This mindset shift has changed user expectations & behaviors around mobile devices, leaving many digital marketers playing catch-up. Surely your organization is moving quickly to optimize your mobile strategy; but beware! The following Mobile Marketing Pitfalls may trip you up along the way:

1. Not Understanding Your Competition
   End users interact with your brand differently on mobile devices than they do on desktops. The difference is context. Within the context of mobile, you are not only competing with your standard competitors for position in Google rankings, you are competing for the user’s timeshare. That means you are competing with Facebook, Twitter, incoming text messages, and the user’s external environment. Focus your mobile strategy around user engagement to win user’s timeshare. Data enhancement can be a crucial aspect of your engagement strategy to better understand the location and preferences of mobile users.
2. Creating “Digital Marketing Silos”
   Companies have identified the need for a mobile strategy and often responded by creating an internal Mobile Marketing Group – which has a mobile-centric strategy. This can cause a divergence between user experiences for mobile and desktop. It’s critical to have a coordinated strategy across all digital channels; ensuring end users have a consistent and familiar experience wherever they interact with your brand.
3. Creating “m.” Sites
   Some organizations have a mobile version on their site that usually looks like this: m.www.example.com. This is usually a limited, stripped down version of their desktop site. The problem with these sites is they are fixed width – and only optimized for a handful of devices. As new devices are introduced to the market you need to continuously optimize, which takes a tremendous amount of resource and is not scalable. By creating a responsive design website, you can dynamically redisplay content to adhere to each individual’s device type and size. This creates the ultimate 1:1 mobile experience.
4. Native App Development
   If you make the strategic decision to develop a native app for Windows, Andriod or IOS you need to focus your strategy around one thing, and one thing only: usability. This nine letter word is the difference between being #1 in the app store and not making it into the app store at all. Spending millions of development dollars for fancy bells and whistles won’t wow users. You need an app development strategy that has the end user in mind and allows them to complete the tasks that drew them to download your app in the first place.

After reading about these four pitfalls, it should be clear that traditional digital marketing techniques can’t simply be re-applied to your mobile strategy. But by understanding the mobile space, marketers have an opportunity to interact with prospects through a new and powerful channel.

The speed with which public attitudes have shifted towards greater acceptance of LGBT individuals and their causes has left many marketers scrambling to devise plans that are not only inclusive of LGBT consumers, but in many instances, designed to overtly and publically court this influential and growing consumer segment.

The 2013 LGBT consumer report out from Experian Marketing Services delivers insights marketers need to better understand the market that is on everyone’s radar. In this first of a series of blog posts, we’ll highlight key data from the report. Readers can download the full report at any time here.

Living out Loud

In 2006, when Experian Marketing Services first began measuring sexual orientation among respondents to our Simmons® National Consumer Study, we found that 3.4% of all non-Hispanic adults self-identified as either lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered (LGBT), a figure consistent with what leading LGBT researchers predicted at the time. However today, 4.3% of the non-Hispanic adult population self-identifies as LGBT, a figure that has risen slowly but steadily year-after-year.

Younger adults have consistently been more likely to identify as LGBT, and in fact today, 5.8 percent of 18 to 34 year olds say they are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgendered. As a result, the adult LGBT population predictably skews towards the younger age cohorts. Specifically, 36% of LGBT adults today are aged 18 to 34 versus 26% of the heterosexual population in that age range. Likewise, while 20% of heterosexual adults are age 65 and older, just 16% of LGBT adults are in this age range, though our data shows that the share of adults age 65 and older identifying as LGBT has also risen.

Home and Family

As a growing number of U.S. states pass laws recognizing same-sex marriages and civil unions, we see an increasing percentage of gay and lesbian Americans reporting that they are married. In 2007, for example, when only Massachusetts allowed same-sex marriage, 8% of gay men and 14% of lesbian women said they were married. Today, 17% of gay men and 16% of lesbian women are married. Marriage rates among lesbian and gay adults still lag well behind those of heterosexuals, but the gap is closing from both sides. In fact, while marriage rates are rising among lesbians and gays, they’re falling among heterosexuals. Today, 58% of heterosexual men and 53% of heterosexual women are married, compared to 60% of heterosexual men and 55% of heterosexual women who were married in 2007.

The Pink Dollar

Income levels are important to consider when targeting consumers, but more important is determining the amount of money left over for non-essentials after the other bills are paid. Despite earning nearly identical salaries, gay men have lower annual household discretionary expenditures than heterosexual men. Likewise, lesbian households have fewer dollars than those of heterosexual women to spend on non-essentials. This is mostly likely due to the fact that both lesbian and gay adults tend to reside in larger cities where the cost of living can be considerably higher than average.

