How CMOs Can Build Their Mobile App Strategy

Mobile as an interactive solution for brand-building, growth, and revenue

Writen by:Ritika Puri and Kate Swanberg

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That’s why marketing teams need to be involved with every aspect of your company’s mobile strategy from

UX design to data science and even product integration. The fact is that all of these touchpoints will influence a

marketing team’s revenue and growth numbers.

This feedback loop provides an invaluable asset for CMOs who are looking to take their digital marketing programs to new heights. Personalization, real-time targeting, and cross channel engagement are direct byproducts of high-performing mobile marketing strategies. A simple app can provide the bridge that your company needs to unify brand awareness, engagement, and retention activities.

But often, mobile app development strategies ‘live’ within product teams. Marketers are tasked with increasing user adoption and launching one-off campaigns. While this level of cross-team collaboration is important, it is only the first step of a high-performing mobile app strategy. The fact is that mobile apps themselves are marketing tools that can help CMOs build a cohesive, integrated brand experience.

hen it comes to the mobile ecosystem, the growth and engagement numbers speak for themselves. Smartphones and tablets provide direct channels of communication between brands and consumers, giving organizations the ability to (1) influence consumer behavior and (2) learn from customers.

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We wrote this guide to help CMOs kickstart their organization’s mobile app strategies. You’ll learn how to:

Kickstart key, cross-functional conversations regarding your mobile app strategy

Integrate your mobile apps with your overall brand strategy

Identify and make the most out of resulting data assets Build apps that your audiences will love and how you can use those apps to drive growth and revenue

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Let’s get started.

Marketing’s data-driven, multi-platform future.What it means to be a CMO now and five years from now.

Part I:

an exciting time to be a CMO. As key customer advocates and empathizers, marketing teams have evolved from brand-builders to revenue engines within their organizations. In addition to launching innovative branding campaigns, marketing leaders are directly responsible for key growth goals including sales conversions, average order values, and user retention.

It’s

Since the 1950s, consumers have been taking back control, slowly but certainly surely. In 1950, the first remote control was marketed by Zenith. It attached to the TV by a wire. In 1953, Zenith made it wireless. This may seem trivial, but there is actually huge significance to the wireless remote: It gave consumers more control.

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The digital media ecosystem is, essentially, a remote control on steroids.

These goals are tough to achieve, and a recent Digiday article explains why:

Now more than ever, consumers are in the driver’s seat. They choose what social channels to engage with and what websites to browse. Thanks to search engines, they’re becoming increasingly research driven and committed to seeking out resources that are tailored to their needs, goals, and ambitions. Thanks to the proliferation of engaging online content, consumers are highly like to ignore banner ads.

The average clickthrough rate of a display ad is 0.1%

- DoubleClick via HubSpot

Brands need to engage audiences on a personal, ‘in-the-moment’ level. This need raises the stakes for CMOs and places increased demands on marketers to deliver consolidated brand and user experiences. With the wealth of cross-platform data available, marketers have seemingly infinite resources to better understand their customers. But here’s the thing: in the world of data, ‘more’ isn’t always better. With data sprawled across multiple marketing channels, CMOs are finding themselves buried under an information avalanche.

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CMOs know a plethora of digital technologies to leverage. Their challenge, however is to rally around the right ones for their business.

According to a recent report from Accenture, one in four CMOs cite a lack of critical technologies and tools as the chief barrier to digital integration. As Accenture puts it:

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There’s a gap, however, between what CMOs need to do and what’s actually happening:

Now more than ever, consumers are in the driver’s seat. They choose what social channels to engage with and what websites to browse. Thanks to search engines, they’re becoming increasingly research driven and committed to seeking out resources that are tailored to their needs, goals, and ambitions. Thanks to the proliferation of engaging online content, consumers are highly like to ignore banner ads.

77 percent of CMOs say it’s essential to deliver effective customer experience, but only 62 percent think they are doing a good job.

78 percent of CMOs believe marketing will undergo a fundamental change over the next five years, driven by analytics, digital, and mobile technologies, but only 21 percent of CMOs believe their company will be known as a digital business in five years.

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The rise of interactive, cross-channel brand experiences.

Part II:

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Tablets

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WE ARE HERE

Total number of unit of smartphones, tablets, and PC’s globally

arketers know that mobile adoption is growing exponentially. According to Gartner, there are more smartphones than there are PCs in the world -- and that number is only going to grow.

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Mobile is the one technology that lives in your customers’ pockets. In fact, they’re glued to their screens. Research from the Pew Center points out that 44 percent of cell phone owners will go so far as to sleep next to their smartphones so that they don’t miss out on emails or calls during the night.

What’s more important is that mobile connects the dots between all consumer touchpoints. A simple loyalty app, for instance, has the potential to unify offline and brick-and-mortar worlds -- two shopping realms that just 10 years ago, was impossible to integrate.

