We’re excited to see the PR industry embracing mobile marketing. For pros working on layering more mobile aspects into their strategies, today’s guest post from Carolyn Kent, who manages social media and mobile marketing for EXPRESS, offers some helpful tips to get you started.
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Post by: Carolyn Kent
I know just enough about PR to be dangerous. The focus of my career has been in digital marketing (most recently, Social Media and Mobile). I do understand that the discipline of Public Relations encompasses many facets, but the two areas in particular that I can lend a perspective on are blogger outreach and events; specifically, how to adopt a mobile outlook to enhance those strategies.
What comes to mind when you hear “mobile marketing?”
Please don’t say QR codes. (I’m not joking) Mobile is so much more than scannable barcodes, apps or SMS. Those are just tools in your mobile arsenal.
So what is mobile? And why should you care?
Mobile is a mindset. It is a manifestation of customer behavior that has roots in omni-channel experiences. I encourage you to think about mobile not as the outlet or delivery mechanism, but as the essence of the experience – the core of your customer’s interaction with your (client’s) brand.
Consider that most, if not all, social networks are shifting to a mobile-focused delivery of content: 78% of U.S. Facebook users are mobile; and 75% of Twitter users access from mobile. Further to this point, many new social media platforms (lookin’ at you, Snapchat, Vine, Whisper) are entirely mobile. So you see, we don’t have a choice about whether we should care about mobile marketing. Social media and mobile are now inextricably linked, thanks to fundamental shifts in consumer behavior.
When I approach a blogger campaign or branded event and consider the social/mobile layers to my strategy, I find it helpful to remember these inherent traits of mobile:
- Accessibility. 60% of smartphone owners always have their device within arms length*. This represents mobile activation potential for an event or buzz-worthy press occurrence. Encourage your blogger partners, employees, community attendees, etc. to document and share the news with you for a living, breathing collective digital press release. On crack.
- Relevancy. 70% of smartphone owners use their device while pre-shopping and/or shopping*. I’d venture to guess that an even higher percentage of live event attendees use their device while in the moment (see: Unveiling of Pope Francis). Deliver real-time relevancy across multiple touch points to enhance the experience (as a cool example, check out this “pay with a selfie” campaign from Urban Hilton Weiner).
- Personalization. Mobile provides a vehicle to deliver personalized content and experiences; from dynamic-data SMS to iBeacons in retail stores. Imagine this: a blogger or industry SME enters your event, they receive a customized text – “Welcome, Sarah! Excited you made it to BLOGGER CONFERENCE. Come check in at the registration desk & don’t forget to kick off the day with a selfie using #SelfieHashtag.”
Social media and PR – by their real-time nature and frequency of interaction – are inherently mobile.
When planning your PR efforts, I challenge you to think about the mobile manifestation first. In particular, how you can share or seed “bite-sized” content that contributes to a larger, more holistic narrative and that can be shared seamlessly.
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Additional reading, for the super nerdy
The Branding Potential Behind Some of Mobile Messaging’s Big Players
*Nielsen Mobile Consumer Report, 2013.
Carolyn Kent manages the Social Media and Mobile Marketing for EXPRESS. She is also involved with the Creative and Marketing teams for SNAP! Performance Productions. In her spare time, she enjoys cooking, running, singing and plotting to launch her food truck business. Connect with her on Twitter @CarolynLKent.
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Photo credit: Daniel Go, via Flickr Creative Commons