4 things to keep in mind for your mobile marketing campaign.

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Hello there!

In this article, we talk about what is Mobile Marketing, why is it important and what are the main things to keep in mind when creating and running a mobile marketing campaign. You will also find plenty of resources, and links to more detailed information, popular tools and platforms.

With mobile consumption on the rise, it makes sense to include it in your advertising strategy. 

What is Mobile Marketing?

As I mentioned before in my Digital Channels post, mobile or location-based marketing is one of the 8 digital marketing channels. 

Here is my favourite definition of mobile marketing by The Digital Marketing Institute; "mobile marketing is the sharing of a brand or business in a way that is optimized for smartphones and other mobile devices throughout apps, social media channels, and websites".

One could argue that mobile is only a setting, a set of strategies or a device type used to access other digital marketing channels like Social Media and Paid Search. This is technically true, but from a marketing perspective, location-based marketing, also known as mobile marketing, is a powerful digital marketing channel due to its many functionalities and customization possibilities.

Why is Mobile Marketing Important?

The percentage of people browsing online its been increasing each year, giving more and more relevance to mobile as a fundamental digital marketing channel.

According to TechJury, Mobile market share worldwide is 52.1% compared to the desktop market share of 44.2%, and 40% of people search only on a smartphone.

One good place to learn more about mobile best practices, industries and other related insights is Think With Google.

Opportunities and advantages of the mobile digital channel

The behaviour of people when using their smartphones, for example, is different than people navigating the internet with their desktops and laptops. 

• People tend to search with shorter terms in smartphones. Keep in mind that most people don't want to type a lot because they are on the go, or simply because using your thumbs for typing gets tiring. 

Tip: Evaluate the keywords you are currently using in your for mobile marketing strategy.

• Also, when people search for terms like "pizza near me", "bath leak repair", "gas station" or "clinic near me", just to mention some examples, is usually because they need this service right away or promptly.  

Tip: Readable text, only the necessary images and easy to find call-to-action (CTA) buttons are important for your mobile content in landing pages, website, ads and social networks. Make sure people can quickly get in touch with you, acquire your product or consume your service.

• Mobile marketing gets you as close to your customers as possible. Text messages, push notifications, a mobile-friendly site, or an app are different ways to achieve it.

Tip: Analyze what parts of your digital marketing plan that can be supported by the mobile digital channel, as well as the tools and features you should explore.

There are many possibilities in the mobile digital marketing channel, some of which we already mentioned, plus some others like:

• The ability to deliver instant messages.
• One-click phone calls
• The convenience that these devices represent for our customers.
• The possibility personalize the messages.
• The possibility of real-time segmentation (location-based)
• Access to the growing massive global market.
• Built-in Assistive Technology (AT) features (including text-to-speech, dictation technology, GPS, etc).
• Mobile payments options.

These opportunities and features can be reached in the form of apps, or as we already mentioned; ads and social networks, for example.

In his book Digital Marketing Planning: 2020 edition, Emiliano Giovannoni says, "among all the opportunities and capabilities provided to marketers by mobile devices, the most significant feature is that mobile devices can target consumers when they are out and about. This means that you can show specific promotional offers to target mobile phone users within a radius of your physical store".

He continuos to say, "this type of advertising is ideal for driving consumers to your physical stores using discount coupons or limited-time in-store offers.

Tip: If you have a local business, make sure to take advantage of location-based segmentation, allowing you to provide eye-catching call-to-action buttons to those on the move.

4 things to keep in mind for your mobile marketing campaign.

1. First, find out how can the mobile marketing digital channel help your company's digital marketing plan.

It is paramount to understand your company's marketing plan. 

• What are the digital marketing campaign goals? 
• What resources do we have access to? 
• etc.

Additionally, get familiar with your customer persona (avatar persona) finding the answer to crucial questions regarding your niche.

• Who is your ideal customer? 
• What digital devices do they use to navigate the internet? 
• What social networks do they prefer? 
• What's their online behaviour?
• etc.

2. Then, evaluate the current mobile marketing situation for your business. 

Understanding your company's mobile current situation implies identifying and evaluating the actions that have been taken on your website, email and other digital marketing channels in order to deliver the company's message through mobile devices.

Evaluate your content

• Test your website using different mobile devices.
• Inspect your emails from mobiles
• Audit your social delivery platforms and the way your content looks in those platforms, through small screens.

3. Select appropriate tools.

Select the appropriate tools to support your mobile marketing strategy and be aware of new features and technologies that can improve your overall performance.

Some examples of tools and new technologies are:

Tools

• SMS
• Push Notifications
• Emails
• Mobile apps
• Mobile ads

New technologies and trends:

• Voice Search
• Chat Bots
• AI analysis and technologies
• Video
• 5G internet connection
• Mobile-Web AR (Augmented Reality)

4. Design your mobile marketing strategy and implement it.

Your website must be mobile-friendly:

A cornerstone of your mobile marketing strategy is making sure your website is mobile-friendly, and you achieve this by verifying that your website follows these points:

• Fast loading speed.

