Segmentation: The True Power Behind Mobile Marketing

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Marketers love to do things. And they love to do LOTS of things too. Like sending millions of messages to their user base in order to encourage them to buy a particular item or behave in a particular way. But do consumers actually like to receive these messages? I think in many instances, and certainly if we reflect on our own lives, we’d have to conclude that in the majority of cases they probably don’t.

Sometimes it’s easy for marketers to understand that fact and nonetheless ignore it. After all, if a particular viewer doesn’t like a particular TV advert, what’s the real cost? Perhaps some small, almost imperceptible, change in their disposition towards the brand, but one that is undetectable and certainly invisible. But that’s not the case when we come to mobile marketing and the mobile app. An irritating, intrusive campaign (and man, is the mobile intrusive if used poorly!) can lead direct to something all too measurable: deleted apps.

One thing is for sure – as I’ve said beforehand on this blog, if you think mobile users are going to diligently go into their mobile settings and disable notifications for your app, you are in for a nasty surprise. Most probably don’t even know how, but they sure know how to drag your lovingly-designed app icon into the trash can!

Getting Smart About Segmentation

It doesn’t take a genius, then, to realize that effective marketing that delivers on your objectives and doesn’t come with unintended consequences, tends to be targeted marketing. That’s way any mobile marketing solution needs to enable all those campaigns you deliver, whether push notifications, in-app messages, native content changes, videos or surveys, to be delivered to just the right person. Unfortunately, that’s where many fall down. Beyond the obvious, a large number of commercial solutions offer little more than the most basic device, OS, and demographic segementation capabilities.

That really isn’t enough, and it’s one reason why in 2015 (yes, 2015!) mobile marketers are still diligently running SQL queries on central databases (where all the real data is held) in order to export CSV files and then upload same to their mobile marketing platform. Talk about taking the “automation” out of mobile marketing automation! It’s gotta change people. Here’s how:

Step 1, 2, 3, and all the other ones – get yourself a mobile marketing automation platform that enables you to build targets for campaigns factoring in all of the following:

• Demographics (yes, not particularly sexy, but it still matters).
• Device and OS. Ditto – if this is the only thing you’ve got, it’s not a huge amount of use. But you’ll need it to deliver great campaigns that are just right for the target group.
• Events. The big one. An event is any user behavior you want to track, and there should be no limits. We’re talking page opens, button clicks, purchases, email opens – anything! And don’t forget you’ll want to be able to filter on recency (how recently an event has been triggered) and frequency (how many times an event has been triggered), and of course the reverse, such as finding users who have never triggered a particular event.
• User status. As the user interacts with the app, their status changes over time. Take engagement: you’ll want to be able to identify users who have used the app for at least 30 minutes. Or less than five. Similarly with spend, you’ll want to isolate users who have spent more than, less than or exactly a certain amount. And status can also include current balance or ‘level’ – which makes the requirement to have a real-time understanding absoutely vital to effective targeting.
• Prior Interactions. Did a user open a particular message? DId they click on it? Before sending related information, it would help to be aware of exactly how they have responded to what went previously. That’s only sensible.

And of course don’t forget, you’ll need the ability to combine all these factors. That way, you’ll be delivering relevant, targeted campaigns that really get the job done (and irritate nobody!)