In this digital age the transition to mobile technology has led to more retailer using innovative ways for their customers to feel their presence.

Recently there has been a trend by Retailers to focus on Push Notification, this tool allows companies to send gentle timely messages to their customer about things that will add value to the customer.

Now Push notification come in a couple of ways the three we identified are:

• Sound
• Badges
• Alerts

Interestingly (Guo, Marston & Chen, 2015) suggest that firms should set a high push frequency in order to service customer who are highly engaged with their brand and will respond to their notifications. Research by (Econsultancy, 2012) further shows that notification uptake has increased by 540% in terms of daily opens and three-times faster response than email.

However, they also found that Push notification can lead to customer segmentation with their study finding consumer groups with low response to notifications belonging to the Pull group (Which we shall discuss in the next article).

Further reports of Push notification also show that it does not only aid with market segmentation but focusing on your target audience in three ways:

User Preferences – By adopting the tool retailer can begin to understand what makes their customers tick. For example, Sky Sports when ever I am interested in the 3:00 football scores send notification of the scores and a bitesize report of the match.

However, to further improve their relationship with me as their customer if they invested in finding each of their customer’s favourite sport by the amount of hits to a sports section on their app this would be a tremendous advantage of their competition.

Geo Detection – Push notification can especially be affective when you know your customers in the area close by in order to entice customers by sending them small incentives business can increase traffic to their app or footfall to their shop with all customer especially looking to manage their time efficiently.

(Econsultancy, 2012) Other have suggested that push notifications is a great opportunity for marketers because similar to email marketing it allows retailer to be on the front foot when communicating with their customer base. However, there are differences because the customer has to give the app permission.

None the less opportunity is great because retailers when given that permission is able to take advantage of 24/7 relationship and unlike email marketing on desktop the push notification is able to attract their customer during “me time” which is when that people are now most engaged with their phone.

BEWARE OF THE SPAM

The golden rule of Push Notification is that retailers should not go overboard with their notification, on the previous platform of the dot.com era spam wrecked many marketer’s abilities to establish a good CRM (Customer Relationship Management) relationship with potential customer. In this new era of U-CRM (Ubiquitous Customer Relationship Management) it is of great importance not to antagonise the customer with notifications unless they can add value to them (H. Y. Liu, 2007).

Research from a study especially highlighted that while seven in 10 have enabled push notification a large majority also said they would delete immediately

Further factors that the study warned retailer of is that in order to elicit loyalty they should Tailor their messages by crating conversations that enable them to know their customer preferences, and also send notification at appropriate times to how courtesy to their customers. Finally, they should not waste time just posting basic adverts but use creative methods to really draw in their customers

Alternatively, the (Healy, 2014) also highlight how push system will engage users and give insight into customer’s behaviours. With this new tool companies can establish what time their customer are more likely to see their notices and be responsive and what service can tempt them to buy their products research shows 20% of companies now use mobile push notification (Econsultansy, 2014).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F3x7xF4UneQ

The Social media platform has changed the way companies market and engage with customers by allowing constant communication. The aim of this article is to critique the strategies that other companies have ran on social media and suggest useful tactics that Businesses could incorporate and try to innovate.

(Vahl, 2014) identifies ten marketing strategies that have been successful of Facebook, one of the strategies by Qatar Airways posts about American football which they have identified is what the customers are interested in.  The benefits of using this strategy is the business is able to change the basic relationship that they share with their customers, which is about the transaction. By using this strategy, it makes the relationship more complex so that the customer will be more prone to brand loyalty. This strategy also allows the company to be a foundation where customers can come as a community and discuss interests such as football.

Another effective Marketing campaign that has proved successful on Facebook is running a competition for customers, it brings in high engagement and companies who add stipulations such as downloading the app receive a deal and register for the competition find that they are able to attract and retain more quality customers (Vahl, 2014).