Interestingly, when household size is brought into the equation, we see that gay males actually have higher discretionary spending per capita than heterosexual men. In fact, gay men live in households that devote $6,794 per capita annually to non-essentials, which is $753 more than what heterosexual men spend.

Forthcoming posts from this series will include insights into the automotive and food vertical markets; the mobile habits of LGBT consumers; and an examination of online visitors to LGBT content sites. Don’t want to wait? Download the full report now.

Also, learn more about the Simmons LGBT Consumer Study, the only syndicated, national probability sample survey that measures the lifestyles, attitudes, media habits and brand preferences of the LGBT population giving marketers actionable insights into this powerful consumer segment that can be directly compared with those of heterosexuals.

Learn more about the author, John Fetto

Last year, we posted about the movement towards personalization in Father’s Day gifts, a trend we discovered through Experian Marketing Services’ Hitwise . This year’s data shows that personalization is still an important trend, but less so than it was last year. Gifts.com and PersonalizationMall.com, both sites that specialize in personalized gifts, were the top two websites in Father’s Day search traffic last year. This year, Gifts.com has been replaced in the top spot by Real Simple Magazine, and PersonalizationMall.com is not even featured in the top ten.

Does this mean that people are less creative with their gifts this year? Not necessarily. They may just place higher value on the convenience of finding Father’s Day-specific gift ideas all in one place. All of the top 5 websites in Father’s Day search traffic this year feature “Unique Gift Ideas for Dad” posts on their front pages, a content strategy that is key to successfully gathering search traffic. Real Simple Magazine also unveiled a “Gift Guide” smartphone app during the 2012 holiday season, another piece of content which likely contributed to the brand’s newfound popularity in the gift-giving market. They also appeared on our list of websites for graduation gift searches.

Additionally, Hitwise  identified the top search terms for the season. Not suprisingly, ‘fathers day gifts’ and ‘father’s day gift ideas’ were the top two search terms, with click rates of 12.39% and 6.99% respectively. Other terms that brought high click rates included ‘fathers day gift ideas from kids’ and ‘fathers day homemade gift ideas.’

Learn more about you can improve the effectiveness of your campaigns with insights into customer search behavior and other intelligence about your consumers.

While effective affiliate marketing relies on two groups, the publishers (affiliates) who display advertisements online and the advertisers (merchants) who aim to increase sales for their online shop, incorporating insights from Experian Marketing Services’ Hitwise can strengthen affiliate programs.

I recently worked with Rakuten LinkShare on a webinar which highlights how their affiliate marketing services partnered with Hitwise create a proven package for success by providing valuable and actionable insights to affiliate marketers in understanding and targeting key consumer segments.

Identify sites sending traffic to your category

For our case study, we examined a custom category of Rakuten LinkShare department store clients and compared them with a category of department store non-clients. Using Hitwise, we examined which publisher sites sent traffic to each of the categories in order to identify the best affiliates to partner with. Among the top 20 publisher websites, a number of fashion and style content websites were sources of traffic to LinkShare Department store clients. Fashion and trend focused affiliate sites, namely ShopStyle and Polyvore, pointed to clear fashion editorial interest amongst those who visited LinkShare department store clients.

Consider search terms used to capture consumer interest and intent

Next, we looked at generic terms that sent traffic to affiliate site ShopStyle. Terms included searches for products sold in department stores such as variations of “heels” and “dresses”.  The data indicates that ShopStyle is a good candidate to partner with because it attracted visits from those who are interested in fashion, looking for a deal, and who are likely in-market for specific products.

Monitor effectiveness of affiliate programs and make timely decisions

Hitwise can also be used by marketers to evaluate the effectiveness of their affiliate partnerships. For this example, we were able to show that Rakuten LinkShare affiliates sent a larger share of traffic to department store clients versus non-clients, pointing to a clear benefit from affiliate partnerships.

As affiliate marketing is an increasingly critical channel for marketers, the importance of selecting the best and most relevant publishers is clear. When used in conjunction with affiliate marketing programs, Hitwise enables marketers to understand competitors’ online distribution and sources of traffic, select the best affiliates to partner with, and quantify the return on investment from partnerships.

• Offers in subject lines were present on 37% of Back to School emails and generated 57% of total email revenue.
• Free shipping offers had the best transaction rates and the highest revenue per email.
• Teen apparel interest continued into the school year, especially over Labor Day weekend. Click rates for apparel emails were highest in September, meaning that consumers still engage with apparel emails well into the school year.

View the rest of the Back to School marketing webinar to find further statistics and consumer insights.

