Rise of Mobile Gaming Overshadowing Social Media

Aside from vloggers and traditional online gamers scurrying around with their own different contents on the social media, we can also see mobile gamers making their own names nowadays that sometimes, they even become more famous than the social media influencers.

That’s not something to be surprised of because mobile gaming is really a rising trend today. People from all ages and all walks of life can be seen clinging on their phones while holding into their phones.

In fact, according to studies, consumers revealed that most of them are willing to give up social media apps or TV for their favorite mobile games

This has paved way to in-game advertising which has now become more compelling to U.S. consumers than the traditional ads that can be seen in other media. A survey found that 41% of people are likely to pay attention to ads in mobile games, ahead of the internet (17%), magazines (15%) and billboards (15%). While consumers consider many forms of digital ads as annoying and intrusive, 72% said they like interacting with ads in exchange for in-app currency or premium content.

Compared years ago, the portion of consumers who identify as a “gamer” already rose to 60% from 27% this year. This explains why social networking companies like Facebook, Snap, etc. are now investing on gaming platforms to motivate their users. In fact, Facebook introduced a new gaming tab for streaming content while Snapchat launched a multiplayer gaming platform. On the other hand, Google and Apple are also making their way into gaming. These gaming pushes by mobile-first companies will potentially create new opportunities for marketers as well as game developers.

In addition to this, gaming also demonstrated that there is an evolution happening on which games are also slowly becoming similar to the social networking sites where users are able to gather to play, watch others compete, chat, share strategies and even attend virtual concerts. This is followed by tons and tons of developments and spinoffs by all other competent developers as they battle for the attention of the consumers. There are even awards being given by Google Playstore to developers for their remarkable mobile games.

Along with this, independent game developers who seek to monetize their products are paving way for various kinds of advertising within their apps. One example is the rewarded video or opt-in video ads that give gamers incentives after watching a video. It can be in the form of points or other valuable gaming content like levels, energy or virtual equipment and weapons. This format produced the highest click-through rates among video ad formats, according to a research from a mobile ad platform, and is offered by 65% of mobile game developers.

This era of smartphone era has been revolutionary for the successful growth of its consumer base from a small group of teenagers into a mainstream content and marketing platform. E-sports is now next in line being eyed by marketers to integrate into their industry.

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Choosing The Right E-commerce Marketing Automation Platform

Marketing automation sounds just the perfect thing to do when talking about level up your email marketing. Not only it can save significant amount of time and money but it can also build a real connection with your customers. Now, the only problem that you must overcome is choosing the right one among the countless marketing automation platforms available out there.

Here are some tips to help you identify what marketing automation platform you should consider putting your resources on.

Look into its Features if it fits your needs

Before you pay on anything, you first have to look into the features of the marketing automation platform to check if it is compatible with your retail business needs. E-commerce businesses have a specific set of needs so it’s important to identify which platform can provide what is required by it. There are some which can help you with emails and SMS, some that will serve you with a cheap but worthy price while some will be great to use for a quick growth of your business.

Find an automation platform which can innovate and benefit your business even more as time pass by. This will be a wise investment as it will pave way for the success of your business.

Make sure the marketing automation platform scale with your e-commerce business

A good marketing automation platform opens opportunity for new features and improvements. Choose a platform that will update to new channels or features on times that will be beneficial for your business because a platform that is slow with development will only lead you to lose revenue.

Also, look for the marketing automation platform’s pricing and scaling options. Don’t be blinded by all the promising features. Sometimes, it’s better to settle on what you have right now because it will assure your progress rather than binge buy many things and regret in the end because not everything will be useful.

Flexibility is one of the most important elements that you should look for. With this, you will be enabled to change and update your marketing automation platform account because your business will change constantly too.

Choose a Marketing automation platform that’s easy to use

Ease of use and efficiency is also one of the vital perks that you must first look with a platform. With countless marketing automation platforms available out there, they also differ from simplistic to complex to use. Some might be harder to use than others though learnable. But it would be okay to choose the one who’s going to be easier and more comfortable to use for you. Sometimes, it’s even a greater loss to invest too much time setting up a new automation platform that’s too difficult for you to use correctly.

If you are still not contented, you can go ahead and try to explore the basics of the tool with its free trial. Aside from this, you can also refer to customer reviews to look for feedback.  It’s also important that you observant on how the company interact and deal with its customers. You will be able to make the most out of the platform by making sure that you will be able to use it correctly.

 

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Effective Messaging As Key To Customer Retention & Loyalty

We can’t deny that everyone even marketers themselves hates ads especially those that are present online. It is often treated as some sort of bug which should be ignored and avoided at all times. This phenomenon automatically invalidates any message no matter how important. Not unless we find a way to make that message relevant or make it contain something that the consumers need.

If we manage to make an ad interesting enough, we will also be able to instantly remove all the misconceptions and negative outlook of people towards it for being an ad. So, whether you’re sending an ad, an email, SMS, or any other kind of message to a customer, the more relevant the message, the easier and faster it will be received and absorbed by your audience.

A combination of relevant, personalized messages sent to the right customers through an effective channel is what you need to effectively market a product, service or even the brand itself. Being able to catch their interest with your effective messaging creates a level of personalization that crafts a better overall customer experience that your customers will appreciate, and come back for again and again. Here are a few examples of how you can use relevant, personalized messaging to increase customer loyalty and keep those customers longer.

