Imagine yourself going shopping. Who would you be more comfortable having with you; someone you have shared your stories with and who even experienced some of them with you, or a sales person who has a surprising amount of information about things like past purchases and your social media groups, information that you never remember sharing with them?
Or imagine seeking wellness advice. Would you have more faith in someone who has been your walking companion and knows you prefer the beach to the park, and sunrises to sunsets, or a random “guru” who accompanies every suggestion with “people at your age and weight”?
Unsurprisingly, the overwhelming majority of
consumers rate trust as a key element in their decisions. When it comes to mobile marketing and engagement, too many solutions have made the mistake of confusing knowledge with trust, collecting data and pushing unwelcome suggestions and random times during the day. That is why all signs are pointing to the fact that mobile customer engagement, as we know it, must change.
A Brief History of Mobile Engagement
Mobile phones have come a long way from their early, humble beginnings, when despite being clunky and heavy, they magically enabled us to talk on the phone when we were on the go. Today, there are more phones than people on this planet, and it is hard to imagine that a few short years ago there were times in the day when people were simply unavailable. Mobile communication now involves our eyes as much as our ears, as text and video often replace the old fashioned phone call.
The fact that our phones are practically glued to our bodies, if not to our hands, has made them the ideal gateway for any company searching for a path to consumers’ hearts and wallets. It makes sense, since we have become creatures of comfort, willing to drop an app for it’s competitor if it saves us a few swipes or clicks. That is why the importance of mobile marketing has skyrocketed and a well-designed mobile experience is a game changer for any company whose business relies on a strong consumer relationship.
In recent years, in order to satisfy the demand for personalized user experiences, marketing technology (MarTech) has focused on helping companies collect as much data as possible about existing and potential customers. Since the field was new, privacy protections were lax and companies could use sources such as consumers’ online web browsing and purchase history, their locations and activities (via their ever-present phones) and even data that was collected by 3rd parties and sold to any willing bidder.
All this data needed to be collected, processed, analyzed and stored somewhere and the most logical place to do that was in the cloud. From there it was easy to collect personal data from millions of sources and it offered unlimited processing power. Petabytes of personal data could be analyzed to create complex audience segments, to make decisions on campaigns and to engage users’ devices. The idea was that if only there was enough data, Marketers could get to know each user in order to make just the right offer to exactly the right people.
The model wasn’t sustainable. The problem wasn’t that there was a lack of data, it was a lack of actionable insights. The challenge was less about knowing the user than it was gaining their trust and getting them to pay attention. And too many people were too concerned that corporations had a surprising amount of information about consumers, information the consumers never consciously agreed to share.
It’s time to do things differently
That is why it is time to reimagine mobile customer engagement and replace the old model with an inherently more trustworthy, transparent and even more comprehensive one. The practice of collecting as much information as possible while maneuvering through ever-changing regulations and policy change doesn’t make sense for anyone. Companies want to cultivate a better relationship with their customers by providing them with relevant and timely offers, tips and content. App developers want to make the onboarding process painless by adapting it for different types of users. Marketers want to retain customers by engaging them with relevant, personalized content from Day 1. All this can be done without collecting any personal data from the users.
At
Anagog, we realized that the next role of mobile phones is to become our trusted confidant, recognizing our preferences and acting on our behalf. Instead of the phone sharing our personal data with the apps and beyond, we have added Artificial Intelligence that generates insights from that data and keeps it on the device. We understood that Marketers don’t need to know anything about a specific customer; all they need to know is that that customer is receiving relevant offers and content, at the right time for them to be useful.
Different...and Much Better
Adding AI to the apps on the phone opens up a whole new range of insights about the phone’s user, insights that go beyond who they are when they open the app. Marketers enjoy new dimensions with which to segment their Audience without collecting or otherwise seeing that data (and without having to ask for and receive the users’ permission). A smarter app means that it is possible to accurately and reliably deliver a message to users at an exact time and place, or when specific individual conditions occur. Imagine, for example, that you would like to offer the newest running shoes to people who run more than twice a week and have not purchased shoes for at least 2 months. And let’s say that you want to make that offer when their endorphins are high, as they return home after a run. That’s an offer they may appreciate. It’s a well-designed campaign that is not possible in today’s eco-systems without compromising users’ privacy or getting them to agree to all sorts of data sharing.
Anagog has re-imagined mobile customer engagement and it is more personal, more engaging and far more private. It feels good to get things right.