New Experian QAS research shows that organizations are operating across an average of 3.6 channels. The most popular channels for interaction are the organization’s website, physical store or branch location, and face-to-face interaction via a sales team.

Unfortunately, many marketers lack the data required to operate across these channels effectively. Respondents in the new survey cited the biggest challenges around engaging in cross-channel marketing are having enough consumer data and having accurate consumer information.

These problems directly relate to the fact that 89 percent of organizations believe their customer and prospect data might be inaccurate in some way. On average, companies thought that 25 percent of their data was inaccurate.

In addition to struggling with cross-channel marketing, many organizations also struggle to execute daily operations and create relevant marketing and loyalty offers because of inaccurate data.

To take advantage of the wealth of information available to marketers today, organizations need to improve data capture and data management practices. To get the most out of information, it needs to be accurate, complete and accessible.

Marketers need to be involved in cross-departmental conversations about:

• Linking customer records
• Improving data capture across channels
• Appending third-party intelligence

By focusing on data quality, marketers will be able to overcome some of the biggest cross-channel challenges and better understand their consumer. Creating a firm foundation in data quality and intelligence will help marketers as channels continue to expand and individuals expect more personalization.

To read more about this research study and review tips for improving data quality across your organizations, download the new Experian QAS white paper ‘Unlock the power of data’.

Not only are moms highly active on social networking sites, they are accessing email and making purchases on many different devices. Between 40 and 50% of moms have purchased apparel, books, and electronics from a tablet. Even mobile phones are growing in popularity. Though only 26% of moms admitted to buying apparel from a smart phone, over 30% said they intend to do so in the future. Optimizing campaigns for different devices is necessary for marketers to reach these moms wherever life takes them-including the office, the grocery store and soccer practice.

To find more insights into the Back to School market, download Experian’s recent back-to-school marketing webinar.

Experian Marketing Services’ VP Marcus Tewksbury has been thinking about this marketing imperative and has a specific point of view on why now is the time for companies to embrace cross-channel integration. You can view his webinar on the topic and read a Q&A that I did with Marcus that was designed to get at key cross-channel marketing issues like:

• The evolution of the brand-to-consumer relationship
• How Big Data has affected the cross-channel marketing imperative
• Ways to move up the Marketing Sophistication Curve
• How cross-channel marketing platforms can impact campaigns
• Why NOW is the time to amp up your cross-channel marketing efforts

Get your top cross-channel marketing questions answered

Consumer searches around graduation tend to fall into two buckets: pre-graduation searches and graduation searches. Typical pre-graduation searches begin in early April, include people planning for graduation parties and feature keywords around party invites, dresses and overall ideas to celebrate the big milestone. As consumers get closer to graduation day, they search on the final touches such as which music to play, the type of cake to serve and, most importantly, gifts.

As graduation dates approach, consumers start searching for gifts, with most searches centered on the type of graduation: pre-school, kindergarten, elementary, high school or college, with college and high school graduation making up the largest percentage of graduation searches.

Interestingly, kindergarten and preschool graduation accounted for 20% of all graduation searches. Naturally, we wanted to know what types of search terms drive traffic when it comes to celebrating this first big milestone in a child’s life. Unlike the overall graduation category, search terms that are specific to younger graduates were mostly focused around parties and simply celebrating the occasion. There were no search terms in the top 10 related to gifts.

Consumers want the graduates in their life to feel special and personalization is a common thread connecting many of the websites receiving search traffic from variations of “graduation gifts.” We also saw websites like Real Simple and Pinterest where consumers were likely looking for ideas for graduation gifts or gifts they could make themselves.

To get a better understanding of the target consumer looking for graduation gifts, we took a look at who was visiting these websites during the 12 weeks ending June 1, 2013. Visitors tended to skew female (52%) and more than of half of all visitors had a household income of less than $60,000 per year. A high concentrations of visitors to these sites can be found in West Virginia, Kentucky and Nevada; Maryland and the District of Columbia have the lowest concentration of graduation gift searchers.

Learn more about how you can identify consumer trends and opportunities to benefit from terms that drive traffic in your industry.

¹http://www.marketingforecast.com/archives/24089

-July is the number one month for Back-to-School email deployment

-Last year, shoppers hunting for deals did more online searches that included the word ‘cheap’

-Email offers with coupons had the highest unique click rate and “%-off” emails had the highest unique open rate

-Office supply searches tend to peak early, while interest in apparel continues after the school year begins once kids can see what everyone else is wearing

To get the full story on Back-to-School 2013, including consumer behavior and email marketing trends, download a recording of the webinar.