Internet users are not patient. Studies have shown that the ideal page load time should be 3 seconds or less. Some tools like AMP can dramatically improve your website loading speed. AMP is an open-source HTML framework designed to optimize faster mobile pages. AMP was developed by the AMP Open Source Project, originally created by Google. For more information about AMP, please visit https://amp.dev/

• Optimized user experience and customer experience.

In simple words, user experience (UX) is defined as any interaction a user makes with a product or service. The UX design takes into consideration each and every element involved that helps in shaping the experience, how it makes the user feel and how easy it is to fulfil the tasks.

On the other hand, customer experience (CX) is the sum of the entire customer journey with your business. UX is part of CX. 

• Improved usability.

According to Crazyegg.com, usability means user-centered design. Both the design and development process are focussed around the prospective user — to make sure their goals, mental models, and requirements are met — to build products that are efficient and easy to use.

Make sure your website is asy to use, minimize typing, create bigger buttons and clear text.

Support your mobile marketing strategy with the right tools:

• Keywords

One of the most known keyword planners is Google Keyword Planner. But there many more keyword planner tools out there, including Google Trends, Ubersuggest, answer the public, keywordtool.io as well as many free tools.

• Landing pages.

According to bluehost.com, "a landing page is a web page that allows you to capture a visitor’s information through a lead form. It’s where visitors land when they click a call-to-action on your website, blog, offer, or pay-per-click ad on social platforms. On your landing page, visitors will find a form to fill out for an offer. When they submit your information, they are captured as a new lead in your database".

There are plenty of tools to build your landing pages, including MailChimp and Instapage.

Tailor-made ads for mobile

• Size

When referring to mobile ads, size matters. Find more information about this in MonetizeMore.com

• Display ads in mobile apps

To learn more about display ads in mobile apps, I recommend Google Ads Help.

• Turn on mobile preferred in search engines.

To specify device preferences for ads read here information from Google Ads Editors Help.

Improve your local presence.

• Google my business

Google My Business is a free and easy-to-use tool for businesses and organisations to manage their online presence across Google, including Search and Maps. If you verify and edit your business information, you can both help customers find your business and tell them your story.

To access Google My Business click here.

Social Media ads

• Select the right platforms

Among the most known social media platforms are Facebook, YouTube, Twitter and Instagram. To learn more about this platform read "The 7 Top Social Media Sites You Need to Care About in 2020" by Adobe Spark.

Other important social networks are LinkedIn, Whatsapp, Pinterest, Reddit and GoodReads. Here you can find a more extensive list of social platforms.

• Utilize the audience targeting features

Most platforms offer options for ads so your company can create and manage content, as well as options for saving, scheduling, publishing and analyzing the performance of your content. Facebook Ads Manager and Youtube Ads are two good examples.

• Optimized content for each social media platform

When it comes to content, there are some basic terms that are important to understand. 

Vehicle: The shape that the content takes. It can be text, image&text, photo, illustrations, audio, video, AR, VR, tables, animation (gifs) and graphs.

Content-type: Blogpost (text posts), social media update, infographics, podcasts, vlogs, films & documentaries, primary search, quizzes, webinars, and customer stories.

Channel: Any of the digital marketing channels I mentioned in my article called "Digital Marketing Channels".

That being clarified, it is important to notice that some vehicles will narrow the content types, and the content types will determine the possible channels. Because many platforms focus on specific content-types, channels also influence the type of content you create.

For example, if I want to use a video to promote my services, my content types are narrowed down to blog posts, social media updates, vlogs, films & documentaries, webinars and customer stories, but not infographics, podcasts (audio) or quizzes.

Now, if I choose twitter as the only platform from my social marketing channel, most probably, I will be focusing on "image+text" content-type formats like text posts and infographics, but if I use Pinterest, most of my content will consist of images and illustrations.

Tip: Most channels including social platforms are very versatile, allowing you to use most of the content vehicles available. For example, Facebook started with photos and now allows you to upload from videos and gifs to life events. Make sure you are familiar with all the possibilities every social platform and digital marketing channel offers you.

Video Advertising in Mobiles

Iron Source defines Mobile video advertising as "a popular app monetization strategy which app developers use to boost their app revenue. Developers integrate video ads on mobile apps and earn revenue when users watch them". 

Be aware of good practices and enhanced video advertising techniques that will help you improve your video advertising performance. A good article to start with is 8 tips for successful mobile advertising by Single Grain

Among there recommendations are:

• Optimize Your Videos for Low Bandwidth Connections.
• Offer Something of Value for Your Target Audience
• Maintain Brand Consistency in Your Videos.
• Include Clear Call to Actions (CTAs).

Tips: Make sure you create relevant and short videos with clear Call-to-actions, the upload and segment your audience for proper exposure of your quality video content.

Wrapping Up

We have talked about Mobile Marketing, also known as Location-based marketing which is one of the 8 Digital Marketing Channels described previously in one of my posts.

We have defined Mobile marketing and related terms, as well as provide links to more resources, platforms, articles and well-know mobile marketing tools.

I hope you learned from this article and enjoyed reading as much as I did writing it. 

Please, comment down below. 

Every opinion on how to improve the content of this blog will allow me to make adjustments on the go with the objective of providing better and more accurate information for you.