Mobile’s “always on” connectedness and highly personal nature makes it a perfect channel for retailers to boost engagement with their customers. That’s why growing numbers of retailers are using it to widen the reach of their marketing campaigns. 

A recent survey by BDO found that 60% of US retailers plan to hold their strategic mobile investments steady this year, while 38% plan to increase those investments. Yet while mobile campaigns have risen, measurement of those campaigns’ effectiveness — i.e., whether marketing messages are driving desired conversions or not – has lagged behind.

As Miami Dolphins Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer Tery Howard put it during the recent Retail RAMP conference: “If you can’t measure it, there’s little relevance for it.”

Increasing customer engagement drives revenue, as every multichannel marketer knows. And email marketing continues to hold its own as one of the most profitable and proven digital marketing channels for attracting new customers, building engagement with existing customers and propelling one-time buyers to become repeat, loyal customers.

In the new omnichannel economy, sustaining and optimizing proven email marketing tactics — re-mailing, promoting special offers and coupons, reminding consumers about abandoned shopping carts — is only 80% of the marketer’s task. The other 20% represents an opportunity for the marketer to spice up his or her programs to appeal to the consumer in fresh and compelling ways, via the most popular channels. This is where SMS comes in — as an extension of your existing email marketing program.

Fortunately there’s a tool in your consumer’s hand – or your pocket or purse — that can transform the ways in which your brand interacts and engages with customers. It’s a mobile phone, or possibly a tablet. These mobile devices hold the key to more successful email and cross-channel marketing campaigns.

Few retailers actually measure how many people are in their stores. Without direct knowledge of store traffic, advertising and promotion performance, weather and seasonality effects, and conversion of shoppers to buyers are guesswork at best. Retailers rely instead on informal or intermittent measures and attempts at analysis often end in argument.

The good news is that there are a variety of traffic intelligence solutions available, for retailers of all sizes, to capture this invaluable data and use to refine their advertising, merchandising, and operations to compete more effectively with both physical and online competitors—based on facts, not opinions.

The Internet has revolutionized the way shoppers interact with brands and retailers.  We browse, shop, compare product features and pricing — and we’re buying more online every year.  Naturally, brands and retailers continue to shift a greater portion of their marketing dollars online to capitalize on this trend. I could reference and quote numerous studies, stats and research demonstrating this shift, but I won’t because you’ve already seen them and you probably have another alert about e-Commerce growth hitting your inbox right now.

We’re now seeing a similar evolution and revolution with mobile.  Smartphones and tablets have put computers into our pockets, purses and messenger bags. We’re always on the go, and now mobile commerce is the hottest trend. A wave of new studies and research point to the growing importance of the mobile channel for shoppers, brands and retailers – not only in the U.S., but across the globe.