In my previous blog I wrote about the growth in mobile channels and content challenges that organizations are facing. In this blog I will focus on the two other major challenges for mobile marketers —- Preference Management and Measurement.
Establishing fundamental and standard principles for opting in and out of marketing — providing consumers with choice — is the first step towards ensuring the continued acceptance of SMS marketing. Numerous studies and research have shown that consumers reward those who give them “choice” in marketing messages and there are established guidelines for online marketing and email marketing.
For email marketers, this has meant increased adoption of opt-in marketing lists and “unsubscribe” links. Mobile marketing has so far focused its attention on a single half of the picture: opt-ins. Consumers are also demanding the choice to opt-out.
Similarly in the email marketing sphere, issues of deliverability continues to challenge marketers. Email marketers recognize the value of continuously scrubbing their lists to remove email bounces and also comply to the CAN-SPAM compliance. In the mobile marketing space, with the high churn rates, there is a substantial issue with deliverability of messages and there is not a clear process to manage a bounce list.
Standardizing opt-in, list updating and creating one authority and standard process for customer opt-out would lower the number of unwanted messages and give consumers choice as to the messages they receive. Mobile Marketing Association is doing a great job in managing the concerns for consumer privacy and providing guidelines for mobile marketers.
The other challenge that mobile marketers face is around measurement. Standard web analytics technologies are still evolving but there are key challenges to measuring mobile behavior as outlined below:
- Lack of JavaScript
- No cookies & shared carrier gateways
- Supporting different browser and device types
The area of mobile web analytics is growing rapidly because more and more consumers are now accessing the web from their mobile devices and this information is very critical to gaining insight about the consumer behavior and interests.
Organizations that want to expand their mobile marketing capabilities should understand and address these challenges.
