Mobile-First Strategies Take Hold in Emerging Markets
MOBILE MARKETING CHALLENGES REMAIN
Each country requires a separate approach, experts advise. So it's imperative to understand differences in language, culture, and more. Buying trends and needs differ as well, Druxerman says.
Those differences aren't limited simply by national boundaries, adds Tanisha Gupta, director of product marketing for FollowAnalytics. For example, northern India and southern India vary vastly in terms of language and religion.
"The biggest challenge is localization," Gupta says. That means more than simple translation. Some game developers, for example, have tried switching languages without changing anything else and have failed miserably when entering new markets. Each country has its own legends, folklore, and traditions that need to be accounted for when developing or marketing games or other goods or services—whether in India, various parts of Latin America, or elsewhere
Gupta singled out Supercell, the developer of Clash of Clans, as a good example of a company that went to an emerging market, in this case China, to understand the culture and folklore and made the necessary region-based changes before launching the game. Though she had no exact figures, Gupta claims the game has been extremely successful there.
Another important cultural difference is the relative popularity of various sports. Sports marketers in Latin American countries, for example, need to understand the immense popularity of soccer in these countries and take this into account in designing their marketing strategies, Pardo says.
TECHNOLOGY DIFFERENCES ABOUND
The regional differences in emerging markets extend to the underlying technologies, with devices, wireless capabilities, and data coverage varying from market to market, country to country, and even within regions of a country.
For example, Latin American countries are skipping over tablets to go directly to "phablets" (devices with 5.5- to 6.9-inch screens), says Alessandro Fonseca, senior territorial manager for DPS Latin America. According to IDC, the number of phablets in the region will jump from 3.7 million in 2014 to 38 million in 2018.
Consumers in other countries are buying smartphones, but many of the cheaper models have less processing power and touchscreen precision, making it harder to provide a consistent experience across all devices, Fonseca says.
Similarly, some countries have relatively good wireless coverage, but 3G or 4G connectivity may be available only in or near population centers, Gupta says. Wi-Fi hot spots, like coffee shops, are popular in areas with spotty coverage.
Device sellers in some countries preload all or most apps on phones; in others, the consumer is more in charge. It's important to note, however, that consumers in emerging countries don't download as many apps as U.S. consumers do, so marketers have to make those apps very compelling, says Julie Ask, Forrester vice president and coauthor of The Mobile Mindshift.
DIFFERENT AREAS, SAME CHALLENGES
Mobile-first marketers in emerging countries face many of the same challenges as marketers do in the U.S., experts agree. While smartphones remain the preferred communication device, not everyone has the same device or the same capabilities.
Some consumers have moved to phablets; others use small-screen devices. Still others, albeit a minority, have access to the larger screens of office laptops and PCs. So responsive design, displaying the right message and Web site size for the right device, is essential, says Chuck Whiteman, senior vice president of MotionPoint. "You won't win if you're trying to develop a unique experience for each type of device."
Other experts recommend that mobile-first advertising strategies focus on individual marketing. People who have PCs and laptops tend to be sharing the devices. The mobile phone, on the other hand, is a personal device. But the owner can be difficult to identify.
"The greatest challenge is consistent customer identification," Timmerman says. "Many of these markets still rely heavily on prepaid access. So the SIM card associated with a customer today may not be the device associated with the same customer tomorrow, or the next week or next month. So these businesses will have to find a way to get customers to uniquely identify or authenticate themselves across a myriad of physical devices. Otherwise, they will always be marketing to the average of the population, not to the individual."
Companies can overcome this challenge by compelling customers to self-identify so that the enterprise can deliver individualized marketing messages, Timmerman says.
At the same time, companies should consider localized limitations of technology users. Video-rich advertising, for instance, doesn't make sense in areas where the vast majority of the target audience has only 2G or limited 3G access. "Companies must tailor their mobile marketing accordingly in order to reach the broadest audience," Fonseca says.