You always carry your mobile phone, and it’s always on—even when you’re asleep—God forbid you miss something. In fact, a recent poll found that most users couldn’t stay away from their phones for more than six minutes, and check it about150 times a day. The mobile phone is probably the most personal piece of technology you own, storing your photos and messages and calendar reminders, and it is on everyone’s checklist when leaving the home or office.
As a direct-response medium that’s easily customizable and features sophisticated tracking options, it’s also an ideal marketing channel. Without question, mobile marketing is an essential part of every digital marketer’s strategy, so it’s important marketers know how to use the medium effectively to make the most of their efforts and maximize profits. Here’s a brief guide on mobile marketing to help you leverage the power of the mobile phone to draw more people to your brand.
Making the mobile version of your website look great and easy to read is the first step to drawing new prospects to your little corner online. This means making sure your website is responsive, and can adapt to the specific screen dimensions of the mobile device (iPhone, Samsung Galaxy, iPad) being used to see your content. A mobile-friendly website is now also crucial to your mobile rankings; Google has revealed that a mobile-friendly version of a website is a key metric used when determining a site’s position on the mobile SERP.
Not sure if your website adheres to Google’s mobile-friendly guidelines? You can test your website here. You should also read up about 9 Things You Need to Know about Google’s Mobile-Friendly Update from Moz.com. So what exactly is the big deal about being mobile-friendly?
More and more online shoppers and visitors in general will be visiting your website on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets). Without a responsive website, these visitors won’t be able to complete an order through your shopping cart or sign up for other goal-oriented features. These problems also may occur:
Of course, these problems lead to frustration and the last thing you want is frustrated customers or visitors who abandon your site. Wondering what your mobile-friendly site design should look like? Here are 15 Examples of Great Mobile Website Design from HubSpot.
In addition to a mobile-friendly website, your email newsletters and automated email communications need to be mobile–friendly. The fact that over half of email is opened on a mobile device instead of on a desktop PC also means that marketers need to tailor their email communication for mobile consumption. That number is only destined to grow along with mobile usage in general.
When you run your email tests, look at your email test sends on multiple mobile devices to make sure they are responsive to whatever size screen you are using. This includes big screens, too. A responsive and mobile-friendly design for website or email means that it fits to any size screen — your audience should be able to see your message whether they are on their Apple Watch or plugged into a big-screen monitor.
Recent research has shown that users spend on average of about 2 hours per day on mobile apps. In fact, this article shows how apps are becoming more important than mobile browsers. This is on the heels of research from Harris Poll and the Interactive Advertising Bureau (IAB) that 88 percent of consumers’ mobile Internet time is spent on apps. That leaves just 12 percent for mobile web browsing or other activities.
The fruits of your future marketing efforts may come from the smartphone app. Having an app that takes up real estate on a smartphone screen gives your brand constant visibility, and is a convenient shortcut to what your brand provides. Apps give you the opportunity to use push notification to stay top of mind with your audience and also alert them to new offers, coupons, news and other important information. The fact that mobile phones have a built-in payment system, as well, also means that consumers can purchase products and services without having to leave their device—perfect for retailers or other service providers.
Bridging the gap between the offline and online worlds with the mobile phone has been at the top of the digital marketing agenda for some time. For more than a decade, digital marketers put their faith in the QR code to bridge this gap. But this technology hasn’t proved as successful as most had imagined.
A better option these days is to create short—and memorable—URLs for mobile users to type into their phones. Most short URL tools or services have built-in reporting and analytics features to help you better understand your audience and make accommodations to improve their experience as well as your bottom line.
The mobile phone is here to stay. The sooner you implement an effective mobile marketing strategy into your business, the sooner you’ll reap the benefits. How else can you utilize the power and reach of the mobile phone to help your business grow? Contribute to the discussion today by leaving your comments below.
Elizabeth Victor is blogger and Brand Advisor for Isentia. She enjoys sharing tips on social media monitoring and media analysis.
