Leveraging micromoments is the way forward in mobile marketing: Shradha Agarwal

Authored by Shradha Agarwal, COO, Grapes Digital

Shradha Agarwal, COO, Grapes Digital is a passionate digital expert, who joined Grapes Digital in 2012. A woman with strong advertising and digital as her career background, Shradha has 10 years of experience in this industry. On joining Grapes, she helped them expand their offerings and set up various verticals like Social media, Media planning and buying, Influencer marketing etc. She today leads a team of 100+ people under her, in Delhi. 

2019 is around the corner. If you aren’t already mapping your strategy to match the trends that are expected to drive Mobile Marketing in the near future, maybe it’s time you started.

While no one can claim to look into the future, there are certain things that we can safely predict. One of them is the upward trajectory of Mobile phones as the first choice device for users. According to a recent report of ‘Mobile firstness’ by ComScore, in India, mobile users outnumber desktop users 4 to 1. That means that people who use mobiles as their primary device for consumption are atleast 4x than desktop-first users, and that number is only rising.

With social interaction, entertainment, knowledge sharing, and transactional activities all taking place on one screen, marketers have started optimizing their strategy accordingly to target their audience on phones. They have already started thinking mobile first website, its time when we completely move to “Mobile First Creatives” on social and digital display media too.

This year we also saw a few experiments with AI - Artificial Intelligence. While it has been talked about for a while now, expect more and more marketers to turn to machine learning to understand their customers better by analyzing their consumption and buying behavior.  We have already started seeing campaigns around Website, Social and Display banner Chatbots. A tech that’s on the rise, thanks to the backing of the big boys, is Voice search. Google, Apple, and Amazon already have their Virtual assistants helping people around the house. And the expectation is that by 2020, atleast half the search queries will be voice based. It will be interesting to see how brands integrate that insight while making their marketing strategies, because as of now, that part is a challenge. But with every challenge comes an opportunity. So, expect innovative campaigns in the near future, as the technology continues to grow and improve. You will soon see branded “Voice Bots on Google Home and Alexa”.

Here’s an example of one campaign we did with Maruti Suzuki this year in partnership with Google

Another big trend that will evolve further is the focus on “Micro-moments”. The need to learn something, do something, get to know something, or buy something, on the go, has consumers turning to their phone’s multiple times a day for these ‘I want to’ moments. According to Google, users experience these moments on average 150 times a day, when they want to make a decision instantly. Brands will leverage these ‘micro-moments’ to strengthen their connect with their customers. Twitter and Google who known for marketing moments started selling Sponsored Moments and programmatic sequential banners strategy respectively this year. And this is going to increase only.

One trend that marketers won’t ditch anytime soon are “Videos”. It is already the most preferred form of content for most people, and Cisco predicts that by 2021, 82% of all internet traffic will be in the form of videos. Even for brands, video marketing has evolved. The media, confined to serving ads, has evolved to include Social Media posts, Product explainer videos and How-to videos among others. The benefit of increased customer engagement, as well as the search engines’ love for high-quality content, is keeping this frame rolling. With Jio Coming in last year inventory of mobile has gone way up higher and cost per video has come down by 4-5 times making it more easier for marketers to use this as a primary ad unit.

However, the biggest trend that will drive change in behavior of marketers and consumers alike, might just be the farthest from ‘marketing’ in nature – “Consumer Privacy and Data Transparency”. Owing to the ever escalating Facebook data-leak scandal, more and more consumers are concerned about how their personal data is collected and shared. Companies are trying to come up with more transparent policies, but consumers are justifiably wary. The implications from it may change the way we do business. As marketers, we need to re-connect with the consumer by initiating a more trust-worthy relationship driven by transparency. That includes being transparent about how we collect, use, or monetize their data. According to multiple surveys, customers are more likely to be loyal to a brand that are transparent in this regard. So, there’s a case to be made for marketers to be more open about their policies and practices.

But, at the end of the day, this list is just indicative. The digital medium is so fast and agile that you never know what’s new out there this year. Like I said at the start, no one can claim to look into the future. We can only analyze, forecast, and prepare as best as we can. You need to find out what works for you, and how you can use it to maximize impact for your brand.

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