The relationship-first imperative.

With more mature channels like email, great marketers have moved away from “batch and blast” strategies (sending the same, generic message to everyone in your database) and towards a “relationship-first” strategy. This approach entails earning permission and then sending targeted messages that are highly tailored to every individual based on what you know about their demographics and behavior, as well as where they are in their customer lifecycle.

In a mobile world, a relationship-first approach moves from being a good strategy to being the imperative. According to the Pew Research Center, customers say text spam is more invasive to them than junk mail or even spam emails. And sometimes, the recipients even have to pay for the texts that they never wanted in the first place. While the mobile channel introduces amazing new opportunities for marketers, the stakes for a sound strategy have never been higher.

It’s easier than you think.

But the great news is that it’s likely easier than you think to get going. This guide will take you step-by-step through the key strategies that the world’s leading digital marketers are using today to do great relationship-first, mobile marketing. Whether you’re looking to start off easy, or go all in right away, Responsys is here to help shape and execute your strategy

Relationship-first mobile marketing

Part 1: Starting the relationship.

For too many marketers, the singular focus of their activities has been on the conversion. They ask only, “how many units did I sell today?” And while driving revenue remains the goal for marketers everywhere, those who focus first on the consumer relationship have found a far more effective path to get there.

The first step in great relationship-based mobile marketing is to build out your addressable universe of consumers by finding new ways to capture mobile communication permission. And the great news is that the mobile channel offers up a huge array of tactics to help you do just that.

For example:

SMS Opt-In: Consumers can respond to calls-to-action by sending a text message to a short code. For example, they can text “SIGNUP” or their email address to “12345”. And with the mobile channel, opportunities to advertise your opt-in programs exist both in the digital world and in the offline world.

In-Store Downtime: Consumers play with smartphones while they wait in checkout lines and restaurants. Opt-in requests placed at these common points of inactivity can engage the audience and build your list.

QR Codes: The square, 2D barcodes you’ve seen in magazines and billboards work as hyperlinks in the offline world. Consumers can scan them with a smartphone to opt-in, download an app, or visit a mobile-optimized website.

Incentives: Coupons and sweepstakes are powerful tools to help build your mobile list. Offering consumers an attention grabbing incentive either online or in-store opens a conversation with your brand and gives your customer the motivation to opt-in. Many thought leading marketers are going as far as purchasing TV ads to specifically drive people to opt into receiving mobile messages.

Cross-Channel Promotion: A consumer usually begins the conversation with your brand in one channel, but by cross-promoting your programs you can turn social media followers into email readers and website visitors into SMS subscribers. Promoting your mobile opt-in programs in your emails, on your display ads, and on your Facebook fan page is a no-brainer. And not only can you use other channels to drive opt-ins for mobile messages, but SMS is a great tool to get customers to sign up for offline marketing programs. For example, send a text to get a catalog or to register for an event.

Cross-Channel Preference Centers: Many companies have launched preference centers that let customers raise their hands to receive certain emails or mailings. But don’t treat mobile as a silo. Be sure that your preference center gives your customers the option to sign-up for relevant mobile messages.

Getting it right: Southwest Airlines.

Southwest Airlines embodies a relentless focus on building lasting relationships with their passengers.

And it’s evidenced it the tactics they use to drive new subscribers to their “Click ‘N Save” programs. The “Sign Up” call to action is prevalent across their digital channels and it extends into virtually every offline channel you can think of. From television spots to the napkins you find on a Southwest flight. This way, Southwest not only reaches digital consumers, but now with SMS, they can attract consumers in environments of strong brand engagement but with low computer access, like the passengers waiting in line to board a flight.

Part 2: Building the Consumer Journey.

Once you’ve received permission to build on a relationship with a consumer, the next step is to build a communication strategy that drives their journey with you as an eventual repeat customer.

This approach involves mapping the messages you send to align with touch points along each customer’s lifecycle. With the right communication, you can drive them through initial engagement, through the conversion process, and then build loyalty in order to drive the next purchase. In this section of the guide, we’ll step you through specific techniques you can use to make these journeys a reality

The Consumer Journey.

Melissa is into fashion. She spends most of her free time checking out the latest trends so she can stay on the cutting edge. While shopping downtown, she sees a billboard for the retailer Jaxon, advertising their new line of shoes with a call to action that says, “text SAVE15 to 12345 to get 15% off.”

Building engagement.

The customer relationship begins the moment a person grants you permission to communicate. When they say “Yes!” it’s time to start building engagement. In this stage you’ll want to use mobile messages to drive awareness, build interest, and communicate additional information about your product or service in order to move each consumer closer to converting.

