Following the biggest year ever for consumer activity via the mobile channel, an underwhelming number of exec level marketers understand the necessity of keeping pace with the rapidly evolving consumer preferences for mobile engagement, according to MobileBridge’s first edition of its Mobile Marketing Trends Report.

“The fluidity and omnipresent change in the way consumers engage with a brand via mobile presents obvious challenges to marketers in today’s business landscape,” said MobileBridge CEO, Eyal Oster. “While it is clear marketers are only beginning to scratch the surface in creating truly engaging mobile experiences for consumers, expediting this learning curve is crucial for organizations to thrive in the present market.”

MobileBridge surveyed professionals in various marketing and management roles from a range of organizational sizes, industries, and global regions for the first edition of its Mobile Marketing Trends Report. Key findings included:

Digital Transformation: Top initiatives for respondents included:

• Building a responsive website - 59%
• Building a new mobile app - 54%
  • Surprisingly, only 35% included revamping or updating existing app.
  • With 57% declaring to already have a mobile app, this presents an obvious missed opportunity by not investing in enhancing an existing app to leverage work and assets already in place.

Who’s Responsible for What: Marketers are increasingly responsible for a company’s mobile strategy:

• 70% responded mobile strategy falls under marketing departments’ responsibilities.
  • 90% stated mobile initiatives designed for existing customers.
  • 40% stated mobile initiatives designed for attracting new prospects.
  • 2% stated mobile initiatives designed for engaging employees.
• Top goals for respondents’ mobile apps include:
  • Engage customers – 84%
  • Drive Revenue – 66%
  • Build customer loyalty – 63%
• Companies are investing heavily to achieve these goals:
  • 70% stated budgets will somewhat or significantly increase in 2017.

Defining Success: Which metrics are used to define success of mobile apps?

• Active users – 91%
• Revenue – 56%
• Downloads/installs – 47%

Strategies & Tactics: How are marketers going about mobile customer engagement?

• Push messaging – 88%
• Social media – 72%
• In-app messages – 56%
• Coupons/offers – 28%
• Surveys – 16%
• Games – 6%
  • 59% stated their app engages their customers only somewhat or not at all.
  • 78% stated ability to measure mobile success is merely somewhat or not sufficient at all.

Systems: Increase in number of tools being used to attract and convert prospects to customers:

• Web content management (WCM) – 63%
• Customer relationship management (CRM) – 56%
• e-commerce – 45%
• Marketing automation – 39%

Key takeaways from the survey show marketers have evolved from using mobile just to inform and are now using the channel to interactively engage customers and potential customers. While advanced mobile engagement is still in its infancy, adapting to early lessons and iterating quickly is of great necessity. While data shows there is much work to do in improving advanced customer engagement via mobile, the report shows there are vast opportunities of which organizations can take advantage to achieve mobile success faster and easier than ever.

The 2017 Mobile Marketing Trends Report is available for download now.

About MobileBridge

MobileBridge is driving the next generation of mobile engagement for organizations worldwide. Our leading mobile engagement automation solution improves your mobile channels so you know and engage your customers better by bridging their on-line and offline worlds. Providing marketers the ease and flexibility they need, our cloud-based platform easily integrates with CRM, POS, marketing automation, ecommerce and more to enable true omni-channel marketing. With solutions in proximity marketing, customer engagement, mobile commerce, and customer insights, we help businesses increase customer loyalty, retention, and revenue.

With offices in Boston, Amsterdam, and London, we help companies like Volkswagen, Pirelli, and Burger King fast-track mobile success. For more information, visit www.mobilebridge.com.