With the use of smartphones continually rising if you do not have a mobile marketing strategy you need to build a successful mobile marketing strategy or miss out on a large number of potential customers. It is not just smart phones either, now there are wearables as well.
The majority of people worldwide are using their smartphones to do all their tasks on; from shopping to reading the news, from email to social media, watching videos and more. Everyday there is a new app popping up. This is why it is so vital that you build a strong mobile marketing strategy.
What makes a successful mobile marketing strategy?
What makes a successful mobile marketing strategy? It should offer a rich and consistent user experience to a large number of users across various mobile devices and operating systems.
When you build a successful mobile marketing strategy you can; construct deeper relationships with your customers and build new streams of income for your business. This is done by integrating a mobile marketing strategy that offers an exclusive experience while meeting the diverse need of customers and ensures the buyers gratification.
The elements of a mobile marketing strategy
Apps
It seems there is a new app popping up almost daily. A well-constructed app will allow the user to enjoy a seamless and pleasant experience. Good-looking and user-friendly interfaces, an uncomplicated layout and easy navigation enables a quick and pleasant journey, guaranteeing customer engagement and retention.
Mobile Friendly Website
If you want to be successful with a mobile marketing strategy then you must have a mobile friendly website. Even though a majority of mobile customers use apps there are still plenty that also want to visit the mobile website to gather information. Mobile friendly websites are those that offer the user the same experience as a mobile app meets customers’ needs and ensure a productive mobile experience.
Compatibility
With the amount of mobile devices; phones, tablets, and wearables it is important that your app and mobile friendly website is compatible with various operating systems, screen sizes and resolutions. If you wish to have a successful mobile marketing strategy then you need to build a responsive app that provides seamless mobile experience across many mobile devices.
Optimized Across Channels
Your app and mobile website must be optimized to provide a unified easy interaction with brands when accessing information they want across a variety of channels. To ensure a consistent journey across e-mail, social media apps and mobile websites must be optimized for better customer interaction across channels for a successful marketing plan.
Integrating Social Media
People tend to check their social media several times a day so you really need to integrate your mobile marketing with social media such as; Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and others. When you establish social profiles across mobile apps and websites it allows customers to voice opinions, take surveys, and fill in feedback forms on mobile apps which gives insight and helps you revise your mobile strategies for the greatest customer satisfaction.
Local SEO
Using local SEO provides businesses the ability to connect and convert local users as more and more people are using their mobile devices to find businesses that may have what they are looking for. An example would be Joe’s Hardware Store. Since Joe filled out the local SEO he can have more local customers show up at his brick and mortar store, even some out of town travelers if they look for a hardware store on their mobile device. With local SEO your store is more than likely going to show up in the top 3 or 4 results on the first page of results or an app at the top of the app store which is why it is important to do local SEO.
Wearables
With the wearables that can be synced with smartphones and tablets the users can enjoy a unified pleasurable experience if you have optimized your app and website making the wearables one more device for your mobile marketing strategy to use.
Mobile Payments
Mobile payments have become a huge part of shopping these days. You can use your smartphone or a card on your keychain to pay for items through the scanner without having to get a card out of your wallet or purse and slide it through the machine. It makes it easier to pay and go which more people tend to want since our daily lives are so hectic.
If you wish to learn more about creating mobile-friendly websites, you can read 9 Tips for Creating Mobile-Friendly Websites.
Now that you have an idea of what it takes to run a mobile marketing strategy let’s talk about the 5 essential tips to help your campaign become a success.
5 Tips for Success in Mobile Marketing
These tips are going to look at the parts of a mobile marketing strategy in depth instead of just the explanation we did above.
First let’s talk about apps and mobile websites. One of the main components of these is design. Your design needs to be optimized to be responsive across various platforms with different screen sizes and resolutions.
Here are a few sites that have responsive design;
- Shutterfly– this online service allows users to create photo books, personalized cards, stationary, and more. Shutterfly recognized that people were taking photos and looking at them from their smart phones so the built an app that provided a fantastic mobile experience to their users. Shutterfly had 2 goals for their mobile site and met those goals. The goals were 1. Make it easy for people to find information concerning Shutterfly’s offerings and 2. Selling that information through quality images. Arriving at their site you find large navigation buttons at the bottom half so that it is easy for users to choose where they wish to go. Once the user has chosen the button they want they are greeted with large photos that show what Shutterfly is capable of doing for easy browsing.
- Google Maps– if you have ever used the google maps app you will notice that screenshot of their mobile website is exactly the same as the app. As well as looking identical the mobile website has the speed of the app.
- Nationwide Insurance– another business most of us are familiar with that has a great mobile site for their users. It is extremely simple. When you hit their main page you will find login to your user account, get an insurance quote by entering your zip code, or find an agent nearby you. While user options are limited it makes for an easier encounter for those on small screen phone and allows them to be directed in the right direction.
- Squaredot– a HubSpot partner agency that helps marketers build out their inbound marketing strategies. The site is colorful, simple, and easy to navigate. One thing to take note of is how they have modified their blog for their mobile site. They made their images eye catching and large enough to fill the width of the screen as well as text that is big enough so that it can be skimmed. The online forms have been optimized the same way to make it easier for users to fill out without pinching and squeezing it to make it bigger.
- Resumes Expert– this has a simple mobile site that allows users to choose what they wish to get information about, if they wish to sign up for newsletter, and more. It ensures the user has a pleasant experience that loads quickly.
- Lean Labs– Lean labs is another HubSpot affiliate group which generates appealing, receptive and high converting web solutions. Lean labs, has been featured on ABC’s Shark Tank series.
- KISSMetrics– this company provides analytics software to businesses. Their mobile site which is slightly different than their regular site displays in a list with complementary dark and light modules that makes it easier for the user to skim the page.
- Zappos– an online vendor that makes their mobile site easy to search by putting a large search bar on the top and bottom both.
All these sites regardless if they are vendors or financial services they all make it easier for the user to find what they are looking for, load quickly, and provide the user a more pleasant responsive design for their mobile devices.
Besides design is there any difference in marketing strategy?
There are a few things that are different when it comes to mobile marketing strategies; one of which is keyword research. You have to do mobile keyword search as mobile devices show different things than regular devices.
When creating a mobile site you should apply AMP or accelerated mobile pages. This helps the user have a faster load time and a better experience on your site.
What are the factors you look at when considering mobile marketing and its performance;
- Bounce rate (and/or adjusted bounce rate) – how soon the user leaves the page
- Pages per session –the number of pages a user goes to per visit.
- Hard or soft conversions –a quick sale or a sale that needs a little extra push in the right direction.
- Site speed on mobile
- Page path
- Landing page
- Top performing eCommerce products
There are also apps that can be used for things like content ideas, organization, creation, and promotion.
When it comes to identifying customer’s needs, design, and getting a clear idea of your competitors and their websites; mobile is no different than desktop.
You should also make your phone number for your business clickable on your mobile marketing.
You should also integrate your mobile site with social media channels.
Conclusion
There are some parts of mobile marketing that are slightly different than regular marketing but following these tips can help you have a more responsive and clean experience.
