Advanced Mobile Strategy: What is Mobile?

Thursday, June 4, 2015

By Adam Kleinberg

This morning I was invited to speak on advanced mobile strategy at the Mobile Marketing Strategies Summit here in San Francisco.

The title of my conversation was Experience Design and Storytelling .

In my presentation, I talked about how storytelling could be used as a framework for articulating the customer journey to create mobile strategies that focus on customer insights, provide value and provoke action.

Here's a quote from my talk that the conference organizers posted on Instagram:

Kleinberg instagram
"Stories are systems for creating value. Storytelling gives us a methodology and template for expressing this value and shaping the user experience. We must understand the customer journey to pinpoint friction, then use our imaginations to tell stories that acknowledge this pain and instead create something magical."

One key factor that many brands are missing when it comes to mobile strategy is the importance of understanding how customers actually interact with technology. Most brands take an app-first approach when thinking about mobile. Often that reflects them putting their agenda ahead of their customers.

For instance, Virgin America does NOT have a mobile app—and their mobile check-in process is way better for it. I get an email that it's time to check in; I click and land on a webpage that already has my last name and reservation number populated in a form; I click again and get a boarding pass in an web page. With virtually every other airline, I have to download their app, open that app, go to my email, find my confirmation number, copy it, go back to the app, paste in the confirmation code, type in my last name, by then my batteries are dead and I have to go to the kiosk anyway....

You get the point. Instead of "one place" (i.e. an app) that has everything Virgin, they airline has crafted an experience that makes my life easier. And I deeply appreciate them for it.

Advancing your mobile strategy might actually mean taking a step back and asking, "am I doing what my customer wants or do I just have a case of Shiny Object Syndrome?"

About the author
Adam Kleinberg

Adam Kleinberg is CEO and and a founding partner of Traction. He has written over 75 articles in publications like AdAge, Adweek, Fast Company, Forbes, Mashable and Digiday.

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