The Basics & Benefits of Mobile Marketing

Since mobile phones play an increasingly large role in our day to day lives, most people chose it as the medium to reach their friends, loved ones and basically all the information they want. Due to this fact, mobile marketing has become an accepted and established way of promoting businesses, products and services. In this series of brief articles, we will help you kick-start your mobile marketing with guides, strategies and valuable information. There are no prerequisites to this series. We are here to help you learn, but understanding some of the basic concepts such as mobile optimized websites, mobile apps and various campaigns would bring much more depth and value.

Mobile marketing is the next step in marketing, when it comes to most products. Most of the businesses around the globe already practice mobile marketing with great success. It provides them with the ability to engage and connect with their audience in an interactive way and to eventually drive their sales. With the help of mobile devices, they can spread their message pretty easily all over the world!

The Benefits of Mobile Marketing Solutions

By 2017, mobile commerce will most likely take over 50 percent of digital commerce in the US.

Source: BusinessInsider

This is a proposition that’s worth looking into. Mobile phones have a lot of beneficial attributes that our computers do not possess, like being able to access them wherever you are. Mobile devices can be carried anywhere with quick and easy Internet access, which has decreased the use of laptops.

Mobile apps can be much easier to use and much more appealing than websites that make online purchasing a walk in the park. A lot of companies have already noticed that the revenue they get from mobile app users is much higher than that of websites.

Mobile phones are much more personal objects, compared to a PC or a laptop, so it’s only natural that mobile users should receive personalized content that fits their interests and needs.

Social media has outgrown TV marketing by a lot, which makes it a prime channel. No matter what role people take up in their lives, let it be doctors, lawyers, students, business professionals or teenagers, they probably have a social media profile which they visit regularly. Almost all of the users who have a smartphone are most likely to use Facebook, Twitter or other social media platforms. Social media will greatly increase the impact of your mobile marketing campaign and we will give you an in-depth guide for using it to your advantage.

As technology continued to develop, mobile phones became much smarter and started to turn into mini computers, due to their computer-like features, such as supporting a web browser. They have bigger and bigger screens, fast processors, a lot of RAM, storage space and lots of useful applications. This evolution of mobiles will only continue.

To make it compact:

Mobiles have evolved into small computers
Social media is an important channel
Personalized advertisements
Mobile applications are more accessible than websites
Accessible anytime and anywhere
Increasing popularity

Most companies around the world choose the “mobile first” approach when they create their marketing strategy. Each of these big companies, such as Amazon, Ebay and General Motors are well aware that the standard of mobile marketing has gone way up from simple SMS texts and voice messages. People can do basically anything from their phones today, shop, connect with friends, order pizza, read books and reviews and many other possibilities that have or haven’t been discovered. Millions of people tap on their smartphones as each moment passes on and that gives way to some awesome marketing strategies. With that said, this guide will show you various marketing campaigns that these companies use.

With keeping this in mind, developing a mastery over mobile marketing becomes evident to your product marketing strategy. So let’s take a step forward in knowing how to do it!

The How-to’s of a Mobile Marketing Strategy

You must have a well-defined goal or a concept of what you want to achieve. Developing a mobile marketing strategy starts off with figuring out how it falls in line with your marketing so far. You will have to answer a few questions that will aid you in finding out what is most important for your business and reaching success. So what is your primary goal? Is it branding the product? Is it acquiring customers? Or is it about engaging your audience on social media with viral content? Whatever your goal is, your mobile marketing strategy has to be synchronized with it. With that said, let’s see what steps we can take to start off with your mobile marketing strategy.

Do Some Research and Gather Information

Use the information and some of the tips that are given here to help you in gathering the required information for a successful mobile marketing campaign.

Research the way other companies use mobile marketing in your industry. Analyze their sites, their provided information and how they try to communicate. You can also join forums and get help from well informed individuals.
Look at case studies, researches and reviews that are relevant for your product. Get a better idea of who you are going to sell it to. It is important to know who or which group of people you are targeting.

Identifying and understanding the audience that you are targeting will help you greatly in making good decisions and developing a kickass marketing campaign. We will give you a few tips to follow in doing so.

Make a list of your potential customers and assign names and personalities to them. Identify certain attributes, like their careers, age, average income, goals etc.
Get in touch with people. Conduct surveys, ask questions and get to know them as much as you can. Develop a healthy relationship with your audience and use their feedback as guidance.

There are also some other methods for getting to know your audience:

Measuring user recordings lets you catch every gesture of the user’s behavior.
Heat maps can give you an analysis of the user’s tendencies. You can see where they tap the most and how you should adopt your user interface.
Active In-App analytics can help you know the users psyche more by following the actions they do on their screen.

Statistics of Mobile Users

According to the survey that Google and Ipsos OTX MediaCT did with 5,000+ people, 89% of them use a smartphone every day.

Among them:

89% to keep in touch
82% for research and reading
75% for navigation
65% for entertainment purposes
45% for planning and management
70% for making purchases
82% of them notice an advertisement of which 42% click on if it caught their interest

Give a good definition for the value of your product. Here is a list of questions to answer before developing your mobile campaign.

How will your product/service be beneficial to your customers?
What “problem” are you solving?
How is your product/service better than what your competitors have to offer?
How will the price fit into their budget?

Your product’s/service’s unique selling proposition ensures that you set your customers on the right path from the first time you engage them, turning some of them into repeat customers. When you define your key values, marketing and selling your product becomes easier and much more focused. This is why it is also important to define some goals right after you have your USP (unique selling proposition). You have to have a clear definition of what you want to accomplish. Do you want to get more sales? Do you want the audience to be more aware of your brand? Outlining your objectives is of key importance when you make your own mobile marketing strategy.

Develop Sound Policies

To develop a good mobile marketing strategy, you have to have some policies which aim to maintain customer privacy. This means that protecting mobile users from any unwanted communication on their phone. Avoiding “spam” content is the first step. Your content must be unique and a mobile marketing campaign should be colorful at all times. Use the right policies and channels to ensure your campaign’s success.

As you define a mobile marketing strategy, you have to take some of these points into account:

Define a goal. Make a list or a plan of what you aim to achieve. Be sure that it is measurable.
Research the market. Understanding the market you want to launch a campaign on is something that every marketing person has to do. Go and learn all you can.
Select your preferred medium. Chose where you will launch your campaign, like Facebook or mobile websites, etc.
Identify your audience.
Write down your message. How do you want your target audience to see and hear it?
Track your progress.
Identify and repair where your campaign is flawed.

Summary

We have covered some of the concepts in mobile marketing that can give some solid foundations to you if you take your time to do some research. Knowing your customers is a key thing and is always worth the investment. In our next article, we will cover some of the strategies in-depth and will discuss various mobile marketing campaigns and strategies that can beef up your business and grant you a fast ROI. Stay tuned!