The common theme when looking at these examples is that they all regard adding value to the customer as the most important factor when marketing on social media all of the strategies aim to make their impression on the customer by trying to bring out an emotional response from their customers which enhances customer engagement (Zheng et al, 2015).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es-6Qzooy2I

One model that can be applied to the creating a successful Facebook Marketing Campaign is (Zheng et al, 2015) User Engagement Model. They argue eight hypotheses that lead to brand loyalty, they state that User participation in online brand communities in SNSs (Social Networking Sites) is positively associated with online community commitment. Also User promotion in online brand communities in SNSs is positively associated with online community commitment. Theses statements have both been supported by (Vahl, 2014) in their examples of successful marketing strategies with cases like Qatar Airways.

Aside from this, (Building Social Proof, 2016) suggest that businesses must also make sure of three things when devising a marketing strategy on Facebook:

• Firstly, that businesses have picked the right target audience, precise marketing to customer will serve a business better than general marketing techniques options like Facebooks look alike audience serve to collect potential customers similar to the business website audience.
• Secondly not using Conversion Pixels which helps as a performance insight into conversion rate of customers

(Facebook, 2016)

• Finally, not using the reports to its full potential businesses should understand what number of their target markets are responsive to the posts and what are the cost per conversion and the click rates.

However, there are limitations in creating and managing social media marketing campaign as addressed by (Digital Marketing Philippines, 2016) (Sharma, 2013) who highlight the threats of negative comments that can damage the businesses reputation with the negativity trending on Social Media if many customers become disillusioned with the company. A further problem that could be encountered is the time spent on social media and how a business judges its return on capital from social media because having a high number of followers does not necessarily convert to high sales volume (Gray, 2016).

Despite having some limitation marketing on Social Media is beneficial because if businesses are able to keep in mind adding value to their customer by means of utilising strategies such as competitions eye catching visuals and displaying genuine interest in topics that the customers are interested in then their reputation and credibility on social media will expand.

References

Youtube.com (2016) “How To Market On Facebook | Exactly How To Take Over Facebook For Your Business!” [online] available at  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Es-6Qzooy2I [accessed on 21^st April 2016]

Zheng, X., Cheung, C.M.K., Lee, M.K.O. & Liang, L. 2015, “Building brand loyalty through user engagement in online brand communities in social networking sites”, Information Technology & People [online] available at  http://www.emeraldinsight.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/doi/pdfplus/10.1108/ITP-08-2013-0144 [accessed on 22nd April 2016]

Vahl, A. (2014) “10 Successful Facebook Marketing Examples” [online] available at  http://www.socialmediaexaminer.com/10-successful-facebook-marketing-examples/[accessed on 19^th April]

Lommer, J. (2013) “14 Steps to Succeeding at Facebook Marketing”[online] available at http://www.jonloomer.com/2013/11/07/facebook-marketing-success/ [accessed on 17^th April 2016]

Bulygo, Z. (2016)” Facebook Marketing: A Comprehensive Guide for Beginners” [online] available at https://blog.kissmetrics.com/facebook-marketing/[accessed on 17^th April 2016]

Baker, D. (2016) “What Role Should Facebook Play in Your Marketing?” [online] available at  https://contently.com/strategist/2016/01/04/what-role-should-facebook-play-in-your-marketing/ [accessed on 20th April 2016

Sharma, P. (2013) “Disadvantages of Social Media Marketing” [online] available at  http://www.wisitech.com/blog/social-media-marketing-tool/ [accessed on 20th April 2016

Seiter, C. (2015) “What Should I Post On Facebook, 12 Facebook Tactics Working Right Now” [online] accessed on (https://blog.bufferapp.com/post-facebook-12-facebook-tactics-working-right-now [accessed on 12th April 2016]

Digital Marketing Philippines (2016) “The Pros and Cons of Social Media Marketing for Business” [online] available at http://digitalmarketingphilippines.com/the-pros-and-cons-of-social-media-marketing-for-business/ [accessed on 24th April 2016]

Gray, A. I. (2016) “4 Reasons Why You Should Not Buy Followers” [online] available at   http://iag.me/socialmedia/4-reasons-why-you-should-not-buy-followers/ [accessed on 23th April 2016]

