A recent report by Deloitte indicated that 80% of branded apps have been downloaded less than a thousand times, with only 1% actually exceeding one million downloads[1]. Branded apps are largely failing to attract attention.
This reflects the state of mobile marketing as a whole: ripe with opportunity but an ever-growing graveyard of failure.
We have found that the few brands that have managed to achieve app success share one simple characteristic: customer-centricity. The apps add tangible value to peoples' lives in seamless and consistent ways.
Adopting this approach requires two critical shifts as to how brands must and should view mobile engagement with customers: (1) brands must change focus from generating transactions to fostering relationships, and (2) brands must evolve from selling a lifestyle to serving a memorable experience.
Case Study: Domino's Pizza
Mobile marketing efforts are valuable when they recognise human behaviours and solve simple and pressing daily problems.
Domino's Pizza reinvented the entire pizza delivery experience by creating not just another order placement alternative, but a real-time tracker that enables customers to follow their order from the assembly line down to the exact delivery time [2].
With an interactive and customisable menu, a built-in game to amuse the customer and mobile coupons for them to redeem against their next purchase, the application proved not only to be a successful order placement alternative, but also provided the customer with an enjoyable distraction while awaiting delivery.
Thus, thanks in large part to advances in mobile capabilities, the once inconvenient activity - searching around for a menu, being held in a queue on the telephone - is now a seamless and enjoyable customer experience.
Domino's Pizza adopted a strategy that focused on attraction, engagement and retention. They provided a convenient and intimate experience centred around customers' needs without deviating from their brand mission; shifting from ‘the quickest pizza delivery service on Earth' to ‘the quickest delivery of pizza that's made with care'.
Lesson 2 - Evolve from selling a lifestyle to serving a memorable experience.
Case Study: American Airlines
Soaring customer expectations continue to put pressure on airlines to deliver a high standard of service throughout the entire airline travel customer journey: from booking to beach.
Borne out of the recent brand revitalisation programme, American Airlines created a unique concierge journey - embodying the American spirit, as it is perceived today, of progress, entertainment and technology.[3]
Leveraging off American's positioning, the airline embedded the role of mobile in the overall customer experience consequently heightening service standards throughout the customers' experience. This resulted in the creation of a complementary mobile app that addressed customers' needs as they progressed through crucial milestones of the flying experience - from travel booking and flight detail tracking, through to providing a virtual boarding pass, entertainment, and finally into the airlines' customer loyalty programme.
Great brands view mobile as just one of the means to make peoples' lives better.
How brands effectively respond to what people want today and need tomorrow requires marketers to stop thinking of mobile as a lone channel and recognise it as one of the many touch-points within a customer's ecosystem of brand experience.
When businesses think more about the long-term value to their customers, future brand success will be attributed to responding to people in smart and engaging ways. Today's customer thrives on connectivity, and a needs-centric approach to innovation in mobile marketing can give a fresh perspective on how to avoid the pit so many brands have already fallen into.
Successful brands will be those that create a better future for their customers, resolving tensions between what people want today and need tomorrow. The implication is that mobile does not connect brands to potential customers; rather, mobile connects people to experiences that leave a positive impact on their lives.
Mobile devices are and will continue to be inextricably linked to human experience. As such, to be successful brands require the implementation of strategies that focus less on short-term gimmicks and more on long-term, sustainable and commercial creativity.
The writer is Dan Dimmock, Executive Director, StrategyFutureBrand Singapore
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