Why Personalization Matters On Mobile

Today Swrve announced the availability of our personalization engine - delivering more power than ever before to mobile marketers who want to do what ALL marketers ultimately want to do: deliver truly targeted, relevant campaigns to their users.

This isn’t intended to be a product pitch (you can find that right here) but instead I wanted to reflect on why personalization across so many different aspects of the consumer profile matters so much on mobile.

We have gotten used to the smartphone quickly. Sometimes we forget that as a technology, it is a mere ten years old. Why is that relevant? Because I firmly believe that we’ve really only scratched the service when it comes to the way that this device will change our lives. Take games for example. That vertical has completely remodelled the relationship with the consumer - and all thanks to the potential of the smartphone. You can be sure others will follow.

The Post-Broadcast World

One way in which mobile (and indeed other technologies - see the new Apple TV announcement) have changed the game for marketers is by ending what we might call the ‘broadcast’ view of marketing.

To state the obvious example, try asking anyone under 18 ‘what’s on TV tonight?’. They will look at you as if you have two heads. That concept of the way entertainment is consumed is dead. Consumers, and mobile users in particular, are now used to calling up services and content on demand. And that means marketers have to find smart new ways to fit into that model.

Why Personalization Matters

The way to do this shouldn’t come as any surprise: relevance and helpfulness. Brands still want to speak to consumers. And they still want to build relationships with them because those relationships are at the heart of successful business. But in the post-broadcast world, and the mobile world in particular, they are going to have to start changing the way they go about doing it.

And what’s the single best way to deliver awesome, relevant conversations? Listening. Just as our collective experience with an individual informs what we say to them in real life, so marketing conversations need to build on the same type of data. And in this digital age, we are lucky enough to have it.

Listening, which in this context means collecting billions of data points about every aspect of mobile behavior, enables us to deliver truly relevant, helpful, personalized mobile experiences.

Ones that treat each user as an individual, include content relevant specifically to them, and delivered at a time that is right for the user. In the right language, with creative that works, and that most specifically speak to what we can consider to be a real need at the time.

In this context, brands take their place on the ‘personal digital assistant’ that is the modern smartphone in a way that helps the user, and helps them as an individual. That is the source of smart mobile marketing, building successful relationships with the consumer, and ultimately leading to overall success on the mobile platform.

If you're interested in that kind of success, drop us a line at sales@swrve.com