ARCHIVES: This is legacy content from before Marketing Dive acquired Mobile Marketer in early 2017. Some information, such as publication dates, may not have migrated over. Check out the new Marketing Dive site for the latest marketing news.

Marketers will have value-based relationships with consumers in 2013: Forrester

Nearly half of all online adults globally will connect to the Internet from multiple devices at different times of the day this year, making contextually-relevant and personalized mobile marketing a must, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

In Forrester?s ?2013 Interactive Marketing Predictions? report, the research company looks at how marketers need to dig deeper into consumers? behavior. The report defines always-addressable consumers as users who access the Internet from multiple devices and locations.

?Marketers will start to experience different shades of what it means to be always addressable,? said Melissa Parrish, New York-based analyst at Forrester.

?This year, it is going to be a bit of an expansion of the notion of context that marketers have been talking about the past few years,? she said.

?I think as we move on and the technology becomes more sophisticated for consumers, I think we will see marketers have a more transparent and value-based relationship with consumers. I think it?s going to be baby steps to get there, but I do think we will see at the end of the year, a greater openness to share information as long as it is clear to the consumer that what they are getting is relevant to them.?

Connected users
According to Forrester, almost 50 percent of adults in the United States will be identified as always-addressable in 2013.

To compare, 42 percent of the same demographic was grouped as always-addressable in 2012. This is an increase from 38 percent in the third quarter of 2011.

Thirty-seven percent of online adults in Europe were classified as always-addressable in 2012.

To keep up, marketers need to be thinking about how mobile plays a role in multichannel, data and targeting efforts.

Additionally, consumers increasingly want their mobile experiences to be contextually-relevant and personalized. Instead of developing around marketing channels, marketers need to roll out initiatives around needs and wants.

Forrester?s report signals out Stop & Shop as an example of a brand that is marrying the in-store and digital experience with personalized mobile applications that help consumers shop.

Targeted ads
Targeting will be a big priority for mobile advertisers in 2013.

With consumers more willing to share information about themselves, marketers can tap into users? affinities in 2013.

For example, instead of plastering a mobile ad next to relevant content, marketers should focus more on creating a deeper connection with consumers through their devices. Although commerce is important, consumers also research and look for inspiration from their mobile devices.

One way that marketers currently develop context is around location. However, basing a targeted message solely around location is not enough, per the report.

Instead, marketers will increasingly look at in-context analytics and social networks to find the right time and place to push marketing to consumers.

Take AI software company Yseop, which worked with an online car sales Web site in France, for example.

By creating a dialogue with consumers to create unique offers and product descriptions, the Web site increased its conversion rate to five percent. The company used its mobile, Web and print marketing to listen to what consumers were saying about the brand.

The targeting opportunities also bring up big implications around privacy.

Marketers need to be wary of privacy concerns around new hyperlocal ways to target consumers.

According to the report, marketers need to balance ideas around what they can do with technology against with what they should do to not come off as creepy.

The shift in making marketing flow seamlessly across all channels will also affect brand and vendor relationships.

Per the report, campaign management and media buying vendors will need to work together to help marketers connect with consumers across multiple platforms.

Brands will test text analytics in 2013 to hone in on users? intent and tone. This marks a substantial change from marketers only looking at clicks ? a metric that is more closely associated with the Web than mobile.

?I think as the notion that context gets rich and deeper and you add predictable analytics to the behavior data, the kinds of things you can target get richer,? Ms. Parrish said.

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