<<Below was my original excerpt for my talk at Apps World Santa Clara 2016 for Driving Mobile Engagement
beyond transactions”. Unfortunately due to schedule conflicts I decided to be part of the panel instead. >>
Intro:
Hello!!
My name is Sumaya Shakir and I travelled all the way from DC to join you all today. Although home is
right here in Bay Area, California, my work requires me to have a second home in DC. I smell Silicon
Valley right here in this room and it is the best place to be at, amongst the most intelligent and elite
professionals. I am an enterprise technologist with 18 years of experience in various technology
ecosystem including mobile and digital. I currently work at Amtrak, where I help manage IT
Modernization and IT transformation initiatives which includes mobile and digital technologies. A little
disclaimer that any of my insights offered here today are not in any way related to what is being done at
Amtrak and are solely my knowledge and insights.
How consumers are increasingly moving towards an impulse and last-minute
purchase frame of mind, and why brands have to be smart about how they
analyzing Big Data, understanding that behavior and building useful and
personalized experiences that add value in a crowded landscape
It’s indeed an APP WORLD, latest data from Yahoo's Flurry analytics shows that 90% of consumer's
mobile time is spent in apps. Source: It’s an App World. The Web Just Lives in It. #truism
Two things before the deep dive -
First: People don't make purchases for logical reasons. They buy for emotional reasons. They
then utilize the logic to justify it. We all know that when people are emotional, they are
impulsive. Mobile devices just empower them to do that. Mobile devices are ever so personal,
almost an extension part of the modern human physiology, perhaps the first generation
human/machine. Smartphone is man’s auxiliary brain and window to his world. It is the first
thing he touches even before he opens his eyes and the last thing to put down before sleeping.
It’s a source of comfort, knowledge, companionship, fulfillment and a door to his numerous
worlds.
Second: Big data doesn’t have to be scary….it’s scary only when you are approaching it from
the wrong angle. It starts with gathering the right relevant data that will give you the customer
insight.
o Know your customers
o Know your customer’s needs
o Know your customer’s behaviors
o Make your customer’s life easy
o Build a relationship with your customer
o Start a conversation with your customer
o Make your customer fall in love with you
o And remember, your customers are your brand influencers
Google says 61% of users are unlikely to return to a mobile site
they had trouble accessing and 40% visit a competitor’s site
instead. (MicKinsey & Company, 2014)
There you go, you know the customer’s psychology and you have the big data! Brands need to take
advantage of this and do everything to be the winner in a crowded landscape to offer the customer the
best retail therapy experience. According to the Pew Research Center survey, 68% of adults in the United
States currently own a smartphone, up from 35% four years ago
The customer is already one step closer to make that impulsive decision by having access to a
smartphone. Emarketer estimates that there are now over 145 million shoppers using their
smartphones, an increase of 23 million since 2013. The marketer mind should include not just
Brick-and-Mortar but Mobile Click-and-Order.
The brands can be one more step closer by providing a customer friendly mobile experience
with all critical features to empower the customer to make that impulse decision faster than a
pulse. Ex. Amazon’s new checkout process and one screen layout -> instant conversion
Brands need to tap into customers “data fingerprints” or “digital breadcrumbs” and location
data. Each tap and swipe the customer makes on the mobile devices gives an insight. Brands
need to decode these data trails to better understand the customer’s wants and needs.
Tracking your mobile customer’s actions should be the first step that gives you a rich data set.
Even store sales are influenced by mobile. Confirming the findings of many earlier surveys, 90%
of customers use their smartphones in stores while shopping. The top activities on smartphones
while in-stores were the following:
Price comparisons — 54 percent
Looking up product information — 48 percent
Checking reviews online — 42 percent
Seeking coupons or deals
Everything starts with a search on the mobile device… the buying journey starts there…
o According to research from BIA/Kelsey, 63% of actions resulting from mobile searches
occur within 1 hour of the search, compared to 55% for purchases.
Don’t be intrusive
o Direct sales approach vs. informational/social/making recommendations
Eg. Pinterest, Snapchat , Facebook
Don’t take your shoppers via confusing purchase paths
Mobile optimization, seamless experience
Shoppers consult 3 or more channels (often while shopping) before making a purchase.
o Provide access to products ratings and reviews so they don’t leave your app to search
elsewhere
o Your goal is to keep the customer on your app until they make that purchase. Don’t let
them leave.
Retargeting, retaining, ongoing engagement, app abonnement
o There’s a 60% chance users who don’t come back after 7 days never return
o On average, loyal customers are worth up to 10 times as much as their first
purchase (source)
Shoppers look for deals
o Provide access to discounts, coupons, etc in an accessible way
o Make them feel this is the best deal and they don’t have to leave your app to look for a
coupon
Customers spend more when they use coupons they find on mobile devices.
According to Juniper Research, 77% of consumers spend $10-$50 more than
anticipated when redeeming mobile coupons.
Mobile optimization
Customer engagement is a two way street
Promote new features
Take advantage of holiday seasons
Reduce the number of steps
o Offer mobile payments options
o Go paperless coupons
Make them feel special and a sense of winning
o Deals and loyalty programs
Action analytics
Topic 2: The opportunity of mobile to deliver more a personalized, relevant
experiences beyond transactions
If you have already captivated your customer to make a single purchase, you have opened up an
opportunity for a long term future. Your customer has already provided you enough data to lure them
back again.
The future of retail success is not a single transaction, but by the level and quality of consumer
engagement. Once a brand has managed the first transaction, it’s time to manage the relationship,
striving to move past a single transaction to an ongoing interaction.
1. Constant updates about current order including shipping notifications, soliciting ratings and
feedback
a. Utilize every opportunity to talk to the customer
b. Be personal and authentic
2. Offer loyalty points, coupons, or discounts.
3. Offer usage tips and ideas
4. Increase user engagement up to 4x with automated push notifications an - Make it personal,
make it all about the customer.
Topic 3: The importance of mobile in enabling a more direct connection between
brands and consumers
I am pretty much going to quote everything from Christ Brandt , CMO of Taco Bell shared in his
interview with fastToCreate. Nothing can be more truer than what Chris shared. Taco Bell recently
made the list for top 10 innovative companies for marketing in 2015.
Mobile apps provide a medium to enable direct interactions between brands and customers. Eg.
Snapchat, pinterest, etc. People are literally attached to their smart phones and is now a primary means
of communication. With social media, now there is a two way voice and brands can use it to personalize
customer experience realtime. With more and more content being generated through conversations
and shares on social media, customers have a direct impact on the life of a brand.
From Chris’s point of view, transparency is the new black. Customers want to know who they are
dealing with and brands need to be as genuine and authentic as possible and they want the brands to
have a conversation with them and create stories with them. Nobody wants sales people on their faces
trying to sell something but people appreciate conversations. Brands should look to create engagement
and conversations at every consumer touch point. Everything from there on happens spontaneously.
In near future 90% of branded content will come from consumers. User generated content will far
exceed branded content and brands need to embrace this and accept they aren’t in complete control of
their own brand. As such, it’s imperative that brands create a strong identity in the minds and hearts of
consumers.
Taco Bell takes a look at three approaches to content: Create, Co-Create, and Curate. Create is the
brand’s own content, co-create is content created in partnership with consumers, and curate is taking
the user generated content we like and showing it to more people. The most important ingredient in all
of this is authenticity.