Sponsored Feature
brands to build powerful ‘push’ message delivery and analytics capabilities into their existing iOS and Android apps. The platform can deliver rich content, text, and email based on a wide gamut of targeting data, such as geo-fenced location, time of day, and in-app actions. Real-time analytics features also help brands to evaluate the success of their messaging and learn from their experiences. “It starts with analytics,” says Cotney. “Business intelligence is a big industry. We’re entering it from a very specific spot – mobile.” The mBlox proposition is that by analysing consumer behaviour in such detail, a brand can be ahead of their customers’ expectations and deliver messages when they’re in the right frame of mind to receive them. Cotney gives the example of a local chain of hardware stores. “Our tool would let you draw a two-mile radius around that store and send local consumers a push message that says ‘at the local hardware store, we’re thinking about you, and we appreciate your loyalty’,” he says. “And if people are opening those messages on Friday nights after work, then you’re communicating with people when they’re lining up what they’re going to do with their time over the weekend.” This insight into a potential customer’s lifestyle creates a relationship between them and the brand, but Cotney says that respecting privacy is essential if a brand wants to convert messaging into sales. “I have to know you to send you something in context,” he says. “But I can’t be creepy about it. The communication needs to come across like: ‘We have a special bond, you shared some insight with me, now I can anticipate your needs’, not: ‘I know what you’re doing and I’m watching you’. “There’s context in both examples, but there’s more respect for privacy in the first one. The message from the brand is: ‘I won’t waste your time and I’ll be more respectful of how I interact with you because I’ve invested in knowing you’.” mBlox aims to give its clients the ability to interpret behaviour, so they can then create opportunities to communicate something that is interesting to the consumer and commercially successful for the brand. Since these messages are being delivered
BUSINESS MODELS
through mobile apps, the idea that messaging and the application itself is useful to the consumer is key. The applications market is busy and getting apps downloaded onto phones and in use can be a challenge. The answer, according to mBlox, is to provide an app that is useful to the user – and then to market it based on its usefulness.
App relationships “I fly in and out of Atlanta frequently and I get a lot of email from Delta about their mobile app,” says Cotney. “Messages calling on me to download and use it. Messages that inform me it has been updated and has new functionality. Now my relationship with that airline is centred around this app because it’s providing a great customer experience. As a result, my loyalty to their brand is stronger than it’s ever been.” And while the app market has proved challenging for many brands, Cotney draws parallels with the early days of internet services. “How did we grow up in our use of the web?” he says. “How do you discover that you can do something online? It’s through some sort of promotion. In the early days, it was about the push to go paperless, to ‘go green’!” “They were communicating a value proposition about the web that’s good for both parties, and that’s one thing that absolutely ports from call centres to the web and then to mobile.” Now brands are realising great customer experiences can be their greatest point of differentiation that translate across channels. Done well, especially on mobile, these experiences can deepen relationships and increase loyalty. mBlox also deals in SMS marketing, and Cotney urges brands to explore the relationship between SMS marketing and push messaging in their market. “Brands need to experiment with these channels,” he says. “Learn what their style is and what – given the industry they’re operating within – is going to work best for their business and the expectations about entities in that business.
‘Now brands are realising great customer experiences across all channels, including mobile, can be their greatest differentiation’ Tom Cotney, CEO, mBlox “An app gives customers a more sophisticated window into an organisation’s capabilities. Push is a good thing to have on top of SMS capability. Consumers have different expectations for different industries, and brands need to get aggressive about learning what works for them.” Ultimately, a mobile strategy should take advantage of mobile’s unique connection with consumers. “You just have to travel the world a little bit to see the relationship that people have with their phones!” says Cotney. The golden rules are to make sure messaging has a value proposition for the consumer, and to use it to build a relationship with the consumer. “The industry is going to make it easier to use the mobile channel,” says Cotney. “At mBlox, we are certainly dedicating ourselves and our resources to that. We want to make it easier to integrate and easier to get data, so you can understand how to get a better return from your mobile marketing investment.” MM
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