Thinking about driving customers through mobile marketing? There's no one-size-fits-all answer to succeeding in mobile marketing.
The way people shop around the world has been changing for a long time. With so many mobile channels, strategies, and tactics to consider to capture customers' attention and drive them to your website, the ideal path for each business will vary based on their unique situation and goals.
Still, there are a few common things that all mobile marketers can agree on: you want to avoid wasting time and resources without seeing tangible results.
In this guide, you'll find out what mobile marketing is and learn about the main mobile marketing tools and strategies you can use to drive customers to your store or website.
What is mobile marketing?
Mobile marketing is any type of advertising activity and strategy that engages consumers and promotes services or products on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) using multiple channels.
Channels used in mobile marketing include SMS, email, social media, content marketing, blogs, mobile responsive websites, apps, and push notifications.
Mobile advertising is very effective because it lends itself to personalized promotions. Today, there are approximately 5 billion people worldwide who use mobile devices to access the internet, and this number will continue to grow over the next few years.
According to one study, by 2024, 85% of smartphone users are expected to purchase products online. And it's not just purchases, but researching information and everything else you do on a desktop PC, you can now do on a mobile device.
Not only in South Korea, but also in the US and Japan, more than 85% of people own a smartphone, and they check it more than 50 times a day.
6 mobile marketing strategies
Types of mobile marketing strategies include SMS marketing, social media marketing, location-based marketing, and in-app marketing.
1. In-app marketing
There are countless apps that people install on their phones, including Instagram, Telegram, TikTok, Facebook, Twitter, etc. There are many types of in-app advertising that you can utilize, including interstitials, video ads, native ads, and display ads.
If you have a lot of money to spend on advertising, you can try in-app marketing, and it's definitely more effective than other channels. It's important to have a long-term goal and stick with it, rather than trying it for a short period of time and immediately quitting if it doesn't work.
2. Push notifications
If you have a separate mobile app, you can send offers, notifications, and reminders to the home screen or lock screen, regardless of whether the app is being used or not.
When utilized properly, push notifications can be a powerful mobile marketing strategy.
If your app has an inbox or a direct message box, you can use it to send longer, more in-depth notifications with images, just like you would with email marketing, and you can see what messages your customers have and haven't read to determine their interests and send similarly informative notifications based on those interests.
You can further personalize your notification messages and improve the user experience.
3. Location-based marketing
If you run a small business or are a solopreneur and have a mobile app, you can use location-based marketing techniques like geofencing to market to mobile users in specific areas. This is especially useful for small businesses with brick-and-mortar locations. Because location-based marketing knows where users are, it can drive relevant and responsive engagement in their neighborhood. For example, if you run a coffee shop or restaurant, you can send promotional notifications, such as discount coupons, if the user is in close proximity to your store.
4. Mobile-friendly content
When it comes to responsive websites, mobile optimization means shorter sentences, engaging copy, and relevant media such as high-quality images and videos.
Unlike desktop PCs, you also need to consider the overall font size and screen configuration according to the size of the user's mobile device for comfortable reading in a mobile environment.
People are likely to briefly check out the content on your website, so make sure your content is uncomplicated and written simply and clearly. If you're creating a new website, you should probably create a mobile version first, rather than a PC version.
5. Text Message Marketing
When it comes to mobile marketing, text messaging(SMS) is very effective. They can be sent for a fraction of the cost and have a near 100% open rate after sending.
According to one study, 90% of messages are opened within 3 minutes and 99% within 20 minutes of being sent.
When it comes to mobile marketing strategies, text messaging is a particularly effective technique for digital coupons, with discount coupons received via text message being redeemed 10 times more often than coupons from other sources.
SMS also has a much lower failure rate than sending notifications from other channels.
6. Opt-in forms
Opt-in is a system that prohibits the collection of personal data from customers until they allow it to be collected. When an organization, such as a business, sends mail for advertising, they require the recipient's consent to send them mail, which is also called opt-in.
In digital marketing, especially email marketing, it's best to get the recipient's consent and give them a way to unsubscribe. The same goes for mobile marketing.
Using opt-in forms in your emails, on your website, and in all other forms of communication is a great way to give people permission to contact you and grow your recipient list for emails and SMS.
For example, it's a good idea to provide a form at the top or bottom of your events and promotions pages that asks for an email or phone number, and offer a discount coupon once it's filled out. If users don't sign up, but you get their contact information first and send them informative notifications, they can sign up later if they choose.
It's important to provide an unsubscribe option - people are more likely to provide their contact information if they know they can opt out.
Contact lists that are regularly refreshed will have higher open rates and CTRs, which will improve your email reputation and deliverability.
Measure everything for success
Mobile media planning is complex and challenging enough on its own, so why make it even more difficult by ignoring the vast amount of data available on campaign performance?
Most mobile marketers are lax about measuring views, downloads, activations, and registrations, rather than looking at stats like bounce rate, pages per unique visit, and video viewing time.
For maximum effectiveness, it's important to also measure factors like feedback, such as pros and cons in your review section. It's equally important to count the number of consumers who have had bad experiences on a particular platform, page errors, and negative reviews.
If you don't know the reasons for your failures, the chances of success are very small.
Thank you.