Today, businesses of all types and sizes are targeting mobile users with notifications and ads to capture their attention. On average, the mobile user has up to 100 applications on a single device and can spend, like our American cousins, more than 70 hours per week on their smartphone. Smartphones have become more than communication tools.
We use them to manage our finances, order our meals, make our purchases, organize our vacations, or even work anywhere in the world. With more than 6 million mobile applications available in stores, it is difficult to find a service that escapes this digital transition. And yet, behind this craze lies a real challenge for marketers: user loyalty in a saturated market.
Today, businesses of all types and sizes are targeting mobile users with notifications and ads to capture their attention. On average, the mobile user has up to 100 applications on a single device and can spend, like our American cousins, more than 70 hours per week on their smartphone.
Unintentional sending of messages from these applications can, therefore, quickly lead to deactivating notifications or, even worse, deleting the application. The proof is that in just 30 days, applications generally lose 90% of their daily active users. So, the onus is on the app to prove its worth in a very short period. However, the majority of applications neglect an essential element: user context.
To What Extent Is Contextualization Key?
Over the past decade, the mobile industry has refined its ability to locate and segment customers to create targeted campaigns. But a simple point on a map is no longer enough.
Companies now have an unprecedented advantage for their mobile strategy: contextualization, perfect “matching” between critical data (time, user behavior, weather, etc.), and context of application use. User context can positively impact mobile strategy and retention in three key ways:
A More Thoughtful Engagement Strategy
The union of usage data with that of location technologies provides valuable information for app development. Understanding where users are and in what context they use an application – or not – allows you to target actions better and generate more helpful engagement. A user coming home from work is not in the same state of mind as if they arrived there, and it is up to applications to adapt to this context.
A Refined Segmentation
It’s no secret that market segmentation is essential to conveying the right message, but context can refine the strategy. Today, demographic data provides little insight into user activities and interests. However, understanding user behavior in their environment can provide deep insights into this moving audience.
For example, an e-commerce app dedicated to food can analyze the purchasing context to identify users who shop in the evening and launch a targeted campaign for home delivery. Or, a mobile gaming application can analyze the daily movements of its users and offer them a more personalized experience (e.g., levels to unlock or rewards to win as soon as they enter public transport).
More Relevance For Improved User Value
Users are looking for more “intelligent” applications that understand their preferences and desires and transmit relevant information adapted to their context at the moment T. The objective is to anticipate needs and proactively offer alternative solutions. By suggesting actions at the right time and place, mobile apps enhance their relevance and increase the chances of engagement.
Imagine a store app offering a promotion to a nearby user. If it’s sent in the morning when the user is in a meeting, there’s a good chance they’ll ignore it completely. But if this brand integrates context into its mobile strategy, it would recognize, based on behavior, that this user is currently at work but passes the store every evening on the way home. The idea is to adjust the campaign to deliver the message late in the afternoon to improve the chances of engagement significantly.
With a market saturated with apps, incorporating context into mobile strategies will become a key consideration for mobile apps. Those who adopt this strategy as soon as possible will see their engagement rate, popularity, and even revenue increase significantly. They will be able to stand out from others in a saturated mobile environment.