'There has to be a call-to-action in every communication to the consumer'

In a world that is now led by the most accessible screen, the mobile, brands are still figuring out the secrets of crafting seamless mobile experiences for today’s dynamic consumer. 

From scroll stopping designs to thumb stopping content, every marketer is trying to decode the art of capturing attention and driving engagement in the palms of a consumer’s hand. 

At the Pitch CMO 2023, a panel discussion including Aparna Tadikona, Executive Vice President, Interactive Avenues, Gokuldas K, Director - Marketing, Razorpay, Mohit Rathi, Vice President - Consumer Growth Engagement, Porter, Pranesh Urs, Vice President - Marketing, Ather Energy, Prasanth Naidu, Chief Marketing Officer, moneyview and Rajshekar Baddam Marketing Head, Aha was moderated by Althea Vanderveen, Director - South, Sales, Truecaller where the marketers shed light on how one can master the mobile marketing game and reach out to their audience. 

Truecaller’s Vanderveen set the foundation of the panel discussion by mentioning, “Consumers who are born in the period when the internet became widely available, are highly adapted to the use of the internet for their decision making, even purchasing goods or services.” So, the case in point highlighted by Vanderveen was whether brands are ready to meet the expectations of the modern consumer? and further, is today's modern consumer even a mobile-first one?

Tadikona kickstarted the conversation on whether a modern consumer is essentially a mobile consumer. She said, “There are two things, one is a modern consumer and another is mobile-first one. So, these two words are in themselves interconnected. Looking into our digital ecosystem, when we run a campaign, about 90 percent of digital impressions are received on mobile.”

Brands have mostly cracked the code to ace the mobile marketing game but they aren’t into it full-fledged. The Interactive Avenues’ spokesperson believes that even today a TVC is shot for television but is run in the same format on Youtube and other social media channels. This will not work in the coming times and every platform will require a different format of content. 

Adding to Tadikona, Naidu said, “Earlier law of averages worked for all, where there used to be a consumption TG and the communications were designed in a certain way. Now with the advent of mobile phone and internet penetration, we have come to a point where we need to start de-averaging.” 

Whether it is the kind of content brands create or what they optimise our campaigns for, there has to be personalisation because now the line between brand marketing and performance marketing is getting eliminated slowly. 

He added, “Brands also need to understand that reaching out to the consumer can happen via various channels like sms, e-mail, push notification and more. But, there also has to be a call-to-action in every communication because there is no time to reach out to the consumer and then wait for the ROI.” 

Urs further explained today there 1.2 billion mobile devices out of which 800 million are smartphones. Every year 150 million smartphones are sold in the country and this number excludes pre-owned mobile sets. Hence, this market builds millions of opportunities for every brand. 

But, every category caters to a different TG who is active on a certain form of media. For a scooter brand like Ather, most consumers fall between the 25 to 34 age group and for the very same reason, television becomes an important media for the brand to drive engagement. 

Gokuldas shared his experience at Swiggy and Razorpay has been very different. At Swiggy the conversion optimisation, choosing channels, distributing content, everything revolved around the mobile consumer. But at Razorpay, mostly B2B users have small businesses and they prefer doing KYC or doing other processes on a desktop.

“Hence, it is important to understand the different stages, needs and uses of the consumers. Trying to look after all these and forming the strategy accordingly is key,” added the Razorpay executive. 

Rathi believes that more than the device, the integration among devices, be it mobile or desktop, has to be seamless otherwise the consumer experience hampers and the journey has to be started again. Additionally, the storytelling part has to be strong. All the pieces of the narrative have to be stitched together so well that it builds a cohesive story for the brand. 

Thirdly, how a brand optimises their mobile flows is what matters. And lastly, how they use AI/ML to make the life of the consumer a bit easier impacts the consumer experience positively. 

Taking the discussion towards the regional aspect, Aha’s Baddam highlighted, OTT and entertainment is an experience consumers like on mobile. About 70 per cent of Aha’s consumption happens on mobile today.

He added, “Thanks to affordable and unlimited data access that today everything happens on mobile because the frequency of people using mobile is huge. About 50-60 times a user unlocks their phone and on an average a user is on their mobile for more than 4.5 hours.”

But every brand is trying to capture the consumer in these 4.5 hours of time and that has to happen with customised strategies, amazing mobile user experience. The content consumption too has moved on from horizontal to vertical as well, giving rise to short form video content. That is why Aha is considering mobile to be their prime device for reaching out to the consumer.