Quick Learnings for a Digital Marketer from the recent Mobile Marketing Association [MMA] Forum - India

In the recent MMA summit held at The Leela Ambience Hotel & Residences, Gurgaon, India, mobile was declared as the most personal device to reach out to consumers. This doesn’t come as a surprise as it is evident that the consumers are choosing mobile as a preferred way to connect to the internet which, as a result, increases the importance of a data-driven approach.

As you already know till the time I complete this article, a lot would have changed in the world of Mobile and Digital. Hours of content would have consumed, millions of clicks would have been generated and a lot of data would have been collected. This happens every minute of the hour, every hour of the day, all round the year.

Multiple industry leaders emphasized the importance of and talked about ways to acquire, reach and engage the right consumers through mobile, which was also the theme of the event. It was also pointed out that while the industry talks huge about mobile marketing, only 2% of advertising expenditures are done on it. Nitin Bawankule of Google India said “The most effective way to reach out to the consumer is to target them in time of their need. Every consumer looks for solutions on their mobile devices and strategic advertising is key to catching the consumer at this moment.”

A lot of unique terms came up in the event such as ‘AppDNA’. An AppDNA talks a lot about a user’s choices and preferences. AppDNA is simply the collection of apps on a user’s mobile phone which alone can give insights about the person’s choices and behaviour. Once this is known, it allows for grouping of the user into categories like savvy-shopper, new-mother etc for better targeting and retargeting.

One of the speakers at the MMA summit also mentioned that in India, most of the online activity on ecommerce sites in between 5-6pm and 9-10pm. Contrary to the international behaviour where the peak is between 11am-12pm and 7-9pm.In India, the online activity is not that high during the primetime of 7-9pm, maybe because it is usually reserved for dinner. (Food is an important thing for Indians!). So if you are an ecommerce major, you know when to run your next marketing campaign! This is the power of data!

Most of the businesses are now already ‘mobile capable’, so what is something new that would give them an opportunity to beat the competition?

- In India, most of the media buying will be done programmatically. Real-Time-Bidding is the next big thing. Data plays a big role here.

- The future of Mobile marketing will have to be strictly permission-based. Hence, services like m-Notify [browser based notifications] are gaining ground and provide a great alternative to target and retarget your own customers.

- Location based services will be prominent – Location is the new cookie! - Utility and Social apps are here to stay. Contrary to the world average, Indians spend

most of their In-App time in categories such as Games[Action/Arcade and Casual games emerging as the most popular sub categories] & Personalization Apps.

- Gone are the days of display advertising & CPC/CPM metrics. Native advertising is the new king. Majority of the users prefer native mobile apps to mobile website. Now mobile apps are not feasible for every industry/organisation & hence, here too, a service like browser based notifications can also be leveraged.

For marketers, they have an opportunity which presents them with a first movers advantage for early adopters.

The Indian market is probably where the US was in 2007, maybe even before. Advertisers are definitely excited about RTB and above mentioned services, and I believe more knowledge in these areas would help them to take better decisions and make investments delivering higher results.

Feel free to share your opinions. I am always eager to have discussions related to the mobile and digital world.