Facebook (2016) “Facebook for Business” [online] available at https://www.facebook.com/business/help/952192354843755 [accessed on 23th April 2016]

Youtube (2016) 3 Biggest Facebook Advertising Mistakes – Facebook advertising tips and strategies [online] available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpyvKo3f6Ec [accessed on 23th April 2016]

Building Social Proof (2016) [online] available at http://www.buildingsocialproof.com/blog/ [accessed on 23th April 2016]

Various businesses in different industries have begun including the mobile applications to their digital platforms. In this blog I will be discussing the risks that businesses face when adopting and implementing this new digital channel.

Firstly, wireless networks can be hacked much more easily on a mobile than a desktop because mobile apps do not properly encrypt information like websites therefore the threat of hackers increases when going online on your phone especially if the network is not secure (Wise Bread 2015). Business such as IBM I.T. Security, Lookout and Norton Security are constantly developing the technology to deal with this problem.

Another risk of mobile apps to customers and businesses is that our phones are constantly on whereas with the desktop at night they are generally shutdown. Furthermore, poor reception on a phone can also lead to a customer’s phone being breached by hackers. According to recent report from Lookout mobile security, the malware encounter rate in the U.S. is at 7% and estimates indicate that more than 6 million Android devices are affected by malware. (Drolet 2016). (Information Management 2015) further supports these claims stating that 16 million devices were infected, an increase of 25% over the previous year.

Now in what ways does security of data affect the relationship between a business and a customer, research carried out by (Poneman Institute 2014) reveals that reputation and the loss of customer loyalty does the most damage to a business because companies must spend heavily to rebuild and regain their brand image and customer base.

Other risks that companies face when venturing into mobile apps are their customer’s phones being stolen or lost and then hacked into this could damage the relationship between company and customer because information shared via mobile is personal. Another risk for companies is malicious apps that allow unauthorised SMS messages, dialling or payments this could seriously damage the reputation of a business if their app is using personal information without the authorisation of the customer. (Information Management 2015) states that not enough is being spent on mobile app security according to the report, an average of $34 million is spent annually to develop mobile apps, but only 5.5%, or $2 million, is allocated to their security.

Why is it important to consider these risk?

One reason why it’s important to take a measured approach when implementing the transition into mobile apps is because the businesses reputation is at risk. (Helgesen 2008) came up with this hypothesis “H1: Students’ perception of the reputation of the university college is positively related to student loyalty.” When applying the message of this quote to this context, businesses are going into mobile apps without regarding how customers perceive your app in terms of security. Therefore, it is important that businesses make sure that their customers are safe when using their app otherwise customer loyalty will be damaged. Furthermore, trust on other platforms or aspects of your business and it services will be questioned thus damaging your reputation.

Final point many customers that use apps check out the reviews of the apps on the IOS and Android market therefore its quite easy to gain a negative reputation on this new platform.

Drolet, M. (2016). Are mobile apps putting your data at risk?. [online] Network World. Available at: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2879306/mobile-security/are-mobile-apps-putting-your-data-at-risk.html [Accessed 1 Feb. 2016].

Poneman Institute (2014) Ponemon Institute Releases 2014 Cost of Data Breach Global Analysis [online] available at http://www.ponemon.org/blog/ponemon-institute-releases-2014-cost-of-data-breach-global-analysis [accessed on 30th Jan 2016]

Upfront, (2015) Unsecured Mobile Apps Are Putting Organizations at Risk [online] available at http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=833edb5a-e9e9-4834-9cb5-c8f70b49f532%40sessionmgr113&vid=1&hid=101 [accessed on 30^th Jan 2016]

Helgesen, O. (2008) Marketing for Higher Education: A Relationship Marketing Approach Journal for Marketing for Higher Education [online] available at  http://www.tandfonline.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/doi/pdf/10.1080/08841240802100188 [accessed on 27^th Jan 2016]

Wise Bread, (2015) 5 Dangers of Mobile Banking and how to avoid them [online] Available at http://www.wisebread.com/5-dangers-of-mobile-banking-and-how-to-avoid-them [accessed on 1st Feb 2016]

When I was researching the mobile and social media presence of banks in the UK I was especially impressed by the way Barclays had adapted to the new digital platform.

