business challenges that also represent important business opportunities for those brands and marketers that embrace mobile marketing. Erfan Djazmi, head of mobile EMEA, EssenceMobile data allows us insights into our consumers’ locations, their preferences and historic behaviours, helping us to run better and more accurate retargeting campaigns. When we start being smarter about location targeting across SMS/MMS and push notifications, we can get across relevant and meaningful messages rather than spamming our consumers. When we improve how we get the right message to the right audience at the right time, we create less disruptive and more relevant experiences for consumers, and get an uplift in attitudinal shifts and profit growth for brands.James Hilton, CEO, M&C Saatchi MobileAs with online mobile media, buying is starting to become more programmatic. To achieve the very best results, brands need to use as many first and third party data sources as possible. By knowing more about our consumers we can ensure the right messaging is going to the right audience at the right time, which will ultimately give marketers the ability to influence their consumers. James Connelly, co-founder and managing director, FetchMobile data enables retailers and brands to create predictive experiences based on insight and knowledge on consumer behaviour. By understanding what a consumer does, when, where and why, retailers can better serve them and give them what they need and want.Paul Coggins, VP Mobile, EbuzzingOther than the obvious ability to target people with offers as they are on the move, we should be cautious when separating mobile data from big data. Advertisers and brands now have the technology to target consumers over a huge variety of verticals on all screens and environments. It’s essential we look at the big picture where data is concerned, not individual silos.Andy Beames, sales group head, BlisMedia Mobile advertising is entirely unique, as it provides brands and companies with the opportunity to understand a significant amount of geographical, behavioural and contextual data about each user that can't be accessed across other mediums such as online, outdoor and TV. If a user visits a technology site on the day of the new Samsung phone release and also visits a phone shop several times within a short space of time this suggests they could be interested in purchasing a new phone. Data like this can be stored and used by advertisers to reach this consumer next time they are near a phone shop or in their down time using historical data, letting them know where and when they can buy this product and adding relevance to the campaign. This data not only enables advertisers to reach their audience with ease but also directly informs the consumer about products relating to their geographical and historical interests using factual information.David Schruers, country manager, Sam4Mobile UKConsumers can be influenced by the communications and messaging that brands deliver to them – so by accurately measuring mobile behaviours and carefully analysing the resultant data valuable insight can be obtained that will feed directly back into the communications planning process. This can be as simple as analysing your mobile adserver data to understand the best time and location to speak to your audience about your latest products/services/offers or it can be more involved and result in new products – for example, car insurers developing apps that will charge lower premiums to drivers who prove through the app that they are careful drivers. Looking closely at the rich data that mobile devices provide will reveal many ways to impact consumer actions.Mark Emmett, chief information officer, ResponseTapOnce you understand how consumers are using mobile and how they want to interact with a brand, it becomes a lot easier to influence them and data analytics is the key to this. For example, if you know that your customers like to research your products on their mobile but feel more comfortable calling to make the actual purchase, it makes sense to give them the option to do this. Once you know how your customers prefer to interact with you at different stages, you can tailor your marketing much more easily.Previous instalments of this series looked at tips for turning showrooming into an opportunity, and why brands aren't focusing enough of their attention on mobile.The Drum's Mobile supplement, sponsored by Millennial Media, is published on Friday 8 November.Data image courtesy of Shutterstock