Tag: mobile advertising trends

Brick and mortar shops are finding that smartphones present an important opportunity for advertising.

A new report from InReality, the first from this firm, which was entitled “Reality of Retail”, has shown that mobile marketing is starting to play an important role in-store due to the massive increase in the use of smartphones by consumers.

Despite the influx of mobile device use, in-store purchases still represent the largest percentage of retail sales.

In fact, 94 percent of retail sales in the United States are made in-store. That said, those shoppers are using their smartphones to an increasing extent while they are inside those shops, so it represents a very important opportunity for retailers to be able to connect with customers through mobile marketing. The InReality also went on to report that not all of the research that consumers are doing with regards to products that they want is being conducted online.

This means that mobile marketing in-store has a considerable chance to influence decisions.

The participants in the research showed that 53 percent of shoppers prefer to learn more about the products that they are considering by going to the store itself. Among shoppers between the ages of 18 and 24 years, that percentage rose to 57 percent. Among the shoppers who do head to the brick and mortar shops, 75 percent reported that they use their mobile devices. This does not stop them from making the purchases inside the stores. Among those who did buy, one in four said that they had bought items using m-commerce.

That said, while traditional advertising in-store is still very important, InReality said that they will need to alter their strategies. Fifty six percent of shoppers explained that advertising has an impact on the decisions that they make while in-store. Only 12 percent feel that sales assistants in-store are “an important touchpoint in a purchase decision.” At the same time that 46 percent of shoppers say that loyalty programs help them to make their decisions, 71 percent of the users of loyalty programs will still use their smartphones while in-store in order to compare products and prices through mobile marketing tools.

The majority of advertisers are quick to dive into apps, but there is a great deal more to the channel.

While study data has been consistently showing that consumers are now spending more time looking at the screens of their smartphones and tablets than their TVs, mobile marketing is still not viewed as a powerful channel for advertising.

Instead, many marketers are seeing this sphere as being limited to mobile apps, and not much else.

All too many mobile marketing companies have been overlooking the mobile web as a good way to be able to reach consumers. That said, the vast majority of m-commerce and traffic over smartphones and tablets does not come through apps. This suggests that marketers are missing a considerable opportunity by placing all of their focus on that one component of the channel, and overlooking the rest, nearly completely.

Recent Forrester research findings suggest that mobile marketing may not be fully understood by those using it.

The Forrester findings showed that the average smartphone user on in the United States and the United Kingdom have 24 mobile apps on their devices, but will spend 80 percent of the time that they use those devices on only 5 of them. The most amount of time is typically spent on messaging and on social media, as opposed to mobile gaming. While there are certain specific vendor apps, such as Starbucks, that have done exceptionally well, the majority are considered to be relatively insignificant.

With the growing importance of mobile devices to the average consumer, it is surprising that retailers and brands have not kept up with the new wave of advertising opportunities, particularly considering that the competition is “low” now, and will only increase over time. Moreover, this is typically considered to be quite an affordable and cost effective way to reach consumers, but is not being used for driving engagement.

While it isn’t that apps are unimportant, data is showing that mobile marketing needs to involve the web and other methods of reaching consumers in a way that increases their odds of being reached.