A New Wave of Digital EngagementUsing mobile technology to increase ROI.

Introduction

Ten billion. By 2021, there will be

approximately 10.4 billion connected

mobile devices in the world.1

That’s easily more than enough for every

man, woman, and child. It’s not surprising,

considering that mobile has become the first

place we look to for information; in 2015,

it overtook desktop as our most-used digital

platform,2 and the time we spent watching

videos on mobile devices outpaced the

time we spent watching TV.3 In fact, almost

50 percent of those aged 18 to 34 watch

videos only on mobile devices.4 Given

that 80 percent of internet users own a

smartphone,5 there’s even a good chance

you’re reading this paper on a mobile device.

Mobile has changed the way we search

for, consume, and share content. Thus it

is no wonder that organizations are looking

for new and innovative ways to use mobile

technologies to gain competitive edge and

lead their market.

In this paper we will explore new waves of

digital engagement, where so-called mobile

moments matter most. First, we will define

what mobile moments are and why they are

important, then we’ll look at four ways you can

use them to overcome your most pertinent

challenges and increase your company’s ROI.

1 Ericsson, “Ericsson Mobility Report on the Pulse of the Networked Society” ericsson.com/res/docs/2016/ericsson-mobility-report-2016.pdf.2 comScore, “Mobile Internet Usage Skyrockets in Past Four Years to Overtake Desktop as Most Used Digital Platform,” comscore.com/Insights/Blog/Mobile-Internet-Usage-Skyrockets-in-Past-4-Years-to-

Overtake-Desktop-as-Most-Used-Digital-Platform.3 Kantar Millward Brown, “Video Viewing on Digital Now Matches Time Spent Watching TV, but Low Digital Ad Receptivity Brings Targeting and Creative Challenges,” millwardbrown.com/global-navigation/

news/press-releases/full-release/2015/10/14/video-viewing-on-digital-now-matches-time-spent-watching-tv-but-low-digital-ad-receptivity-brings-targeting-and-creative-challenges.4 Business of Apps, “Mobile Video Usage and Advertising Statistics,” businessofapps.com/video-gone-mobile-consumption-and-marketing-statistics/.5 Ibid.

Mobile MomentsEntering a new world of engagement.

Just 15 years ago, the thought of us carrying

the internet or a personal computer in our

pocket was unfathomable. Today, we can

browse the web, shop, take pictures, navigate,

and make phone calls simply by swiping or

touching our smartphone screen. We’re also

able to accomplish specific tasks through the

use of apps that are designed to cater for

our immediate needs, whether it’s booking

a ride-share, using a local food-delivery

service, or instantly transferring money

to a friend. This immediate engagement

has created mobile moments: real-time,

intent-driven interactions that require only

a glance—yet deliver information we can

consume and take action on straight away.

As mobile empowers us to search for

and discover products on demand—from

anywhere, at any time, for any reason—it

also poses new challenges for businesses. As

consumers, with the world’s information at

our fingertips, we’ve become accustomed to

shorter informational exchanges, but we still

expect the maximum value from each product

and business with which we interact.

Did you know?

89 percent of our time spent on mobile media is through apps.6

6 Smart Insights, “Mobile Marketing Statistics Compilation,” smartinsights.com/mobile-marketing/mobile-marketing-analytics/mobile-marketing-statistics.

As business executives, managers, and

directors, we must adjust the way we engage

with our customers to accommodate this shift

in consumer behavior.

Why? In a world where mobile technology

is accessible to all, our competitors are just a

click or screen tap away our customers have

many choices, and we must compete for the

mobile moments that will attract and keep

them engaged. Whereas Likes and Follows

used to be adequate measures of customer

interaction, quantifiable omnichannel

experiences are now necessary in the battle

for customer attention, and incremental ROI

generated through those experiences is more

difficult to gain and more important than ever.

It would be easy to pass off ROI as a

measurement within someone else’s remit.

But as the fight for share of mind and share

of wallet increases, it becomes everyone’s

responsibility—including yours. The question

is: How do you make your mobile moments

relevant enough so that they win both mind

and wallet, and how can you understand the

interactions surrounding these moments to

generate a positive ROI?

Did you know?

