When you hear people talk about it, you’d think it’s quite easy – start building a database, regularly send messages to your mobile database, and you can watch the customers flood in. In real life, however, it is not that easy. More than anything, you need to exert effort and know how to do it properly.
 
It is hard work, but it is very possible.
 
Most businesses want the same thing- to stand out from all their competition. For you to be able to achieve that, you need to appeal to your new and existing customers, and more importantly, try new things. One of the ways to do that is to up your mobile engagement game.
 
How do you do that? First of all, you need to know all there is to know about mobile engagement.
 
Mobile engagement, in a nutshell, is how you engage a user through various messaging channels on mobile devices, including smartphones, tablets, and other ‘wearables’ like smart watches. Businesses make use of mobile engagement to bring some positive brand experience, as well as to support the goals of the company, to build strong relationships with the customers, and to communicate or transact for the business.
 
Mobile messaging channels basically fall into three major categories:

• Engagement Channels That are Adapted for Mobile

Examples of these engagement channels include the mobile web and social media channels. When people accepted the shift from their traditional desktop to the smartphone, the mobile web has quickly become and investment is for businesses. After all, the first way customers usually find out about a brand is through their mobile web searches.
 
Social media channels like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and more, are proven to be an effective and low-cost way to achieve customer engagement.
 
Mobile devices are said to account for about 64.5% of email opens. That means email is a far-reaching channel used for mobile engagement. This is often used to communicate lengthy information, as opposed to quick updates. It also gives the option for later reading which is something different from the urgency you get from other channels.
 

• Channels within Apps

Push notifications, message centers, and in-app messages are the three messaging capabilities of mobile apps. When you understand these, you can build a strategy to improve your mobile app engagement, as well as create a more memorable experience for the users of your app.
 

• Native Mobile Engagement Channels

These include SMS and MMS which are used by most people for communication (even more so than calls). Because SMS has a 98% open rate, it is a great channel for businesses for mobile engagement. Wearable Device Notifications are also getting popular now as they allow users to access information (short and concise ones) instantly. Smart watches, for example, are integrated into a user’s device ecosystem, which may include his computer, tablet, and smartphone.
 
You can tell your mobile messaging will progress to deeper customer engagement when it is both useful and relevant to the audience. To achieve this, it is important to personalize mobile messaging as much as you can. To know whether your efforts on your mobile engagement are working, you should be able to measure it using mobile analytics. How to personalize your mobile engagement approach and understand your mobile engagement performance?
 
That’s what we’re going to cover in the second part of this blog post! Do watch out for it!