Mobile-First Marketing — part 1

Current market trends

2019 is going to be the year of mobile-first marketing. This is a bold statement, but one that has been years in the making.

Smartphones users are already redefining the Marketing landscape as we speak. There are over 4.57 billion mobile users in the world today, and this number is forecasted to reach 4.68 billion in 2019 according to statista.

What’s more interesting is to look at the global penetration of active mobile social users. According to a study conducted by Hootsuite and We Are Social in January of 2018, 39% of the world’s population use their mobile device to access their favorite social networks.

2018 actually saw the sharpest increase in mobile content consumption on Facebook, as related in their Q1 2018 earning call. They stated that Social Networks were more than 3x more consumed on mobile devices that desktop.

Mark Zuckerberg also confirmed a trend we had highlighted last year, that:

“Stories are on track to overtake posts in News Feed as the most common way that people share across all social apps.” — Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook

Hootsuite, who conducted and published their own research of over 3,000 business in January of 2019, stated that 64% of respondents had either implemented Instagram Stories into their social strategy or planned to do so in the next 12 months. Hootsuite 2019 Social Trends Survey

While stories grow 15x times faster than feed-based sharing, the popularity of social ads have encountered new challenges: prices are increasing and it’s becoming harder to get noticed. According to Mary Meeker’s Internet Trends 2018 report, Facebook click-through rate (CTR) costs have increased by 61 percent, and cost per thousand impressions (CPM) has jumped 112 percent.

It is therefore more important than ever to provide an ad experience that is both relevant and engaging, especially considering the radical shift in consumer behaviors and expectations.

Consumer behaviors and expectations are driving change — the new 4 “P’s” of Marketing

Before going through the new 4Ps of Marketing, it makes sense to explain how and why consumer behaviors and expectations have changed. I have identified three main reasons, summarised by three themes: Mobile, Now, Trust.

We live a Mobile life. Smartphones have changed the world as we knew it in less than ten years. According to a study conducted by Motorola and Harvard, 33 percent of the younger generation have grown up entirely in the digital age. The impact has been dramatic. for example, Facebook reported mobile advertising revenues represented approximately 91 percent of advertising revenue for Q2 2018, up from 87 percent in Q2 2017.

We live in the Now. Moore’s Law effect on technology has re-conditioned the human minds to expect more, better, and faster than ever before. Essentially, as technology changes faster than the speed of light, it is raising consumer expectations at a breakneck pace. In a recent Salesforce report, where over six thousand global consumers where surveyed, Salesforce Research team noted that 67 percent of consumers had higher than ever standards for good experiences, and a staggering 95 percent of consumers said that trusting a company increases their overall loyalty.

Finally, we live in a world where Trust is a currency. Consumer trust in brands started to erode after a year filled with social media scandals. According to a from Edelman, 70 percent of respondents said fake news, clickbait, cyberbullying and hate speech all contributed to lowering their trust in social media.

“The best opportunity brands have to build relationships with their customers are through social media. So the more that trust erodes in those platforms, the worse it is for brands.” — Kevin King, Edelman Digital global chair

As a result compliance guidelines are becoming more stringent, take Europe’s GDPR for example. It was introduced to improve the protection of European data subjects’ rights and clarify what companies that process personal data must do to safeguard these rights.

With such rapidly changing landscapes, you, the modern social marketer, still have to find ways to engage your audience (wherever they are), make sure you achieve clear ROI, and finally, comply with GDPR.

Some might be freaked out by all of this. Truth to be told, this is an exciting time to be in Marketing folks. I mean, we have entered the fourth industrial revolution and can improve humanity quality of life by bringing back honest, genuine conversation into our communication thanks to AI, machine learning, internet of things, AR, VR, etc…

We need to look beyond the traditional 4 “P’s” of marketing model ( Product, Place, Price, and Promotion) and instead build brand messaging focused on Personality, Purpose, Promise, and Probity.

In adapting our marketing model, I realised that we also needed to abandon the traditional marketing funnel mantra and define a new kind of consumer journey, based on the concept of the Flywheel.

Next

This is the end of part 1 of my guide to Mobile-First Marketing. Stay tune for part 2.

Originally published at https://www.linkedin.com.