Snapchat, an app built on the premise of sharing 10 seconds of content with other users, had an estimated value of US$25 billion in 2016;7 more than triple the value of the world’s leading book publisher.8

The Four Secrets of Mobile Success

To maximize ROI in this new world of

mobile engagement, it’s vital that you:

• Master the customer experience and

engage in real time

• Measure, gather, and personalize

• Automate, predict, and optimize

• Differentiate through innovative and

easy-to-use technology

7 Maureen Farrell, Juliet Chung and Rolfe Winkler, “Snapchat Parent Working on IPO Valuing Firm at $25 Billion or More,” Wall Street Journal, October 6, 2016, wsj.com/articles/snapchat- parent-working-on-ipo-that-could-value-company-at-25-billion-or-more-sources-1475778314.8 Jim Milliot, “The World’s 52 Largest Book Publishers, 2016,” Publishers Weekly, August 26, 2016, publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/international/international-book-news/article/71268-the-world-s-52-largest-book-publishers-2016.html.

Did you know?

Nine out of 10 marketers surveyed listed approval delays as the top reason for missing deadlines.9

Each department within every organization

has its challenges. Perhaps your marketing team

doesn’t hold true ownership of the customer

experience, and there are too many levels

of approval in place. Maybe your customer-

service team only uses email instead of a

messaging platform, and can’t reply to requests

as efficiently as expected. It might be that your

salespeople spend the majority of their time

responding to questions that are simple enough

that they could be answered either by self-

service or an automated-response system.

Whatever the reason, barriers not only

frustrate your workforce, but also hinder your

ability to react to user behavior in real time.

In an era of mobile ubiquity, that just won’t

do! Immediacy is critical, and in a world

where millennials will make up 50 percent of

the workforce by 2020,10 four in seven of the

world’s population prefer using messaging

apps such as Slack, Facebook Messenger,

WhatsApp, Snapchat, and WeChat, to email.11

It’s no wonder, then, that 65 percent of

consumers would rather use a messaging

platform when reaching out to customer support,

when confirming an appointment, or when

getting product or service information.

Mastering the Customer Experience

9 Gleanstar, “The $958m Marketing Problem,” resources.kapost.com/rs/kapoststd/images/$958m-marketing-problem-quantifying-the-cost-of-inefficiency-in-your-content-production-processes.pdf.10 PwC, “Millennials at work Reshaping the workplace,” http://www.pwc.com/m1/en/services/consulting/documents/millennials-at-work.pdf. 11 Statista, “Most popular mobile messaging apps worldwide as of April 2016, based on number of monthly active users (in millions),” statista.com/statistics/258749/most-popular-global-mobile-messenger-apps/.

The Challenge

Additionally, surveys reveal that over 50 percent of consumers would consider making a

purchase on a messaging platform.12 With these increased preferences towards mobile

messaging, businesses need to use mobile moments to transform messaging apps from a simple

communication channel into multichannel engagement platforms. This transformation could

fundamentally alter how customers behave when consuming information.

A great way to give your customers a

satisfyingly real-time and relevant experience

is to move the zero-moment of truth (which

is defined as the exact moment a customer

has a need, intent, or question that needs

to be answered) from a search setting to

a conversational one. You can move this

moment by automating a customer’s first

interaction and proactively engaging them

with an innovative, intelligent, self-service

tool that offers faster and more complete

engagement than a human sales or service rep

could. Welcome to the world of the chatbot:

the intelligent, digital, and virtual assistant.

Imagine having an airline chatbot, for example,

that could search every available flight on

your preferred airline (proactively taking into

account your preferred departure times, seat

preferences, connection requests, in-flight

entertainment options, and—of course—ticket

price). It could then help you book your ticket,

automatically check you in, and send you your

boarding pass on your way to the airport,

eliminating many of the self-service steps that

we go through today.

Imagine a sales-advisor chatbot that could

recommend products based on your tastes

and responses to a few quick questions.

Did you know?

There are more people on messaging apps than there are on social networks.13

The Solution

12 Forbes, “Fifty Essential Mobile Marketing Facts,” forbes.com/sites/cherylsnappconner/2013/11/12/fifty-essential-mobile-marketing-facts/#359b01707b7e. 13 Business Insider, “Messaging Apps Are Now Bigger Than Social Networks,” businessinsider.com/the-messaging-app-report-2015-11?IR=T.

Now imagine chatbots designed especially

for your employees: a CRM chatbot that can

tell your salespeople which leads to focus

on based on a customer’s propensity to

purchase similar products, or an HR chatbot

that lets you request travel approvals, create

time cards, book travel, order supplies, and

schedule reminders.

