Mobile marketing has gradually become more popular as an increasing number of people access the internet through their smartphones and other mobile devices. If you are an online marketer, it is vital for you to explore this opportunity in order to harness its benefits for your business. But the question is “What is Mobile Marketing?”

What is Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel, digital marketing strategy aimed at reaching a target audience on their smartphones, tablets, and/or other mobile devices, via websites, email, SMS and MMS, social media, and apps.

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Mobile is disrupting the way people engage with brands. Everything that can be done on a desktop computer is now available on a mobile device. From opening an email to visiting your website to reading your content, it’s all accessible through a small mobile screen. Consider:

• 80% of internet users own a smartphone.
• Mobile platforms, such as smartphones and tablets, host up to 60% of digital media time for users in the U.S.
• Google anticipates search queries on mobile devices to surpass desktop searches by the end of 2015.

Effective mobile advertising means understanding your mobile audience, designing content with mobile platforms in mind, and making strategic use of SMS/MMS marketing and mobile apps.

Below are some of the advantages of Mobile Marketing

Elements of Mobile Marketing

Availability of quick services anytime

People want good, easy and quick services. They are looking for a service provider which can fulfill their requirements anytime, anywhere, and can be easily reached. A company can contact a user via mobile marketing techniques. A customer can also send feedback easily.

Mobile is not only used for e-shopping but also used in a physical store

A physical store also uses mobile services for providing services and advertising. Many stores will save your number to notify you about special products and discounts offers.

Mobile has become an undetachable part of life

Mobile is a necessary part of daily life. It can easily be carried anywhere and that’s why becomes a favorite device for e-shopping in leisure time.

Mobile search index becomes primary contents for ranking

Google is going to make a search index based on mobile search ranking rather than desktop search ranking. So your website search ranking will be based on mobile searching rather than desktop searching.

SMS Marketing

SMS and MMS marketing bring a tremendous change in marketing. Now users are getting offers and discounts or get notified for sale via SMS or MMS.

For you to make better use of mobile marketing, you a working strategy. But how do you create these strategies? We will discuss 4 points.

How to Create a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Create Mobile Buyer Personas

Understanding your audience is the first step to any marketing strategy, and buyer personas are a valuable tool to aid in that understanding. Buyer personas are simply fictional representations of your various types of customers.

Create a profile that describes each one’s background, job description, main sources of information, goals, challenges, preferred type of content, objections, and/or role in the purchase process. It is easier to determine a channel and voice for your marketing messages when you have a clear picture of your target audience.

Make a specific point to detail your target audience’s mobile habits as well. How much of their web usage happens on mobile devices? Are they comfortable completing a purchase on a smartphone? A simple way to start is to research big data reports on mobile usage. Some interesting observations include:

• 65% of all email is first opened on a mobile device.
• 48% of users start their mobile internet sessions on a search engine.
• 56% of B2B buyers frequently use smartphones to access vendors’ content.
• 95% of adults primarily use their smartphones to access content/information.

To better understand your specific target market, monitor Google Analytics for your site’s mobile traffic numbers. You can also ask or survey clients and prospects about their mobile web usage.

A/B testing—which compares two versions of the same campaign on a certain channel—can also be informative for developing any aspect of buyer personas. When all other factors are the same, do your email campaign landing pages get more views when you send a related email on weekends or on weekdays? In the mornings or in the evenings? Which title or email subject gets more click-throughs?

Both the general and specific data will help develop audience personas that include mobile usage.

Set Goals

The key to defining any effective strategy is to first decide what success looks like. Get the key stakeholders together to map your mobile marketing strategy. Identify goals by asking your team some of these questions:

• What are we currently doing for mobile? This will define your starting point, and make sure everyone is on the same page as you begin.
• If you are already doing mobile marketing, how are those initiatives performing? This conversation will identify what is already working, what is not, and what’s not even being measured.
• What are your main objectives for including mobile marketing in your overall strategy? Discuss why you’re considering mobile now, what conversations have led up to this point, and what you expect from mobile marketing.
• Who are your key audiences for mobile marketing? Talk about your customer personas in light of mobile usage updates. How similar or different is each persona’s mobile usage?
• How are you engaging your mobile audience cross-channel? This discussion will help analyze how the channels you’re currently using can be included in your mobile marketing strategy.

Establish KPIs(Key Performance Indicators)

Just like your other marketing efforts, mobile marketing needs to be tested and optimized. Determine which realistic, measurable KPIs define your mobile campaign’s success. For example:

• Engagement—Provide mobile-friendly content for potential customers who are searching for information about your industry or product. Make sure your website is mobile-responsive to improve mobile SEO.
• Acquisition—Make sure lead nurturing emails are mobile-friendly with clear calls-to-action. Buttons in emails should be near the top of the message and be big enough to easily tap in order to facilitate click-throughs. Then make it as easy as possible for someone to fill out a form on your mobile-optimized landing page.
• Customer Service—In a connected, social marketplace, customer service is very much a marketing opportunity. Allow your customers to easily reach you through any platform they want, including simple click-to-call buttons for smartphone users.

In order to identify the right KPIs for your mobile marketing campaign, ask yourself:

• Do I want to increase conversions from email messages?
• Am I trying to improve traffic to sales pages?
• How important is it that I generate more qualified prospects?
• Does our brand need to improve sales by converting more traffic on certain pages?

Monitor Mobile Metrics

Google Analytics can help monitor mobile usage of your site:

• Mobile behavior data reveals how well your mobile content engages your audience.
• Mobile conversion data will indicate whether or not some of your key landing pages still need to be optimized for mobile browsing.

Adding the Device Category field to the Site Content dashboard will display the quantity and quality of much mobile traffic to each individual page on your site.

The table on the Site Content dashboard includes metrics like pageviews and bounce rates. Add the Device Category by clicking the “Secondary dimension” menu above the first column and selecting “Device Category” from the “Users” submenu. The table will then display the most-viewed pages on your site, per device, so you can see how mobile actually affects your web traffic.

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That information can hint at which search queries may be leading mobile traffic to your site, what content your mobile audience is most interested in, and which pages to optimize for mobile browsing first.

Conclusion

A mobile marketing strategy is not a stand-alone effort, but it is a large chunk of any long-term or short-term marketing campaign—and its importance is only growing. From email to PPC, to SEO, to content, to social media marketing, there is a mobile marketing channel to reach every part of your audience where they are most comfortable.

Optimizing your website and email sends for mobile devices, taking advantage of the SMS and MMS channels, and building a native app for your most highly engaged audience are all big projects.

So, start by updating your buyer personas to get a better idea of where the majority of your target audience spends its mobile time. That will give you your start line, and the rest will fall into a logical order.

Mobile technology is not a fad that’s going away any time soon. Optimizing your marketing strategy for mobile will give your brand an edge over the competition. Don’t wait—go mobile today!