Mobile Marketing Automation Isn’t Complete if it Isn’t Cross-Channel

So your brand has developed a beautiful mobile app, and, even better, your company sends the kind of human and helpful push notifications that keep audiences engaged and coming back for more. And for those that aren't ready to take the leap, the team has thought ahead and built a perfectly optimized mobile website, full of carefully crafted in-browser messaging while delivering web push notifications that surprise and delight. You send email campaigns that look amazing on smartphones, and hey, all the links actually work on mobile (no easy feat!). Not only that, when customers receive your SMS campaigns, they're full of timely (much needed) information, no spam here.

Congratulations! It sounds like you've mastered mobile marketing with the help of sophisticated mobile marketing automation technology.

But don't think—even for just a minute—that the job is finished.

The Importance of a Cross-Channel Strategy to Your Mobile Marketing

Mobile is not the next new technology to adopt for the sake of being on trend.

While it is objectively the dominant platform of the day (having outpaced TV on the screen time front and desktops on the web browsing front), mobile should by no means be treated as a passing shiny object.

There's no denying that mobile offers a powerful avenue for reaching highly engaged audiences. But there's also no denying that mobile messaging channels like push notifications and in-app messages are just some of many channels the modern customer interacts with in a given day, especially as smart speakers and other connected devices grow in popularity.

According to Google, more than 75% of people start out an online activity on one device and subsequently jump to another one before finishing it. In other words, we may be living in a mobile-first world, but it’s one that's also very much cross-channel.

A remarkably similar 72% percent of individuals say that a disconnected customer experience—that is, one that doesn't account for the modern consumer's cross-channel journey—is reason enough to change to a competing service provider or brand, according to an eMarketer report on customer engagement. Specifically, companies such as these let their customers down in two key ways, the report notes.

1. They fail to recognize personal preferences across all the touchpoints individuals engage with.
2. They fail to provide customers the information they need in a timely manner.

What does that mean for your customer engagement efforts?

For one thing, you can’t take for granted that a customer who begins the process of making a purchase on your app will necessarily finish there—making it important to have channels at your disposal, such as email and web push notifications, that can also communicate with users on desktop and other platforms. You also need to make sure that your cross-channel campaigns are relevant and personalized no matter what device or channel they appear in, and that they’re drawing on real-time information about how each recipient is engaging with your brand.

There Is No Mobile Marketing Automation Success Without Cross-Channel Success

For mobile marketing automation to truly work, it must live within a broader framework as part of your cross-channel strategy. Only then will the kinds of brilliant experiences all customers deserve (and crave) be possible. Get started by exploring our Cross-Channel Guide.