Effective customer engagement is driven by five key strategies, which can easily be applied to mobile marketing. When you combine the two, you get a potent mix of loyal customers and a strong brand. Summed up perfectly by Brian Solis, Principle Analyst at research company, Altimeter Group; “Every consumer, practically, has a mobile phone. Many of them are on social media. Everyone is using apps and has access to the Internet. We live in a real-time world that is quickly evolving into an on-demand economy".

So let’s take a look  at the five most effective customer engagement strategies for mobile marketing and the companies that are already using them and seeing the benefits:

If you’re not actively thinking about mobile customer engagement for your brand, chances are you probably won’t be reaching the entire target audience that you’d hoped for. In fact, your company strategy may be looking as outdated as one of those 90’s Internet ads …

“Every time a brand uses music—in marketing, sales or in a PR context, regardless of the music, genre, style, artist, or channel through which it is played, the music is influencing a customer’s perceptions about the brand. It is effectively creating an asset or liability for its overall brand equity.” Ruth Simmons, CEO of Soundlounge, makes a valid comment on the growth of digital brand experience through music.

This thought is well supported by industry research by companies like Nielsen and Momentum Worldwide. In fact, in recent studies by Momentum Worldwide, 93% of Millennials claimed that they like brands that sponsored live events.

According to Nielsen, with over 15 million Australians owning smartphones, time on mobile devices (43%) is now higher than time spent on desktop computers (39%). Nielsen also found that 35% of Australian’s dedicate time to social media, with entertainment (excluding gaming) next at 16%. Mobile is now the leading device used by Australians when accessing entertainment, information and social apps.

Today, companies are faced with challenges around marketing to the biggest spending generation: Millennials. According to Forbes, Millennials are looking to brands to create an authentic experience in order to build trust. And the fastest way to build trust with Millennials is through music, because it speaks to them on a deeper level.

Just as technology develops, so does a consumer’s taste for marketing which impacts your brand experience strategy. Putting it simply: music has the power to evoke real emotion in your customers and it causes them to act, all whilst building a total brand experience.

Here are a few ways that you can begin to implement music in your strategy and effectively target your growing Millennial consumers:

When you play music during exercise, there’s a good chance it’s upbeat in lyrics and tempo. The psychology behind this is relatively straightforward. Music lights up areas of your brain that cause you to feel emotions, depending on the memories, feelings and new experiences you have with a certain song. Music has the ability to make you feel the high of highs and even the low of lows, which makes it an important, powerful tool for customer engagement.

When it comes to the best brand experience, there are a few companies that stand out from the crowd. These companies maintain a number of elements that serve to engage and interact with its audience. For many big name brands, music is one of the most diverse, useful elements that build the best brand experience for their customers. According to the IFPI Global Music Report (2016) “The global music market achieved a key milestone in 2015 when digital became the primary revenue stream for recorded music, overtaking sales of physical formats for the first time.” If the report can tell you anything, it’s that Millennials place a lot of importance on their ability to access new music, even if it’s as a part of a brand experience.

But who are the companies that have used  digital music as part of their brand experience strategy?

Many companies may not realise this, but they have the ability to evolve their brand by providing free legal music. Companies like Uber and Starbucks already connect with their customers by offering free and legal music.