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A Razorfish executive who spoke during a Mobile Marketer webinar yesterday said that marketers need to up their in-application segmentation efforts if they want to create loyal users. 

Executives from Hipcricket, Razorfish and BIA/Kelsey spoke during the ?Mobile Outlook 2014: Up, Down or Flat? webinar yesterday about how mobile fared this year for marketers and how the medium will play a role in marketing spend next year. One of the more interesting topics brought up was the lifetime value of a mobile user and how marketers can squeeze the most out of their mobile apps to find these valuable consumers.

?It is definitely something that I?m hearing more and more from clients, which is ?I?m building these applications, and I?m thinking strategically about their role and the position that they play in my marketing mix and my consumer communication mix,? but there is a realization that brands need to get much smarter about segmentation and thinking about how to identify and value, and recruit and retain loyal users of those applications,? said Jeremy Lockhorn, vice president of emerging media at Razorfish, New York.

?There?s a ton of applications, so once you get that application discovered and installed, you want to make sure that you?re thinking smartly about whether or not that user is going to be a valuable user over the lifetime of the application and how to get them in that bucket if possible,? he said.

The webinar was sponsored by Hipcricket.

Next-generation marketing
2014 will be all about mobile tracking, analytics and targeting.

Although marketers have been talking about the second-screen for quite some time, it is a compelling way for marketers to think about mobile as part of a multichannel strategy.

The executive cited data finding that 80 percent of smartphone and tablet owners are using their devices while watching television.

Therefore, Mr. Lockhorn expects to see more mobile experimentation in 2014 with brands in leveraging mobile and TV together.

Additionally, location will be a big emphasis for marketers.

According to the Razorfish exec, location is equivalent to intent and can be used as a point of reference in making real-world correlations.

Take Apple?s iBeacon, for example. The launch of Apple?s Beacon product earlier this year has made a splash as an opportunity for marketers this year in creating compelling marketing experiences.

Next year, the technology will play a more prominent role for retailers in creating targeted, sophisticated in-store experiences.

As an example of how indoor mobile technology could be used, Mr. Lockhorn envisions a marketer being able to push out an offer to a consumer for frozen yogurt as they walk down the frozen food aisle in a grocery store.

At the bare minimum, every campaign should include a mobile component. However, more savvy brands should put mobile at the core.

The good news is that agencies are smarter about buying mobile media, per Mr. Lockhorn.

?I?d say 12 months, 18 months ago, I was getting a lot more calls and helping teams on a day-to-day basis with their mobile media, but there?s been a lot of learning, and by and large ? this is a general statement ? but folks are getting much more comfortable with it,? he said.

Engaging content
According to Michael Boland, senior analyst and program director at BIA/Kelsey, Chantilly, VA, there is a growing disconnect between the experiences that marketers are providing on mobile and consumer expectations that will continue in 2014.

For example, consumers are increasingly interested in accessing SKU-level information on products, availability and deals in real-time. The data collected from these experiences will be a bigger priority for marketers next year as they look to better understand the path to purchase.

There is also a shift towards more discovery-based products than search, which will impact mobile design.

?I think as a channel, we?re going to see this discovery paradigm increasingly take over as a mobile use case and therefore as a design principal for mobile products and also the content and delivery of ads,? Mr. Boland said. 

While the idea of discovery in the mobile space is not new with location-based services such as Foursquare, new services such as Google Now use predictive search engines to push consumers more contextually-relevant information, such as changing a flight schedule.

Mobile will also increasingly creep into wearables including watches, fitness trackers and glasses in 2014 as marketers branch out to create new experiences across multiple devices.

Mobilizing loyalty
Doug Stovall, chief operating officer at Hipcricket, New York, spoke on the webinar about the increased role of mobile and loyalty in 2014.

As relationship management becomes a bigger priority for marketers, mobile will play a key role in how marketers develop loyalty programs.

At the same time, consumers crave immediacy when plugged into their mobile devices and tablets at all times of the day.

This has pushed mobile to become more mature.

As a result, the PC marketing world is becoming less relevant, per Mr. Stovall.

For example, roughly 60 percent of purchases made on Cyber Monday were made via a mobile device. Next year, that percentage could jump to 70 to 80 percent.

Marketers now have to be thinking about which device will be the next big thing, whether that will be a wearable or another type of device.

At the same time, the amount and quality of data gathered through mobile campaigns is helping marketers make sound mobile investments.

?Your ability to get location data is coming about ? the ability to track has matured,? Mr. Stovall said.

?What?s happened now is that mobile works,? he said. ?Now we have all this data to come out of it, and as marketers we can look at this data and make recommendations for the brands that we work with.

?To me, it?s about the consumption and usage of data over this next year that will be exciting.? 

Please click here to access the archived webinar

Final Take
Lauren Johnson is associate reporter on Mobile Marketer, New York