Effective customer-engagement with relevant messaging

When targeting your customers for relevant messaging, there is a need to categorize them into smaller segments so that you can work on them faster, easier and more effective. There are a few different tiers you can use to segment your customers. It can be through their profile data, campaign engagement or shopping behavior.

Segmenting based on profile data is the top most priority when targeting making it the most important. You can also focus on the customers’ purchasing behavior. Through it, you can look for the right timing where you can send the messages right in time as they make their purchase.

Relevant messaging and targeting outcome

After we have identified our target and planned our strategies on how to approach our consumers, we now have to make sure that our message is really relevant for it to be sent effectively.

To do this, you have to be able to get inside your customer’s head and identify their needs. Being able to do this would also assure your messaging relevant.

Nowadays, there is a more intense demand from the customers which requires personalization of messages that will build connection to the business and the consumers. In today’s e-commerce market, it would be a tough challenge to excel and be competent. One of the ways to do it is by making sure that your messages are always relevant and personalized so that your customer will hold your brand with loyalty and trust. It would feel less like you’re selling to them, but rather providing them a chance to get their wants and needs.

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The Impact Of Surveillance In Commerce

All of us have needs privacy at some point in our life. However, history has made surveillance important in the United States especially after several threats to national security. This allowed the government to push for monitoring to their citizen’s mobile phones. But, today, everything is much more different. The kind of surveillance that serves the sole purpose of monitoring and preventing threat has also been commercialised and integrated to fit the retail market; offering technologies to consumers which can aid in their daily living. Some examples include ‘smart assistants’ and listening devices.

We are indeed in the digital era. Technology has gone far and it has enabled us to do a lot more. However, this advancement also required us to strip off some of our vital information and share it to be stored under the protection of social media websites and domain. One major problem attached to this reality is the threat of breach or leakage of data.

This jeopardizes the privacy of every individual with their personal information. But, to be honest this is the only right now that holds us off and stops us from pursuing digital ventures limitlessly.

Surprisingly, despite this fact, millions still use ‘smart speaker’ within their household. It seems like most of them are not bothered about what’s going to happen to their information while some are just unaware about the risks of what they have and what they do.

Meanwhile, several breaches were also admitted by one of the leading social media sites in the world; Facebook. This paved way for government bodies to interfere and question the founders about the security of the users’ information. But even after all these controversies, people just shrugged their shoulders and continued using their social media account.

Access to our data as well as our activities is power for retailers. Being able to use it wisely can enable them to strategize business plans basing on our interests and purchasing behavior so that they can promote their brand. But they must keep in mind that what they are doing should not only benefit them but it must also help in make things easier and more convenient for the public.

Surveillance is not just a spy or police thing anymore. More and more businesses are capitalizing on this to be able to cope with the trends in the market and go ahead of their competitors. Well, nothing could go wrong. It can actually benefit both retailer and consumer as long as their privacy is not being compromised.

It is not the end of innovation and advancement of technology. As time pass by, there would be more development as to how surveillance will be used in commerce. This means there would be more changes to come. But whatever these may be, let’s hope that no one would take advantage of other people to promote their self interests. It is the responsibility of retailers to assure that our information is safe all the time.

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Why Retailers’ Customer Surveys Become Irritating For Consumers

Customer surveys can be very useful for retailers. This is one way of gathering feedback, complaints, recommendations and suggestions from their target market. Somehow, they can also study and analyze the behavior as well as the preferences of these customers through these surveys which help them plan a marketing strategy that will boost up their sales.

How they wish it is as easy as that. But we all know that surveys are considered as the public’s enemy. Given that it irritates most people because they think that it’s very hassle and time consuming, it is now very difficult for retailers to please the customers to take part of it.

It’s a wonder why no matter how retailers try to use the best of their rhetoric with their surveys; still, customers exhibit the same attitude towards it. They hate it, period!

Some try so hard that they even use baits such as rewards or promos just for the sake of being noticed and answered by customers. But the big question is, what’s with customer surveys and why these are being hated and ignored most of the time by customers?

Well, if we look deeper into it, the answer would be obvious. Retailers tend to overdo their surveys making them too looooong! Knowing people nowadays, who would want to spend a bunch of time reading long paragraphs and answering questionnaires?

That’s right. Who said anyway that surveys should be too wordy composed of too many irrelevant sentences. So, to help out retailers out there, here are some tips that they should keep in mind.

If you want to ask something to your customers, better go straight to the point. Well, it’s okay to put some tone into it to not make bore them (which is also a reason why they hate surveys) but making it too wordy may spoil everything and confuse them instead.

On the other hand, some businesses make surveys similar to ads that pops up randomly on the screen which is yet again, another wrong strategy simply because people HATE and ARE IRRITATED by pop ads.

Surveys are just like your products. You don’t force or shove it to your customers where in fact, you could make it interesting and fun to participate in. Also, making it simple and direct to the point will make it less boring and it would be easier for the customers to comprehend.

You also have to consider that this is not your customer’s priority. People especially the younger generation have a lot of things to do over the net. So, don’t take too much of their time and make it worthwhile. Gather the details and let them provide answers you need only within a few seconds or just less than a minute.

End by saying thank you! Make them feel that you are grateful for their effort and time. Thank them for contributing and helping you. This way they would be pleased knowing that they have done a favor for someone which can be associated with the thought that you might give them something in return.

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