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Consumers, Marketers Adapt to Mobile At Different Speeds: Survey
(Chief Marketer Via Acquire Media NewsEdge)
By Richard H. Levey
Consumers use smartphones to supplement, not supplant, other
devices for shopping, and marketers' use of mobile-enabled
campaigns is lagging consumer adoption of the devices, according to
a survey from Google and
the Mobile Marketing
Association.
Mobile Usage on the Rise
Smartphones mobile phones that offer advanced, often
PC-like functions or the ability to download apps are used by
31% of American consumers. Among four other countries surveyed, the
United States is trailed by citizens of United Kingdom (30%) and
those in France (27%) Germany (18%) and Japan (6%).
Owen
Charlebois, Google's global manager, advertising, marketing and
media research, notes that while Japan is "one of the most advanced
mobile countries in the world," the country has "a very high
penetration of advanced-feature phones."
"It's possible that respondents may have confused the two and
underreported their smartphones," he says.
Globally, 80% of consumers have used computers to access the Web
within the previous seven days. Sixty percent used their mobile
devices to do so, according to the survey.
Use of both channels to go online is only going to keep chugging
along: Across the board, 90% consumers expect their smartphone and
computer usage to either hold steady or grow during the next 12
months, with 25% anticipating an increase.
Search engines constitute a daily touchpoint for consumers, with
53% of American consumers using their smartphones to access them at
least once a day. Consumers are also using apps on their phones.
Within the U.S., they've installed an average of 23 on their
phones–and paid for five of those. But installation does not
equal use: During the 30 days prior to being surveyed, they've used
only 10 of them.
Getting Social Via Mobile
What consumers are doing online is interacting on social
networks. In the U.S., 78% frequently use their smartphones for
this purpose, not far from the 87% of consumers who use their
computers to do so. Among citizens from the five countries
surveyed, Americans report the highest incidence of social network
interaction via their phones.
U.S consumers also use their smartphones to obtain local
information, with 90% doing so a level matched only by
Japanese consumers, and trailed by those in Germany (85%), France
(83%) and the U.K. (81%). And U.S. consumers don't just look up
information: 87% take some sort of action after obtaining it, such
as visiting a business, calling a business or service, visiting the
Web site of a business, looking up a business's location through
mapping programs or making a purchase.
Mobile, Charlebois notes, is emerging as a purchase channel.
Twenty-nine percent of U.S. consumers have made a purchase via
their mobile devices, second only to the 45% of Japanese consumers
who have done so.
Among the Americans who have not made a purchase via their
phones, 65% say they prefer using a PC or laptop, while 37% feel
the transactions aren't secure. Another 12% cite the purchase
process being too complicated as a barrier.
These reasons mirror those given by consumers a few years ago
when discussing their resistance to making purchases from their
computers, says Charlebois, who believes consumer resistance will
diminish over time.
What Marketers Need to Do
Marketers have some work to do in getting ready for consumers, once
those resistances drop. Often their practices lag their stated
desire to make purchasing easier for their customers or so it
seems. Unlike the consumer study, the data on the merchants' side
was obtained from a comparatively small sample and should be
treated as directional, Charlebois cautions.
For example, 33% of U.S. merchants surveyed report having sites
optimized for mobile, a figure "higher than other data we have seen
at Google, suggesting that some…may think they have an
optimized mobile Web site when in fact they don't," Charlebois
says.
Marketers also acknowledge the value of having an app: Those
that do say they help with client communication, lead generation
and creation of new business models for new revenue sources. For
all that, only 19% of American advertisers have an app, according
to the survey.
However, marketers see the value in apps, with 78% saying they
consider them a worthwhile investment because increasing number of
consumers have smartphones. Another 61% like the ability to target
certain demographics based on devices, and 42% cite the attractive
ad formats the devices host.
So what's keeping marketers from making these investments?
Again, Charlebois cautions that these findings are direction based
on a small sample size. That said, of those answering, 55% cite a
limited advertising budget, while another 48% mention not having a
mobile optimized Web site. A similar amount (46%) are unsure of how
mobile advertising can work for their businesses, and 41% aren't
certain about the ROI.
Integration and Interaction
Of those U.S. marketers with mobile strategies, 28% say their
mobile activities are closely aligned with other marketing, while
another 29% say these activities are "somewhat" aligned.
Marketing is a matter of timing, and mobile marketers seem to
believe the earlier in the process they can start interacting with
shoppers the better. Sixty-five percent of those with mobile
strategies target consumers during the research phase, right at the
start of the shopping process. Another 48% also do so during the
comparison phase, and another 45% target prospects right at the
purchase phase.
For all this targeting, few marketers quantify the impact of
mobile marketing on in-store sales. Only 26% of American marketers
do so and that led the pack of the marketers from the five
countries surveyed. Sixteen percent of German and Japanese
marketers quantify mobile marketing's impact, while only 8% of
French and 7% of U.K. marketers do so.
While businesses seem to be lagging consumers in terms of use
and support of mobile channels, the barriers to further growth in
mobile marketing appear to be easily addressed, Charlebois
concludes.
"While the mobile revolution is moving at different speeds
across the globe, it is evident everywhere."
© 2011 Penton Media
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