Marketers failing to use mobile across sales channels: Experian

In Hong Kong, 24 per cent are using mobile to drive only offline sales and 28 per cent, only online sales. In Australia the numbers are 23 per cent and 26 per cent, respectively.

What this means, according to Experian’s reports on mobile marketing, is that around half of marketers are using mobile marketing with only one channel in mind.

This approach, said the study, is inherently flawed, with 67 per cent of Australian consumers reasearching a product on their smartphones before buying in-store and 23 per cent using their smartphone for research, heading into a store to check out the product and then buying it online.

“A surprising barrier to mobile adoption was a lack of senior support, and perhaps this is due to a lack of clarity in terms of sales attribution,” said John Merakovsky, managing director for Experian Marketing Service in Asia-Pacific, who pointed to the varied ways in which mobile influences consumer purchase decisions.

“Our experience is that it’s important to have that attribution, so when you are using it you know it’s succeeding and to invest more dollars in future,” he added.

For the study, ‘The Digital Pocket: Embracing the Mobile Age’, Experian commissioned independent research with 320 Australian marketing professionals while its Hong Kong office surveyed 314 marketers from a range of industries. The whitepapers for Singapore and China are expected to be released in January.

The report found that in Hong Kong, 86 per cent of marketers believe that mobile will be one of the most important ways to communicate in the next three years and for 97 per cent of them, it forms part of their marketing plan.

Australian marketers seem a little slower to embrace mobile; while seven out of 10 believe it has a major role to play, 60 per cent have taken no action toward implementing a mobile marketing plan.

These marketers are missing out as Australian organizations who are leveraging mobile effectively are reporting conversion rates of 20 to 30 per cent, said the study.

In Hong Kong, 48 per cent of marketers who use mobile are reporting 11 to 25 per cent of their sales via this channel and 23 per cent are even reporting 26 to 50 per cent.  

Reluctance to embrace mobile may be due to its newness, said Merakovsky. “Part of the issue organisations struggle is a lack of straightforward case studies or use studies," he said. "Early adopters understand that they need to learn and experiment—it’s not a case of jumping in and getting it right straightaway.”

For marketers who have a mobile strategy in the coming year, most are primarily interested in mobile advertising—specifically in-app advertising, Merakovsky said.  

According to the report, the top three tactics most likely to be used by Hong Kong marketers in the coming year are in-app ads (71 per cent) mobile tickets and barcodes (71 per cent) and custom apps (68 per cent).

In Australia, in-app advertising likewise comes in first at 51 per cent, followed by custom apps (48 per cent) and mobile tickets or barcodes (49 per cent).

QR codes have dropped in popularity, with 26 per cent of Hong Kong marketers planning on dropping them from their plans along with MMS (19 per cent) and m-commerce (18 per cent).

This is a shame, according the study, as m-commerce is an area marketers should be embracing. Drilling down, retailers are the ones abandoning m-commerce at the greatest rate, with 30 per cent planning on discontinuing this tactic (compared with 5 per cent of financial service companies and 17 per cent of telecommunications and utilities companies).

“It appears that retailers are more inclined to give up on m-commerce because they can see that consumers still prefer to buy products in-store,” noted the report.

“What surprised us was that marketers still rank face-to-face as their number one means of closing a deal, particularly in Hong Kong,” said Merakovsky.

Australian marketers are likewise slow to embrace m-commerce, with only 14 per cent currently allowing consumers to complete transactions via mobile devices. But they appear to be less against the notion, with 46 per cent planning to introduce it in the next year. That said, 40 per cent have no plans to do so at all, suggesting a missed opportunity as many consumers have expressed an desire to shop on their phones, said the study.

An area that Asian marketers should be looking into, but which doesn’t appear high on their list of priorities, observed Merakovsky, is building mobile-optimised sites. “Less than 50 per cent of the brands [in Hong Kong] we spoke to had mobile sites," he said. "I think that’s inexcusable. Jump on to the MTR and just see how many have a tablet or smartphone in their hands.”

Even if brands are not planning on implementing m-commerce, sites should at least be made user-friendly, he added.

Focusing on mobile apps too could be dangerous, as by and large most people only use about seven apps on their phones with any regularity, and a study by Deloitte found that 80 per cent languish in the app store.

“A better idea may be to use more generic app platforms, such as Apple’s Passbook, for loyalty programmes,” said Merakovsky.

Despite all the excitement over technology though, by and large, few mobile marketing initiatives beat the SMS, he commented. “It’s tried and tested, works reliably and is opened 90 per cent of the time. As long as it’s used with permission and appropriately, consumers still respond best to the SMS.”

Based on an earlier study, which found that consumers will disengage with brands who annoy them, Merakovsky advises brands to ensure that messages are relevant, valuable and appropriate.