Marketing used to be a far more laborious, time-consuming process: weeks for focus groups, months crafting a campaign, photo shoots and contact sheets, building ads without a computer.
Happily, things have changed. Today, a long time is the time between latte and lunch. Now, shifts in marketing messaging can be measured in seconds or minutes... if you're equipped to handle those shifts. Luckier still, your customers are equipped to help you—with their ubiquitous mobile devices.
Smartphones and tablets are changing nearly every aspect of our lives. We've never been more connected... or hard to reach. Never more focused, yet perpetually distracted. Still, never in the history of the world has it been easier for us to share our thoughts, feelings, and opinions—and, for smart marketers, never easier to collect that information.
Harness the Power of Your Consumer's Mobile Device
Your prospects and customers (yes, even a growing percentage of your older ones) are interacting in more and more ways with their mobile devices. They share bad experiences as well as good ones. They snap photos of their recent purchases. They share their whereabouts and their plans. They interact with their tablets and smartphones intuitively—because their mobiles have become a natural and ever-present part of their lives.
Make that natural, electronic extension of their lives a seamless part of interacting with your brand. All you have to do is provide a bit of motivation. Whether you offer a product or service or you produce events or educate classrooms full of people, start thinking of your customers' mobile devices as real-time conduits through which you can collect incredibly valuable feedback.
Five Ways to Tap Into Your Customers' Thinking to Build Your Brand
These methods aren't exclusive to the examples that accompany them. Be creative. Put yourself at the end of your customer's smartphone-wielding arm. You can see your brand as they do. Make it easy for them to use their device to interact with your brand and enlighten your marketing in the process.
1. Use a mobile survey to ask for feedback even as customers are interacting with your brand
Remember, it's now second nature for your customers to pull out their phone to scan a code or enter a short URL to answer a few questions—especially if you give them an incentive. There are no apps to upload, and customers have complete control over the data they provide.
Want to know what customers think of your new formulation? Ask them on the package insert they see when they open it. Want to know what attracted them to your brand and where your competitive edge is? Ask! Want to know how long they've been purchasing your product? Ask! But ask in the moment! Seize the moment of excitement when they have product in hand.
Want new product ideas? Asking your customers used to take weeks and thousands of dollars. With a mobile survey, you'll know both instantly and cost-effectively.
2. Mount a tablet in-store and reward consumers for taking your mobile survey
A modern-looking stand securely housing a tablet computer has a very small footprint and is easy to integrate into your product's area in retail. Create a branded tablet-based survey and engage people in the act of shopping to share their insights. Find out what's important to them. Ask about your display. Ask about intent to buy.
Are you doing a sampling promotion? Don't just give away product, ask recipients to give you a few quick responses in return. Offer everyone who does a coupon or free product or other incentive. Your only costs are the rental fee for the tablet and your actual costs for the incentive—a small, small price to pay to collect real-time consumer feedback from customers actually interacting with your brand in a retail setting.