Why I believe Barclays has done so well is because they have clearly set out their digital channel strategy by successfully paying attention to these six points highlighted by (Econsultancy 2008)

(Econsultancy 2008) Managing digital channels

1. Digital channel strategy;

.2. Online customer acquisition;

3. Online customer conversion and customer experience;
4. Customer development and growth;
5. Cross-channel Integration and brand development;
6. Digital channel governance, including change management

In 2015, Mobile banking has seen a surge in customers and Barclays who decided to scale down its operations in investment banking changed its focus to high street banking. However, Barclays are not following the traditional ways of interacting with their customers they are instead using the innovations of technology to interact with customers (Information Age 2014).

Evidence shows that Barclays are also reaping the rewards because the bank has seen an increase of 80% in volume and value of unsecured loans through the mobile app last year, furthermore a third of the unsecured personal loans were processed through Barclays digital channels and amounted to £1bn (Financial Times 2015).

Another aspect of managing digital channels that Barclays have excelled at is their online customer conversation and experience. The reviews on the IOS and Android marketplace both have a 4-star ranking which shows to potential customers their app and services are more than satisfactory to their customers. Importantly, (Chaffey 2010) stated that less mature organisations tended to channel their focus onto online customer acquisition and conversion activities, rather than the more profitable initiatives such as drive retention and growth.

After reviewing Barclays cross channel Integration and Brand Development they have managed to also acknowledge that retail banking is changing into the Omnichannel age of banking where there is a seamless transition between platforms and a more integrated experience for their customer (TransformUK 2015). Additionally, this could aid banks in terms of cutting costs by shifting sales away from branches and onto different digital platforms.

When critiquing Barclays on their digital governance and change management they are managing to adapt to the change in technology better than their competitors (TransformUK 2015). This could give them an advantage over there rivals in terms of attracting new customers and younger customers because ideally in the future mobile banking will become the norm with different demographics.

So what can rivals learn from managing digital channels effectively that across all of these activities, it is very important to allocate sufficient resources for managing customer and changes in the market. (Chaffey 2010)

Barclays Bank (2010) Costs and Customers [online] Available at http://www.demographicsusergroup.co.uk/resources/2010conf-Rob_Harris.pdf [Accessed 1st Feb 2016]

Chaffey, D. (2010) Applying organisational capability models to assess the maturity of digital-marketing governance [online] Available at http://web.b.ebscohost.com.ezproxy.brighton.ac.uk/ehost/pdfviewer/pdfviewer?sid=0b42d699-1fe4-4f80-9b63-68f4a63e140e%40sessionmgr120&vid=1&hid=101 [Accessed 25 Jan 2016]

Econsultancy (2008) SAMPLE: Managing Digital Channels [online] available at https://econsultancy.com/…/managing–digital–channels…/1101-econsulta… [Accessed 25 Jan 2016]

Financial Times, (2016) Digital surge at Barclays points to the future of banking – FT.com. [online] Available at: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/110733e4-c1b9-11e48b7400144feab7de.html#axzz3ywKxwUkV  [Accessed 29 Jan 2016].

Information-age.com, (2016) How Barclays is restoring banking trust with innovation | Information Age. [online] Available at: http://www.information-age.com/it-management/strategy-and-innovation/123458397/how-barclays-restoring-banking-trust-innovation [Accessed 26 Jan 2016].

TransformUK.com, (2016) [online] Available at:http://www.transformuk.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/03/Transform-UK-The-Age-of-Omnichannel-Banking-Report.pdf [Accessed 23 Jan. 2016].

YouTube, (2016) Enabling Omnichannel Interaction. [online] Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W6S_WH1WnKs [Accessed 28 Feb. 2016].

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