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One brand that brings this concept to life is Starbucks. The coffee giant has integrated its mobile strategy with its core in-store

experience. Coffee lovers can use the Starbucks app to pay for drinks,

earn rewards, and find nearby stores -- actions that encourage heavy brand engagement, repeat

app usage, and revenue.

Even more importantly, Starbucks can geographic and transactional data to understand the needs of its app users on an individual level. To call the predictive analytics and consumer insights capabilities massive would be an understatement.

As the Starbucks example reveals, mobile is integrated within the deepest and most routine parts of consumers’ everyday lives. People are using mobile to read the news, stay connected with loved ones, and manage the logistics of their day to day lives. The most engaging mobile apps are the ones that make life easier.

That’s why brand apps need to solve a very precise user experience need or pain point. Naturally, this approach will position an app at the center of a company’s core product and marketing strategy. That’s why Starbucks app has become such a deeply integrated part of the company’s conversion funnel -- the app was built as a core part of the in-store experience.

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Building a marketing-led mobile app strategy

Mobile apps are more than just products. They have the potential to be an invaluable growth driver for your organization. Take a typical brand loyalty app as an example. Often companies will decide that they need to be present on mobile. They’ll develop a lackluster app -- on a minimal budget -- that target customers won’t actually want to use. This approach isn’t a strategy. At best, it’s a ‘one-off’ campaign.

Sure, with a low sticker price, these apps a seemingly low barrier for entering the mobile space. But ‘cheap’ is the polar opposite of cost-effective. An app that nobody uses is a complete waste of resources. Not to mention, a lackluster app will be an opportunity cost for the type of app that your company could build to keep audiences engaged.

22 percent of CMOs polled in a CMO Council report say that they see mobile as new territory and an area that they’re still not fully comfortable with, while 15 percent say that they find mobile confusing

“ ”- CMO Council via IT Business CA

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When building a mobile app, many marketers care about user acquisition -- a metric they’re able to measure by capturing download rates. User acquisition, however, is only one part of the marketing story. Thanks to paid channel advertising campaigns, it’s easy to ramp up your user base.

But here’s what happens when you connect audiences to a sub-par mobile app. Your marketing strategy will not only fall flat -- it will tarnish your brand’s reputation.

There’s no way around the fact that word-of-mouth is a marketing force of nature. That’s why app stores place such a premium on user reviews. People trust insight from other people, and with app ecosystems becoming more competitive, brands need to make every effort to stand out.

Simply having an app isn’t a mobile marketing strategy. The user experience you create should complement your brand in a unique and engaging way. The process begins with the questions that CMOs are already asking:

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What do target audiences care about?

What makes a product compelling?

What are competitors doing? What are an organization’s core growth levers?

What incentives are compelling to target audiences?

CMOs as chief data stakeholders

Mobile apps are more than just products. They have the potential to be an invaluable growth driver for your organization. Take a typical brand loyalty app as an example. Often companies will decide that they need to be present on mobile. They’ll develop a lackluster app -- on a minimal budget -- that target customers won’t actually want to use. This approach isn’t a strategy. At best, it’s a ‘one-off’ campaign.

A recent study from the Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Council and Tealium points out that there is a direct link between improvements in business and marketing performance with having a formal roadmap for digital marketing technology acquisition, integration, and data unification. As the report explains:

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Nearly one-third (30 percent) of CMOs who say they manage and integrate technology extremely well or pretty well are seeing tangible business value, with 51 percent of those achieving greater revenue contributions.

Fifty-nine (59) percent of CMOs who have integrated this strategy report achieving more targeted, efficient and relevant customer engagements.

A long-term mobile app strategy is essential to a company’s long-term data collection and analysis process. Every campaign should be connected to an organization’s brand-building future in driving more revenue. The next section provides a guide for getting started.

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Creating a mobile blueprint

Part III:

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ajor consumer brands have a wealth of resources to help them bring their ideas to life. It can be tempting to run with an awesome idea or one-off campaign. But these types of initiatives will generate a short-term yield at best. Your mobile strategy needs to be more than a marketing push. Just like your team’s most successful growth campaigns, mobile needs to complement your larger business goals. Here are five steps to guide our team.

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Step 1Build a digital roadmap that outlasts a one-off campaign

Step back and think holistically, about how mobile apps fit into your integrated brand experience. Start with your most successful growth levers and points of engagement. You might have a product or business unit that is taking off -- or you may have received a number of customer requests for a product or service.

Mobile presents a new opportunity to (1) reach new audiences and (2) help customers engage with your brand more. As the competition for audience spans becomes increasingly cutthroat, it is important to build an app that integrates with your target audience’s everyday lives.

As Forrester puts it:

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Your technology-empowered customers now know more than you do about your products and services, your pricing, and your reputation. Technology has tipped the balance in favor of the customer. They can buy anything instantly and have it delivered to anywhere. And in a world of global sourcing and efficient supply chains, your competitors can copy or undermine the moves you take to compete. Your only successful response — the only way to retain customers and their loyalty — is to become customer-obsessed.

