How to Leverage Mobile Devices in Pursuit of Better Customer Engagement

Do you know anyone who doesn’t have some sort of mobile device? Seriously, even your grandparents’ generation has smartphones, tablets, and other items by now. Mobile devices are pervasive and commonplace. With that being said, businesses can’t afford to overlook mobile strategies in their pursuit of improving customer engagement. In fact, mobile devices should be at the heart of any modern engagement strategy. The issue is that most brands don’t know where to start.

Helpful Tips for Leveraging Mobile

Mobile apps, responsive websites, and SMS, oh my! Just looking at all the different mobile options is enough to make any business anxious. Unfortunately, this is what pushes people away and keeps them from moving mobile engagement from the back burner to the forefront.

Let’s do away with the notion that mobile engagement is overwhelming and far too advanced for the average individual to understand. Instead, let’s analyze some helpful points that prove it’s not only possible to leverage mobile technology for your business, but also relatively simple.

• Make UX the priority. Mobile engagement is all about meeting customers where they are and appeasing their desires for convenience and simplicity. When it comes down to it, you need to place a heavy emphasis on user experience. Always put the user first and make sure everything you do is intuitive and easy to use.
• Start with SMS. While your first instinct may be to build a mobile app so that you can begin monetizing your efforts, it may be easier to start with SMS. Not only is SMS one of the highest-returning forms of mobile engagement, but it’s also seen as the gateway for broader customer engagement down the road. When properly utilized, SMS is simple, easy, and cost-effective.
• Provide added value. The problem for many brands is that their mobile engagement strategies are actually self-serving. While the app may be disguised as a useful tool for customers and users, it’s actually nothing more than a tool for the company to use. Today’s customers see right through this. If you’re going to spend time developing and designing an app, make sure it adds some level of value to the user. Genuine utility is the key to a successful app.
• Don’t forget the website. Everyone is so focused on mobile apps at the moment that many forget about their websites. The truth is that a mobile website – or rather a responsive website – is exponentially more important than a mobile app. People are more apt to search for your website in a mobile browser than they are to download your app and then access it. Spend time fine-tuning your website and making it responsive before ever considering your app.
• Consider mobile ads. Research shows that mobile ads perform as much as five times better than desktop internet ads. If you have a large online advertising budget, it’s worth considering whether a portion of that budget should go towards mobile. As an increasing number of people are now mobile-only internet users, this is a strategy you’ll want to think about for the future.

Make Mobile Engagement a Priority

As you can see, there’s ample opportunity to leverage mobile technology and enhance customer engagement. The good news is that you don’t have to start everything at once. Choose a single aspect of mobile engagement that you’re interested in pursuing – say SMS – and use that as the foundation of your strategy. Once you master this part, you can then add something else – say a mobile app. By breaking it up into smaller parts, your mobile engagement strategy doesn’t have to be such a weighty thing. Take it slow and you’ll reap the rewards.