What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing is now more important than ever for businesses. Nearly all the consumers you are trying to attract have a smartphone or mobile device with smart features. By not incorporating a mobile marketing element into your digital marketing campaigns, you leave a wide gap in your overall marketing strategy. This will lessen your potential lead generation capabilities.

According to Insights, 80% of Internet users currently own smartphones. Studies have revealed that 68% of companies have incorporated mobile marketing as part of their overall marketing strategy and 71% of marketers are of the belief that mobile marketing is at the core of their business.

Mobile marketing is not a new area of discussion. For those who are not in the know, mobile marketing is ultimately any type of promotion which is designed for delivery on mobile devices such as the following:

• Smartphones,
• Non-smart cell phones, as well as
• Tablets

Usually, mobile marketing is part of an overall multi-channel digital marketing campaign. Mobile ads – which are delivered through systems such as Google Display Network, SMS marketing and programmatic ads – all fall under the mobile marketing banner.

While mobile Internet speeds and accessibility have vastly improved over the last number of  years, that alone won’t guarantee a successful mobile experience. Small businesses need to be aware of their own roles and responsibilities when it comes to having a mobile-first strategy.

What do you need to consider in a mobile-first campaign?

If you know that your users access your website using mobile devices predominantly, there are a number of considerations that you need to keep in mind:

• Use less text but more images

Google rewards websites which have adopted AMP pages (accelerated mobile pages) by giving them higher positions in the search rankings. These pages have a minimum amount of text, larger font sizes, clean images as well as simple functionality. Facebook doesn’t permit boosted posts that have too much text either. Think visual with straightforward conversion goals.

• Prioritise the first three seconds

In a mobile world, advertisers should plan their messages to be “quick reads”. Most individuals, when given the choice, will have scrolled or tapped far beyond your ad in 30-plus seconds. Advertisers need to maximise and prioritise the first three seconds to get their money’s worth.

• Go beyond responsiveness

Owning a website which is responsive is not enough. You need to ensure that your website is mobile-optimised so you can have a better conversion rate and, as a consequence, a better ROI. You might have to exclude aspects of your website on mobile devices and perhaps replace them with a more mobile-optimised content. Fitting all facets of your website on a smaller screen does not mean that your site is ready.

• Review your Google Analytics with targeting in mind

The first thing advertisers will be required to do is to review their Google Analytics in order to understand where their traffic is coming from as well as create a strategy which targets those channels. This will possibly include a mix of social advertising, Google AdWords, ads or sponsored content on industry websites. This depends on the business’ specific niche.

• Let social lead the way

Social media is a wonderful place to start letting your thoughts go to mobile-first. This is because a lot  happens on mobile. Thinking mobile-first entails looking at the format (vertical versus horizontal), leveraging the opportunities as well as innovations which mobile affords (e.g., Facebook 360), and front-loading your message, especially in videos longer than 12 seconds.

• Speed it up

Every online experience is required to be faster. On mobile devices, a number of users have limited bandwidth. Other users have limited time. Thus websites need to load fast. If you possess a slow-loading site (or a website which is slowed down by JavaScript) then it’s time for an improvement. Also, put the most significant information front and centre for the user. Don’t make them hunt for information.

• Understand location

Mobile device users usually have different needs as well as intents from desktop users. Understanding mobile user contexts is vitally important for standing out. Contextual targeting – including, geo-fencing, targeting environmental contexts, such as weather and even time – are powerful tools for earning mobile user attention. Put simply, mobile user intent is shaped by when and where the users are located.

Get in touch with the Digital School of Marketing

Want to discover more about mobile marketing and how it fits into the wider digital marketing space? If you do then you have to do our Advanced Digital Marketing Course. For more information, please follow this link.