February 2010 – Online Insights: Mobile

M-Commerce–Where to Start

The 2010 consumer is way ahead of any national retailer’s marketing department. The consumer is leveraging their phone as a “mobile mouse” to click, search and explore in the mall and in the aisle.

The retail CMO is looking for some new-fangled, high-tech way of engaging with this itinerant shopper. The sage truth, however, is that the marketing department is chasing shadows.

Instead of focusing on the consumer and how they are leveraging mobile in their stores, they are investigating widgets and apps that have little to no reach or frequency within their consumer base.

There are two simple things that I would suggest to the retail or manufacturer CMO:

Learn From History
Let’s look at the then-emerging trends of the mid-’90s Internet, remembering that history tends to repeat itself:

The web browser was becoming standard on the desktop in the mid-’90s. During this period of enormous growth, businesses entering the Internet arena scrambled to find consumer models that worked. Many companies were lured into thinking that developing applications on the desktop would give them marketshare and consumer mindshare. They did neither.

The desktop became too fragmented and difficult to navigate. As the PC browser matured and the capacity of the Internet pipes expanded–increasing browsing speeds–server-side solutions that functioned inside the browser (e.g., ASP Applications) became standard fare.

Isolated in the browser, these in-browser solutions needed a communication channel to engage and re-engage the subscriber. ASP applications used e-mail for these purposes.

Presently, we find ourselves reinventing the wheel with mobile.

With the smartphone revolution, apps are the rage. “I-want-one-too” CEOs are running to their agencies and IT departments and developing applications that only five percent of consumers are returning to after a lonely month on the phonetop.

So what are mobile consumers using?

Learn From Your Consumer
Take an undercover trip to your local store, peer through your security cameras and watch the consumer. They are doing two things with their mobile devices in your aisles: browsing and texting.

Is the consumer opening the browser to find tips and information to help with their shopping experience? Are they messaging home for the shopping list? Possibly.

But the shopper is certainly not scanning 2D codes with their phones. They are not opening the security on their Bluetooth settings for inbound offers. They are not all downloading your app to their phones. The consumers’ toolkits are relatively simple: they are using both their browsers and messaging as the first data-click. Focus on these channels.

These mobile channels are so powerful because both are standard on any phone nationally, the consumer is already on board and they are proximate to purchase intent and POS.

The CMO should start where the consumer is. What is your text CRM strategy? What is your mobile web strategy? Solve these and you have the ultimate last-mile retail solution.

Gary Schwartz is CEO of Impact Mobile and chairman of mobile for the IAB. He can be reached at gary.schwartz@impactmobile.com.