Here are some easy mobile campaigns that you can use to move consumers through the Engagement phase:

Welcome Programs: Once you get permission, it’s time to engage your subscribers with a series of introductory messages that welcome them to your brand and move them towards product consideration and purchase. This is a great opportunity to combine mobile messaging with other digital channels like email and display.

Information Requests: Allow customers to send you a text message with certain keywords to tell you what products they would like to learn more about. For example, when a customer texts you “SHOES”, you can send them the catalog for your new fall line, either via a shortened URL in a text message, or via email or print.

Voting: Allow customers to have input into their favorite brands or products. For example, have customers text in their input for which product should go on sale next. Now that you know their preferences, you can be that much more targeted with your next communication.

Contests and Sweepstakes: This is a great way to spark engagement and viral sharing by inviting consumers to enter sweepstakes or contests with a simple text message. For example, hold a trivia contest where consumers can text in the year your business was founded to win a discount on their next purchase.

Event Alerts: Offer consumers a countdown to special events and keep them engaged with your activities and live promotions. “3 More Days to the Big Summer Sale!”

New Product Releases: Consumers who sign up for your SMS alerts are your biggest fans. An alert program can give these brand ambassadors early notice of your next product launch and allow them to amplify your message.

Driving conversion

For today’s consumers, mobile devices have become a vital tool in the purchase process.

• 74% of smartphone owners use the device for shopping
• Nearly 80% of those shoppers will purchase
• 90% of mobile searches lead to action
• More than 50% of those actions lead to purchase

It’s important to get the right message out to those who are at this critical point in their consumer journey. With it’s “always on” and “always nearby” nature, mobile has the unique ability to convert purchasers in real-time.

Here are some great techniques you can use to make it happen:

Store Locator: The great thing about mobile is that you can use it to bridge the gap between the digital world and the world of bricks and mortar. Help customers to find your closest store by texting in their location.

Limited-time and Exclusive Offers: Provide customers with special discounts or promotions to encourage sales. This is a great way to take advantage of the real-time nature of the mobile channel. Remember, most SMS messages are read within 3 minutes of receipt.

Item Back-in-stock Notices: Alert your customer to product status changes for items of interest. For example, if you ran out of a particular shoe size, text your interested customers that you’ve got the size 7’s back in stock. Couple this with a store locator for even better results.

Text for Callback: If you’re providing telesales, rather than have customers sitting on hold, have them text in their phone number to have a representative call them back at a convenient time.

Creating loyalty.

A sales transaction is not an end – it’s a new beginning. With a relationship-first approach, you should be thinking about how to deliver a great experience postpurchase, as well as how to strengthen the relationship and continue to drive additional engagement. Here are some great ways to use mobile to make it happen:

Shipping and Delivery Alerts: Keep your customers posted on when their shipment is in transit or when it arrives at their doorstep. Mobile messages are a great way to deliver this type of real-time information.

Surveys: Ask for feedback on customer service, product selection, or other aspects of the customers’ experience. “How was our service? Text back your rating from 1-5.” Use this information to refine your marketing and gather conversion-boosting product reviews and testimonials.

Text for Customer Care: Don’t make a new customer sit on hold waiting for a customer service agent. Instead, let them text in “HELP” and have someone call them back when the time is right.

Warnings: When things go wrong, mobile is a great way to deliver real-time updates. Use SMS to alert subscribers to low balances, or suspicious activity on their accounts, or product recalls.

Re-permission and Win-Back: If you’ve got customers who have stopped engaging with you online and are skipping over your emails, mobile messages are a great tool to notify them of a special offer waiting for them in their inboxes.

Building a conversation.

Conversations don’t start and end with a single message. In order to drive real customer engagement in the mobile channel, you’ll want to think not only about how to send one-off SMS messages, but also how to deliver a series of triggered mobile responses based on customer behavior and replies.

#Interact for Mobile makes it easy for marketers to design sophisticated mobile campaigns that evolve over time and are unique to every customer. Send a message, wait for a reply, and deliver a specific response. And there’s no limit to where you take these conversations. Keep them short and simple or get more sophisticated as you learn what works. It’s an amazing way to drive engagement, conversion, and loyalty. And there’s no limit to where you can take these conversations.

Great mobile marketing in action.

Responsys customers are dreaming up great ways to use mobile to build lasting relationships with their customers. What’s the next campaign that you’ll launch?

