Online sales promotions using mobile
A useful definition for understanding mobile sales promotions is:
‘Information that is delivered on a mobile device and offers an exchange of value, with the intent of driving a specific behavior in the short term.’
‘Mobile devices’, for this purpose, include not just smartphones but also tablets, mini-tablets, phablets (phone tablets) and wearable technology such as smartwatches. Promotions on these technologies typically consist of digital coupons that offer consumers money off at particular shops within a particular time frame. Using data, including a mobile device’s GPS signal, marketers can reach consumers at specific times and locations, making timely offers. Here, the underlying aim is to encourage unplanned or impulse purchasing, i.e. purchases that result from impulsive or last-minute decisions to buy an item that consumers had not previously planned to purchase (Rook, 1987). Various factors may prompt this impulse, from financial incentives (discounts, rebates), social influences (peers, family), or environmental conditions (atmospherics, display location). Importantly, from a digital marketing perspective, unplanned purchases often occur close to the point of sale, as consumers are more prone to making unplanned purchases and have less time to deliberate on them.
Using consumer mobile data such as GPS signals and social media responses (such as likes or other reactions), marketers can pick up on consumers’ moods and locations and address them with timely promotions tailored to their current moods or needs. However, many organisations have raised ethical concerns about these practices and have challenged the way they target particular groups, as you will explore in Section 7.