Why Brands Need To Build Mobile Marketing Maturity

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By Rajesh Pantina

In 2021, the new reality for brands is characterized by consumers who are spending more time indoors, always on the hunt for new information (and distractions), and longing to stay connected with their near and dear ones by relying on their one constant companion – mobile. With the world turning towards rapid digitization, businesses are trying to find ways of not just surviving but thriving in this new reality.

Understanding digital marketing maturity

As businesses navigate this new era, brands must be cognizant of attaining Digital Marketing Maturity (DMM) which is a sure way for brands to build resilience. By adopting agile strategies and paving new ways of connecting with consumers DMM enables true growth in unfamiliar waters.

BCG (The Boston Consulting Group) states that DMM is an organization’s capacity in delivering seamless brand experiences and is characterized by four maturity levels: NascentEmergingConnected, and Multi-moment.

  • Nacesent: Marketing campaigns use external data with limited linkage to sales.
  • Emerging: Brands have access to single-channel optimization with limited owned data.
  • Connected: Brands have demonstrated linkage to ROI or sales proxies with evolved and integrated data.
  • Multi-moment: Brands optimize dynamic execution across channels toward single-customer business outcomes.

According to a recent InMobi survey which profiled senior marketing and media leaders from over 60 brands across Southeast Asia, most brands are still in the Nascent and Emerging stages of the DMM curve. E-commerce and BFSI are the verticals that lead the way with their ability to create connected and multi-moment marketing experiences. It’s fascinating to note that close to half the brands are considered to be in the nascent and emerging stages of DMM, leaving a large room for digital growth.

Evolving from the aspirational to the actionable

The foremost priority of marketers in the initial stages of DMM remains broad and are aspirational, while the brands that deliver multi-moment experiences seek objectives that are highly incremental in driving impact on each activity.

While nascent brands start their journey to marketing maturity intending to build omnichannel experiences, the emerging brands aim to strengthen their ability to derive actionable insights from the myriad of data. As the brands in the connected stage of DMM focus on building cross-functional connections, the brands in the final stage of DMM need to exemplify strong multi-moment relevance at each step of the consumer journey. This means as brands deliver better multi-moment experiences, they move from the ‘aspirational’ end to the ‘actionable’ end of the marketing maturity curve.

Building mobile marketing maturity

Mobile Marketing Maturity (3M) is the new barometer for digital marketing maturity in Southeast Asia. It is now an undeniable reality that in order to traverse the marketing maturity curve, marketers need to focus the most on one channel – mobile.

According to the 2021 Mobile Marketing Handbook by InMobi, Southeast Asia accounted for 11% of global app downloads (in Q3 2020) with users relying on smartphones for everything including daily essentials, communication, entertainment, and shopping. The time spent on smartphones significantly increased by 30% during the lockdown when compared to the pre-lockdown period and 94% of new digital consumers intend to continue using digital services post the pandemic.

Brands can attain 3M by 1. Leveraging mobile-first consumer intelligence, 2. Investing in mobile video, and 3. Adopting programmatic.

  • The connected consumer of today is always-on, on-the-go, and in control of how they engage with brands. Mature marketers can link all of a company’s data sources, online and offline, to build a complete customer picture. In the digital age, connected data is essential, not only to marketing but also to applying new technologies to a host of business needs and functions. Through mobile-first consumer intelligence, brands can keep pace with the connected consumer and bridge the data-to-insights gap, combining data from various sources to facilitate faster decision making.
  • Secondly, marketers are yet to master maximizing the impact on digital using mobile video. With a scale that is only second to TV, mobile video is where mature brands should engage with the masses in 2021. Be it gaming, short-form video, or OTT apps, the rubber hits the road when brands invest in the capabilities that bring them closer to where their core audiences are. In this journey, brands have to not just evolve technologically but also replace old ways of thinking and invest in mobile video as mainstream and not mere innovation.
  • Finally, as a mobile mature brand, it is imperative that brands adopt programmatic to enhance efficiency and transparency across their marketing campaigns.

2021 will be all about building mobile marketing maturity via programmatic, mobile video, and mobile-first consumer intelligence. Clearly, the most important question chief marketing officers or marketers need to evaluate is their organization’s mobile marketing maturity.

Credit: The Drum

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