Motorcycles

For the world famous Sturgis motorcycle rally, enthusiasts can text in the word “STURGIS” to receive updates and offers leading up to the event through both the email and mobile channels.

Airline

To keep frequent flyers up-to-date on their status, they can sign up to receive a link texted to their phones once a month that will take them directly to their mileage account balance.

Insurance

To move customers through the application process, they can text in “HELP” and receive a unique 800 number to dial depending on where they are in the application process.

Retail

Consumers can text in different keywords to help the retailer know which stores they frequent and what products they care about. For example, West Coast shoppers text in “SAVE01” while East Coast shoppers send “SAVE02”.

Healthcare

Patients receive SMS reminders 1 month before appointments as well as 3 days before appointments. They can text back “Yes” to confirm or “No” to cancel. They’ll also be able to rate their visit when they’re finished by texting back a score of 1-5.

Putting it all together.

Once you’ve come up with a few great campaign ideas for capturing permission, building engagement, driving conversion, and creating loyalty, the next step is to plan your customer journey. There’s really no limit to the directions you can take your journeys, as long as you approach them from a relationship-first perspective. Here are a few examples to get you started.

The Retail Journey.

Melissa is into fashion. She spends most of her free time checking out the latest trends so she can stay on the cutting edge. While shopping downtown, she sees a billboard for the retailer Jaxon, advertising their new line of shoes with a call to action that says, “text SAVE15 to 12345 to get 15% off.”

The Travel Journey.

As a regional account executive Matthew finds himself on the road each week. He has Gold Member status with his favorite airline, and has opted in to receive email communications like deal alerts and flight updates. In this week’s email, he sees a call to action to text “alerts” to get real-time SMS updates from them when he’s on the road.

The Finance Journey

Heather and her husband have been saving for years, and they’re finally ready to take the plunge and purchase a family home. While waiting in line at her local bank, she sees a sign, “text RATE30 to 12345 to be alerted to changes in the 30 year fixed mortgage rates.”

Going beyond SMS.

Mobile marketing doesn’t end with a well-timed text message. In fact, smart marketers are using mobile to enhance the performance of all of their digital marketing strategies. And they’re also accounting for all of the ways that other channels are fundamentally changing as a result of the mobile explosion.

Omni-channel orchestration.

With the Responsys Interact platform, marketers are able to apply relationship-first principles to marketing programs that span email, social, display, the web, and of course mobile channels. So not only do you get mobile as a great new stand-alone weapon in your marketing arsenal, but it’s a fantastic tool to help enhance the effectiveness across the board.

For example, for customers who you find aren’t clicking on your emails as much as they used to, you can use an SMS message to bring them back into the fold. Or if you’re promoting your big fall sale via email and display advertising, be sure to orchestrate an SMS reminder the day before it begins to push attendance over the edge.

Mobile email.

Roughly 40% of emails in the U.S. are opened on a mobile device , and this trend is only going in one direction. Unfortunately, the consumer’s email experience on mobile is often plagued by outdated designs and frustrating layouts.

In the mobile world, you’ve got to be sure to design communications that look just as amazing on the smartphone as they do on a tablet or a desktop.

Responsys has worked with some of the world’s biggest brands to optimize their email programs for the mobile world. Whether you want to start easy by optimizing email design for different devices, or get sophisticated with responsive email design, our creative and technical pros are here to help.

Mobile advertising.

With a seemingly infinite number of apps, sites and networks, not to mention devices and screen resolutions, advertising to today’s mobile consumer is a complex, yet essential part of any marketing mix. Ask Responsys about our mobile advertising network and partners, including current inventory and customer targeting capabilities via Facebook.

Mobile number validation.

In the mobile channel, gaining permission from your customers is the first step towards launching a successful relationship marketing strategy. Unfortunately, most marketers have hundreds of thousands if not millions of phone numbers in their customer databases, yet no way of determining which of these are mobile numbers. And even if you could distinguish between mobile and landline numbers, how would you gain permission to communicate with these customers?

But with the Responsys mobile number validation service, we can help you:

• Analyze the phone numbers you already have to sort out the mobile numbers.
• Target these customers through traditional channels such as email, direct mail, and web, and incentivize them to opt-in on their mobile devices.
• Send customers with known mobile numbers a special opt-in SMS, free to them, which provides a strong call-to-action and an easy path to opting-in.

Rapidly building and growing a sizable, addressable mobile audience is an imperative for success as a relationship-first marketer. Starting with the assets you already have on hand is a great way to jump start on this new channel.