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Forrester elaborates that ‘customer obsession,’ as a concept, is easier to talk about than actually do. For many organizations, this way of thinking requires a paradigm shift towards systematic thinking and experimentation. Forrester encourages CMOs to take the following steps:

Implement a systematic, measurable roadmap

Position your business towards agility and customer value

Harness mobile to connect with customers in a time of need Turn data into business insights to direct continuous improvements

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The process begins with understanding how mobile can connect your customers with your brand’s overarching vision. Here are some examples to guide you:

Johnson & Johnson

Johnson & Johnson has built a 7-minute workout app to help customers lead healthier lifestyles. In addition to empowering consumers -- and aligning its brand identity with overarching concepts of health and wellness -- the company is in a position to collect a wealth of data about its target customer base.

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ESPN SportsCenter

Remember that consumers will only use your app if there is a clear and compelling reason. The right incentives need to be in place for your brand to grab their attention.

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ESPN uses its SportsCenter app to provide its audience

with up-to-date information on scores, breaking news,

and video highlights. the app also provides in-depth

analysis and personalized alerts to ensure that sports

fans are always aligned with the ESPN brand. In addition,

SportsCenter utilizes Facebook login to (1) create a

comprehensive user profile and (2) build instant social

media distribution opportunities. SportsCenter

positions ESPN as a reliable, convenient, comprehensive,

and fun source of information.

Step 2Build a direct connection to what your audiences care about

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Many companies use their apps as a re-engagement tool. On mobile, companies have an arsenal of resources at their disposal to bridge connections with target audiences. As a result, it can be challenging to choose what types of features to include in their apps.

Brands mind instantly jump to the conclusion that pushier is better. After all, you want your customers to engage directly with your brand. As a result, brands incorporate aggressive push notifications and other information into their marketing plans.

What ends up happening, however, is the opposite. Users start getting annoyed and will tune out your brand.

In some product categories, over 60% of their users turn off push notifications.“ ”- Shannon Levis and Alli Brian via AndrewChen.co

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The answer to this solution is simple. Make all features of your app -- including push notifications -- a core part of your brand and app experience. For instance, if you’re creating a marketing program for an online store, alert users when a deal or promotion is about to expire. For inspiration of this technique in action, check out the eBay app, which provides alerts of when an auction is about to end -- information that audiences are likely to care about.

App engagement is simple. If the information you have to share is engaging and important, your audiences

won’t ignore it.

Step 3Build a data management strategy to learn as much as possible about your users

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This information can, in turn, inform other company activities to drive additional growth and engagement. CMOs can also use the learnings that they are generating into other company activities including new product development, marketing, analytics.

CMOs need to define their marketing analytics strategies before building out their apps. This process will require close collaboration with product, data science, and IT teams to ensure that every potential touchpoint for data collection and analysis is fully optimized.

Mobile provides a data hub and allows businesses to collect in-depth information about their users at the person rather than cookie-levels. This ability to collect, synthesize, and analyze data is massive. Mobile gives businesses unique insight into their customers’ behavioral and demographic traits.

What often happens when companies don’t take the time to build out their data strategies upfront is missing information. Marketing teams will want to build out algorithms to predict their customers’ behavior, but they’ll be missing the information to successfully accomplish this goal.

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Don’t let that happen. Create the infrastructure you need to collect information that will be most valuable to your cross-channel marketing strategy.

Consider Nike’s Running app as an example. Consumers can use this app to track their runs and achieve their goals. It’s also possible to integrate the app with Google Fit.

Netflix is another example app that illuminates the power of data and personalization. The company has created apps to extend the brand’s core experience across devices. Through one Netflix account, users can watch streaming TV and movies on their phones, tablets, computers, and media centers. In other words, Netflix is able to collect a wealth of information about audiences -Mobile gives Nike a direct lens into its target customers’ health and fitness activities. The information generated can be reinvested across marketing channels -- including social media and email -- to recommend products that relate to its app users’ in-the-moment goals. This personalization capability is a marketing leader’s dream that is only made possible through a highly engaging mobile app.

- Where they are, what they’re watching in different contexts, and how they’re absorbing information.

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Netflix is in a strong position to reinvest these essential data points into their recommendation algorithms. The end result is a more compelling, more personalized user experience.

Data is an invaluable asset that can empower audiences to reach customers across platforms. You can design your app to support social login, for instance, to integrate with Facebook. In addition to knowing how users are engaging with your app, you can use social media data to form a complete user profile -- to better understand your audience’s likes, dislikes, and shopping preferences. You can use this invaluable information to target your audiences more effectively across marketing channels and platforms.

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Mobile Is Marketing’s Future

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Marketing, as a job function is becoming more ROI-driven and strategic. The conversation is shifting from brand-building to directly quantifiable results. A marketing-led mobile app strategy will help CMOs and their teams reach their full leadership and influencing potential -- a must for any data-driven, digitally minded organization.

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