There are now solutions that can help build

intelligent chatbots that leverage commonly

used messaging platforms to interact with

customers, partners, and employees. These

chatbots can be designed to target and

engage with users based on their geography

and other factors, in real time; offer push

notifications based on preset parameters;

use in-app messaging and SMS to engage

customers based on segment analysis; and

improve your workforce’s job satisfaction

by freeing them to focus on strategy and

problem-solving rather than the execution

of mundane activities.

What’s more, developing these chatbots is

getting easier through the use of modern-day

technology platforms. There are even ways to

create chatbots like this without using code!

When you move the zero moment of truth

onto a messaging platform, customers can

engage without ever having to leave the

conversation to look something up.

Continued engagement can lead to higher

retention, and higher retention can lead

to improved ROI.

Did you know?

By 2020, a US$1,000 computer will have the same processing power as the human brain.14

14 BCNet, “When Will Humans Have the Power of a Human Brain,” bostoncommons.net/when-will- machines-have-the-power-of-a-human-brain/.

To succeed in mobile—and in this era

of ever-increasing expectations—you’ll

need to personalize and tailor your

communications. At scale, that can

prove difficult. In fact, companies spend

a shocking US$958 million a year in

inefficient or ineffective content marketing.15

Currently available analytics tools are

becoming more and more sophisticated.

These tools offer capabilities for segmentation

and targeting based on user behavior,

from session time to location. Using the

right mobile analytics solution allows you

to gain valuable insight that can help you

to understand, at scale, the ambiguity

surrounding your customers so that you can

deliver relevant, timely, and personalized

messaging to them, which can increase

meaningful engagement, and ultimately,

positive ROI.

Chatbots can also lend a virtual helping hand

here—by learning from customer interactions

and offering automated, personalized

recommendations.

Did you know?

94 percent of customers have discontinued communication with a company after receiving irrelevant messages.16

Personalizing Engagement

The Challenge The Solution

15 Gleanstar, “The $958m Marketing Problem,” resources.kapost.com/rs/kapoststd/images/$958m-marketing-problem-quantifying-the-cost-of-inefficiency-in-your-content-production-processes.pdf. 16 Janrain, “2014 Consumer Research: Social Login and Personalization”, janrain.com/resources/industry-research/2014-consumer-research-social-login-personalization/.

Acquiring and engaging customers is

undoubtedly a valuable process, and one that

deserves due investment. Still, with disparate

data from multiple sources and confusing

attribution models, it can be difficult to see

what’s happening across all of your channels

and across the entire customer journey in order

to quantify ROI and plan for growth. In fact,

only 36 percent of marketers use quantitative

approaches to prove the value of their work, and

just 32 percent use available marketing-analytics

packages to make decisions.17

Did you know?

82 percent of enterprise marketers don’t have a synchronized view of customer data.18

Predicting Customer Behavior

The Challenge

17 CMO Survey, “Ten Steps to Better Use Of Marketing Analytics,” cmosurvey.org/tag/marketing-analytics-2/.18 Perfiecient, “Oracle OpenWorld: When Social Data = Opportunity”, blogs.perficient.com/oracle/2014/10/02/oracle-open-world-when-social-data-opportunity/.

In order to take control of tomorrow, you

must understand today. Start by analyzing

and segmenting your customer information

with tools that measure digital traction (active

usage × engagement × personalization at

scale) so that you can monetize the customers

you’ve already attracted and retained.

These tools provide visibility into your current

metrics and performance, proving ROI through

user and session reports, cohort and retention

analysis, funnel analysis, user path and flow

analysis, and more.

Once you’ve gained customer-engagement

insights from these tools, you can use the

conclusions not only to optimize your campaigns,

but also to predict how people will interact

with your products and services. Some analytics

tools now use embedded algorithms that

are sophisticated enough to produce predictive

churn metrics. By allowing these tools to

understand which customers are most likely

to leave you based on a variety of complex

indicators, you’ll be able to target at-risk

customers with personalized offers before they

abandon your company.

Many tools also offer cross-channel visibility

and cross-platform integration, including with

services like chatbots, to give a holistic view

of your customer activity.

Soon, even chatbot platforms will use these

predictive algorithms to engage you (with

your consent), before you ask a question or

consider abandoning a product. Take, for

example, a financial services company chatbot

that could proactively suggest, based on your

spending patterns, switching to a different

banking or credit-card account in order to

increase your annual rate of return or save you

money. If this mobile moment were predicted

and initiated before you even considered

switching financial providers, wouldn’t you be

less likely to leave, and think more highly of

your current financial institution for saving

you money?

