App development and ad blockers: What marketers should know

Marketers don’t just need to know about marketing anymore. It’s no longer just about transferring goods from the producer to the buyer. There are many other areas to consider as technology increasingly becomes part of our lives and homes. That means marketers need to know about social media, customer relationship management, web and graphic design, app development, advert retargeting and ad blockers. There’s a new language to learn, a new jargon to speak and a new message to sell.

Speaking about the increase of technology and its impact on marketing, Noah Brier, co-founder of marketing program Percolate said: "Over the next five years we’ll see technology ... become a part of the core fabric of marketing itself. No more social. As counterintuitive as it sounds, you know a new medium has succeeded when we don’t talk about it anymore.

“No one mentions going online because we’re all just always connected. The same is increasingly true of social and I expect we’ll see the full transition over the next five years."

Marketers need to begin playing in this space. They need to know what they’re talking about when selling new ideas for social media strategies or for customer relationship management. One where they speak this language and relay it in the simplest way possible to customers. Here are some of the new tech marketers need to care about:

App development

We’ve spoken a number of times about how consumers have their phones in their hands constantly. They are never without their mobile devices and would often prefer to complete transactions and purchases in this way rather than on a desktop or, at absolutely the last resort, in a retail space. And that’s why app development is so important.

Many companies rush to create an app just because they can. But the reality is often a mobile-optimized website will do the job just fine. There are times, though, that an app can offer more creativity, functionality, and interaction with consumers. It’s important that, as a marketer, you understand how your customers are using mobile. Are they using smartphones or tablets? Are they on Android or Apple? Translating these types of factors to your client can assist them, and you, to implement new strategies.

Omni-channel

The importance of marketers embracing omnichannel can’t be overstated. If you’re not sure what it’s all about, it’s when the customer’s choice of how they engage with a brand, whether it’s via a website, mobile app, Facebook page, a phone call or in a physical store, doesn't negatively impact their experience.

How they engage makes no difference to what they encounter in their purchasing journey. The reality is that omnichannel puts the customer first as it allows them to choose how they want to engage.

Ad blockers

Retargeting allows marketers and their brands to follow customers around the internet. Simply, if someone looks at a site and admires a bicycle, soon photos of that bicycle will be popping up everywhere on the person’s devices. Marketers have relied on retargeting for many years but with the increase in ad blocker usage, many have become worried. But there are ways for marketers to advertise to consumers which can get around ad blockers. Think about it this way, do you think you can only make a sale by shoving an advert in someone's face? It’s going to take a lot more than that. This is where email and SMS marketing can really step up and take center stage.

A well-timed email reminding a customer about items they looked at could do really well to convince them to add items to their cart. The type of retargeting that ad blocking prevents is unspecific. You want to target specific customers, and that’s why ad blocking shouldn’t matter. What you need to concentrate on is building loyal customers, understanding their online actions and respecting their wishes. Ultimately, this saves money and allows you to fully reach the potential of your customer base.

This is where geotargeting comes in. Geotargeting allows marketers to deliver personalized content directly into customer’s hands, as we explained in a recent blog post. One example of this is showing different adverts to customers in different locations. In this way, people experiencing a drought won’t see adverts for umbrellas but instead ones for greywater systems. And when customers are seeing this kind of specific, personalized content, they’ll be more likely to hand over their credit card numbers.