In these trying times, mobile marketing has become the critical strategy that has enabled many small businesses to thrive when their competitors are simply trying to survive. With the Coronavirus pandemic came new business models and a reset on how customers interact with businesses – and most of these relied heavily on mobile marketing.
What Exactly is Mobile Marketing?
Mobile marketing is a very broad term which encompasses a multitude of marketing platforms and strategies all focused on reaching, engaging, and converting customers and clients via their smartphone or tablet. Mobile marketing can leverage everything from websites to mobile apps to social media to text and messaging platforms.
Mobile marketing allows for a new level of location and time-based targeting. As mobile devices move into targeted areas during specific times, ads can be served to potential customers or clients that are close by at that desired time.
What’s the Difference Between Mobile Marketing and Text (SMS) Marketing?
As mentioned above, SMS (text) marketing is a subset of mobile marketing strategies that not only offers the ability to send promotions and ads to potential and established customers, but also allows for automated and actual interaction directly with those same customers or clients.
More and more, consumers are becoming comfortable with texts and private messages from businesses with whom they often do business. The potential for promotion and upsell here is huge. The key is to establish that the customer or client is comfortable and responsive to this level of communication with you. Obviously the key here is to not overdo it – make your text and messaging communication meaningful and worth their time.
Getting Started with Mobile Marketing
If you are currently advertising on the web or administer social media accounts for your business, you are already off and running. The key to developing sound mobile marketing strategies is simply being aware that some of the people you are reaching are on a cell phone and tailoring your campaigns for them.
Mobile Marketing Tips:
- Make sure your website is mobile friendly! We’ve been encouraging businesses owners with outdated websites to take this seriously for many years. All websites should leverage responsive design these days to adjust to the wide variety of screen sizes modern users can be utilizing. If you’ve ever tried to look at a non-mobile friendly website on your phone, you know exactly how frustrating this can be to someone on a smartphone.
- Likewise, ads should be formatted to look good on smaller mobile screens and if possible, be responsive as well.
- Ads should also be specifically targeted to mobile users who may not only be in the vicinity of your business, but be there at a time when customers or clients typically convert.
- SMS (text) marketing has been a game changer during the pandemic where consumers are looking for safe ways to interact with businesses. This will likely be a new norm when the pandemic has passed, so get on board with texting and messaging with your customers or clients.
- Video is king in the mobile world! Whether you leverage professional quality video ads or are simply posting personal updates about your businesses with your cell phone camera, video content can bring results! When it comes to mobile, it’s not about production quality, but rather engaging content that compels users to watch and share.
- Lastly, pay attention to your analytics! Understanding how your visitors are using mobile devices to interact with your business is key to developing solid mobile strategies. And once those strategies are put into play, you will want to refer to analytics to see how those campaigns are doing so that you can make educated decisions on how to tweak them for better results.
If you are interested in getting further into mobile marketing, contact us today!
