Download Success in marketing hinges on consumer control, says

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The rise of the app
Published by Sally Hooton on January 30, 2015 10:00 am
Success in marketing hinges on consumer control, says David Cole (pictured), who
examines the findings of the 2014 (10th annual) fast.MAP Marketing-GAP Tracking Study.
Marketing via mobile call and text messaging has been around longer than email, but has
remained unpopular while email has become the star of direct marketing.
But the appearance of the app seems poised to change all that. For although more than half
the potential audience have yet to downloaded a mobile application, those who do comprise a
fast-growing minority. And once people do download one, half of them keep it for up to a
year; news, retail, promotions and offers apps are kept even longer.
The 10th annual fast.MAP Marketing-GAP Tracking Study (launched in 2005 to track the
GAP between what consumers think and do and what marketers assume they’re thinking and
doing) shows consumers’ growing determination to retain control of what information they
receive.
They’re happy to receive digital marketing for which they’ve given
permission and download apps they know they can dump if they
become irrelevant or are superseded by others, but they jib at being
interrupted and pestered by irrelevant texts or calls. And they want to
access the information they do receive at their own convenience.
As more people start to download apps, augmented reality – an extrainformation tool, which allows people to link via an app on their
smartphone with more detail about products or events around them –
is also set to become more mainstream.
But as this acceptance of downloaded marketing tools grows, ‘happiness’ to take mobile
marketing calls has declined by a fraction of a percent year-on-year, to an average of 1%
across all sectors.
The best news for the mobile marketing industry is a 200% rise in those happy to receive
mobile calls about banking; the bad news is that the increase is to a mere 3%.
Though marketing texts remain twice as popular as calls, SMS marketing experienced much
the same level of decline in popularity, an overall decline from 2.2% to 1.7% in “happiness to
receive SMS messages”.
The research uncovered a wide gap between marketer expectations and reality. Marketers
overestimated by 400% those who’d “be happy to receive SMS messages” and by almost
500% people who feel the same about receiving mobile marketing calls.
This level or marketer optimism about the popularity of mobile and text marketing is repeated
year after year and it persisted this year despite the reality of a popularity decline.
“Happiness” to receive marketing calls by landline has increased in only three out of 26
market sectors. These are charities, from 1% to 2%; mortgages from 0% to 1% and utilities,
from 1% to 2%. In all other sectors it either remained at an average 1% or declined.
Contact by email remains favourite. Although there was slightly less enthusiasm for
messages on insurance and IT/computers than last year, across all other sectors email’s
popularity either remained the same or, in most cases, increased.
Whether the marketing message is targeted at customers or prospects email is their preferred
contact route – though people are almost three times as likely to want contact from
companies they use.
Mail remains second favourite for both groups. People’s happiness to receive marketing by
post either increased or held firm year-on-year. All other contact media trail far behind. Click
here to see chart
Year after year, marketers underestimate postal and considerably over-estimate email
popularity.
Social media and Twitter marketing are in the doldrums, with the exception of three 1%
increases in people’s happiness to receive marketing communication via Twitter
(competitions, to 4%; insurance to 1%; and mobile phones/services to 1%) the medium’s
popularity as a marketing vehicle has remained static or declined, The average across all
sectors is less than 1%.
Though social media contact is twice as welcome as Twitter, the situation is similar, 5 sectors
have registered a 1% increase and the rest have decreased or remain the same. The average is
just under 2%.
Marketers think people are five times happier to receive marketing messages by these routes
than is the case.
To get a marketing message across, the first priority is to ensure the target audience reads
rather than junks it and Marketing-GAP Research reveals that if you put it in a website popup ad, you will cut your audience by three quarters; and 3in5 will immediately dispose of
unaddressed door-dropped leaflets, company facebook friend requests and emails from
unfamiliar companies. Click here to see chart.
Conversely, fewer than 1in10 people ignore information if it comes from a company they
know in a personally-addressed email or letter.
Marketers overestimate the disposability of the seven contact routes people are least likely to
junk and underestimate people’s dislike of the two media people are most likely to ignore.
The 2014 Marketing-GAP study in revealing people’s increased determination to control
what, how and when they receive marketing information underlines the importance of
obtaining opt-in permission to continuing marketing contact – especially since there is a
strong possibility that opt-in permission (rather than a passive failure to opt-out) will become
the legal requirement throughout Europe.
This is why smart marketers are already seeking to boost opt-in rates by benchmarking and
improving their permission statements.
David Cole is MD of online research company fast.MAP. Contact him here:
[email protected], 0777 568 4293, www.fastMAP.com