The Solution

All of the above is great news for your business, but

you may ask: “Is more technology really required—

and how can I use it to better engage with my

customers, prospects, and employees?” If your

current solutions seem complex, the idea of adding

more technology may seem absurd—but in fact, the

right tech tools can make your organization easier to

run and are worth the investment.

Did you know?

Gartner estimates that in 2017, marketing organizations will spend more on technology than IT functions do.

Using Technology as a Strategic Differentiator

The Challenge

Today, every business has multiple technology

solutions. The organizations that succeed are

those that are able to leverage the technology

easily to achieve the results they want. This

is usually accomplished in one of two ways:

either by having a talented engineering team

that can support each line of business at

every turn, or by using powerful (yet easy-to-

use) technology that can give companies an

advantage over their competition.

Cloud-based, integrated, ultraintuitive,

modern digital-engagement solutions are

one such type of technology. These solutions

can help you to create, test, and deploy

chatbots by dragging and dropping custom

components, and by adding virtual assistants

to messaging platforms to take advantage

of customer-channel preferences. They can

help you build codeless apps and microsites

in minutes using nothing but your browser,

reducing your reliance on IT. They can also

help you to understand why customers have

gone quiet so that you can effectively target

and engage them in an effort to increase your

company’s ROI.

What’s more, these solutions can leverage

and integrate with your current infrastructure

to bridge gaps in functionality and connect

your back-end systems, ultimately unifying

your data, your messaging, and delivering that

omnichannel customer experience you desire.

The Solution

There are so many reasons you need to

make sure digital engagement is not just on

your business’s radar, but at the center of

everything you do:

• Real-time engagement is critical, and

competition for share of mind and wallet

has never been higher. Neither have

customer expectations.

• ROI is your responsibility. And you can

only achieve it by delivering memorable

mobile moments.

• Fragmentation can slow you down.

Piecemeal and in-house solutions might

have gaps, may measure metrics differently,

and can fail to fully engage customers. The

result? Blind spots in segmentation and

communication, and inaccuracies in data.

So how can you choose the best tool for

your business? Start by seeking one that:

• Allows you to instantly engage with

customers in a way that’s relevant to them,

their devices, and their chosen channels

• Is automated or semiautomated, providing

an easy-to-use yet powerful 360-degree

view of customer behavior

• Can simplify coordination and collaboration

between internal and external teams

• Will decrease time to market—whether

you’re working on an app, an email, or an

entire ad campaign

• Delivers complete integration and unity

The right technology investments can help

you meet these needs. They should be:

• Comprehensive

• Open

• Integrated

• Secure

To Sum Up…

Oracle Mobile Cloud

Did you know that you can now build mobile apps in minutes—whether you know how to code or not? You can do it using Oracle Mobile Cloud Service: the cloud-based tool that makes development easy by dealing with the complex server-side programming, reducing the redundancy in creating back-end code blocks and providing ready-to-integrate features. Plus, you can use it to target and engage with mobile customers based on factors such as their geography—offering relevant content, information, and products to them in real time.

In addition, the platform’s innovative chatbots tool will enable you to build and deploy chatbots in media where your customers can have contextual conversations with these intelligent virtual assistants!

There’s also a new way to gather relevant customer data in Oracle Mobile Cloud and turn it into actionable insights: It’s called Oracle Customer Experience Analytics. This can help you get the digital traction you need to engage consumers effectively, and acquire, retain, and monetize customers. By measuring and understanding mobile user activity, Oracle Customer Experience Analytics allows you to communicate with users based on who they are, what they’re doing, and where they’re located. How? By tracking events across every channel, from mobile and web apps to chatbot conversations.

Oracle Content and

Experience Cloud

Oracle Content and Experience Cloud is a cloud-based content hub that drives omnichannel content management and accelerates experience delivery to keep pace with the immediate demands of today’s mobile users.

Powerful collaboration and workflow-management capabilities streamline the creation and delivery of content, and improve both customer and employee engagement.

With Oracle Content and Experience Cloud, you can rapidly collaborate on mobile devices, drive content approvals, and generate personalized, context-driven experiences that will engage users. Built-in, business-friendly tools make creating new mobile web experiences with stunning content a breeze—and for developers, content APIs and SDKs are available to enable consistent experiences across all mobile channels.

What Next?

To learn more about Oracle Cloud Platform, which is driving next-generation mobile experiences, start with a free trial of Oracle Mobile Cloud or Oracle Content and Experience Cloud.

Go to cloud.oracle.com/tryit to try Oracle Cloud Platform and start for free.

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