Mobile Marketing

New Forrester Study Reveals How to Find and Nurture Your Best Customers

John Koetsier

Every brand wants to find and nurture more quality customers — the kind that buy frequently, stay loyal, and are easy to work with.

But how do you accomplish that?

By mastering mobile measurement, according to a March 2018 commissioned study conducted by Forrester Consulting on behalf of TUNE, “Master Mobile Measurement to Transform Customer Relationships.”


Get the full free Forrester study here:
Master Mobile Measurement to Transform Customer Relationships


That might sound extreme — can you really find better customers through mobile measurement — but consider for a moment: Where do customers increasingly spend their time? On digital devices, consuming media.

On what kinds of digital devices? Mobile devices.

“Mobile experiences sit at the heart of consumers’ lives today, and they will only continue to grow,” according to the Forrester study. “Businesses recognize this. And they now place mobile at the core of their overall business strategy.”

In other words, mobile measurement helps you understand how your best customers find you and interact with you, both pre- and post-purchase. That data then shows smart brands what’s working, and gives them the ability to transform their relationship with these customers by doing more of it. And in turn, this also allows them to find more new customers like their best existing ones.

Unfortunately, not all businesses are experts.

For this study, Forrester surveyed 300 mobile and digital marketing decision makers at companies with more than 1,000 employees, and found that most measurement practices are insufficient. In fact … [bctt tweet=”Only 14% of marketers measure #mobile through all phases of the customer journey.” username=”tune”] In addition, when marketers measure mobile, they often do it haphazardly, in siloed buckets like web, app, and social.

As a result, most brands are measuring mobile without reference to the entire customer journey. And the upshot is that they’re only capturing fragments of the full customer journey.

“Marketers struggle to find the right data sources and stitch them together — ultimately hindering their ability to measure and optimize their programs,” according to the Forrester study.

Problems include varying data quality, difficult-to-source data, incomplete analytics, and lack of integration with business systems across the company.

One of the biggest problems, however, is not about data quality, or even lack of data. Instead, it’s about too much data.

From the Forrester study: “Marketers look at too many metrics. The glut of metrics hinders the marketers who are looking to build a mobile-centric strategy. Marketers juggle between three to nine mobile metrics per customer life-cycle phase. Too many metrics can confuse marketers on what’s driving the business value and what they should optimize marketing investments against.”

Marketers who do get it right, however, are rewarded.

[bctt tweet=”Marketing masters, as a new study calls them, employ mobile measurement for the most phases of the customer journey: five or six.” username=”tune”] They’re the most satisfied with their mobile measurement efforts, and report far fewer challenges.

Some examples:

  • 93% of marketing masters are able to connect mobile measurement to business financials.
  • 89% of them can measure the entire customer journey, including all phases on mobile.
  • 87% have little difficulty sourcing data.

The results are clear, and visible in dollars and cents, not just clicks and views.

“Measuring customers across the life cycle increases the likelihood of developing the necessary insights and intelligence to find loyal customers. This allows marketers to foster better customer experiences and engagement, and ultimately retain the most profitable among them,” according to the Forrester study.

That means things like increasing customer loyalty. Boosting customer engagement over the long haul. And improving the customer experience — which, not shockingly, also serves to help retain customers.

Another big win for marketing masters?

They’re the best at proving the ROI of their marketing efforts. In an era where American marketers as a whole think they are wasting 30% of their marketing budgets, that’s a big deal.

Ultimately, mobile measurement mastery is about a mind shift. As stated in the Forrester Consulting study:

But mobile cannot simply be a checkbox. [bctt tweet=”Marketers must master mobile measurement to access insights and better understand how customers engage with brands throughout the customer journey.” username=”tune”]Marketers still struggle to measure, analyze, and optimize mobile programs effectively because mobile data is unruly and customers are hard to track across devices and apps. To truly understand their customers and maximize all of their interactions, marketers must step up their mobile measurement game: Failure to become mobile measurement savvy will leave brands in a reactive state, resulting in customers moving on to their competitors.

The full study is available for free here.

Author
John Koetsier

Before acting as a mobile economist for TUNE, John built the VB Insight research team at VentureBeat and managed teams creating software for partners like Intel and Disney. In addition, he led technical teams, built social sites and mobile apps, and consulted on mobile, social, and IoT. In 2014, he was named to Folio's top 100 of the media industry's "most innovative entrepreneurs and market shaker-uppers." John lives in British Columbia, Canada with his family, where he coaches baseball and hockey, though not at the same time.

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