Digital Marketing Bootcamp: Mobile Marketing
How are you currently competing for the mobile consumer’s spending? Are you focused on social media, or possibly a Google AdWords campaign? Is mobile marketing part of your core strategy for marketing? These questions are all relevant because consumers are more likely to spend when businesses make it easier to buy. If your company is not marketing on mobile platforms, it will miss out on major revenue opportunities.
Many of us have had the experience of trying to visit a company’s website after googling their product only to find their webpage does not load properly, or it is not made for mobile devices. Competing in the current business climate requires fine-tuned attention to the audience and their preferences. Mobile marketing is one of those major preferences that consumers see as a business requirement.
Once you place mobile marketing into your core strategy, your business objectives will achieve a far greater return than they had prior to mobile marketing. It requires a plan that encompasses a mixture of mobile site optimization, text campaigns, social media, and apps.
Mobile Site Optimization
After viewing an interesting ad, the user clicks on the link and gets to the website only to be disappointed in the disproportionate images and interface. Does this sound familiar? While it is not as common as it once was, many websites are still not mobile-friendly. There are several reasons this is problematic, the first of which is that Google’s search engine will penalize any site that is not properly formatted for mobile devices. Since Google has a majority of the market share for search engines, this can mean the difference between getting website traffic sales and having no visitors at all.
Ensuring your website is mobile-friendly gives it a fighting chance in a world where we are fighting for the mind-share of each user in a world of over 1.7 billion websites. Google is not arbitrarily punishing business owners for their website format, they have the data to back up the assumption that most users are on their mobile device when searching online. There are many tools and templates that can ensure that your website is mobile optimized, but as long as it passes the test on Google’s mobile optimization test site, it is good enough.
Mobile Campaigns
While they are still effective, email marketing campaigns are showing a lower return as more marketers use email marketing and saturate consumer inboxes. Fewer people are using desktop devices to check their email if they ever open the messages at all. As this approach gets more saturated, the results will only decrease in their engagement. An email will always be a great vehicle for delivering stories and education for consumers but to get their attention and ensure you penetrate the noise they experience daily your business must adapt. Mobile campaigns enable businesses to get closer to their audience by meeting them where they spend the most time, on their mobile device.
From ads in apps to text message campaigns, mobile campaigns provide visibility in a more intimate manner than desktop email campaigns. Email campaigns should still be a part of the overall online strategy but mobile needs to have a heavy focus as well. Without mobile campaigns, businesses are ignoring 75% of the users online. Doctors, lawyers, lawn care services, and more use text messages to update their customers on upcoming appointments, provide feedback survey opportunities, and offer promotional discounts. Incorporating mobile campaigns will increase your overall customer retention capabilities as well as website visits which will lead to an increase in sales.
Social Media
The great equalizer known as social media allows small businesses to leverage the scale of access to an audience to reduce their overall digital costs while increasing sales. When businesses ignore social media as a marketing opportunity, they lose out on the opportunity to drive brand recognition and revenue generation. Earlier we mentioned mobile marketing’s importance was increased due to the attention cell phones receive. One of the highest usage apps on any cell phone is social media.
Having a social media presence that is monitored constantly while engaging with the audience increases your business’s reach. Running social ads is not enough to provide insight into your business and its offerings. The goal is to engage with potential and existing customers to drive them to your website and eventually convince them to pursue the selected call to action. Ultimately, social media will provide your business with access and insights to your audience that will help you hone campaigns and drive revenue-centric activities.
Apps
Keeping your company top of mind for the customer includes making their life easier, apps can help accomplish this task. If your company provides a useful app that enhances the customer’s experience, you will build credibility with clients that could translate to more revenue and referrals. If done incorrectly, an app can damage your brand and hinder your overall mobile marketing strategy.
Some apps help the user file a claim or connect them with customer service representatives, other apps allow people to gamify their interaction with the business. Once you create the app, you’ll need to market it to your clients and prospects to ensure it is adopted. It can be expensive and daunting to create an app so consider app creation optional and only part of a comprehensive mobile strategy as an added bonus.
Just get with the times!
Consumers are changing the way they engage with businesses and how they purchase. Keeping up with this pattern can make the difference between obtaining revenue to keep the doors open and shutting down the business for good. Mobile marketing takes aim at the new consumer preferences by helping your business cut through the noise and grabs attention from consumers. While it is a somewhat comprehensive approach, your efforts are rewarded if the strategy is properly executed. If this seems like too much work, reach out to a team familiar with navigating these complexities.
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