Your Definitive Guide to Create a Mobile Marketing Strategy for 2019

Mobile marketing strategy is a multi-channel and digital marketing strategy which caters to users of mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. For these mobile devices, you may create contents via websites, email, SMS, MMS, social media, and apps for your mobile marketing strategy. To create a mobile marketing strategy is different from a desktop marketing strategy mostly because you need to consider the many differences;  starting from the fact that mobile devices are smaller than laptops or desktop computers.

People who use their phones to look for solutions have different behaviors, intents, and needs compared to those who are using desktop when searching. For example: If there’s a customer who usually would click only the first 5 titles of a Google search on desktop, then it would be easier to imagine that the same customer might only browse 1-3 titles of the search results if he or she is on mobile. Why is that? In the example above, this may indicate that the customer wants to get a quicker answer; quicker than browsing 5 titles when searching on desktop, even though there is a maximum of 10 titles in every page of the search results. Using mobile devices are known to be more flexible and convenient as they can be used whenever and wherever given that it is handy than those of laptops or desktop computers. A person may use a mobile device even when they’re doing other things at the same time or multitasking such as looking for recipes while cooking and browsing while going from one place to another. However, with this, the challenge to marketing on mobile devices is the attention span of people being limited and divided. This goes back to our point of why a customer would usually just click fewer titles on mobile. The same thing goes for other marketing strategies. Marketing on desktop, print, and television have different indications as to why users are consuming contents on these channels. This is why some ideas may not work for a mobile marketing strategy and vice versa. With the increase in mobile devices, the natural demand for rapid development of mobile marketing strategies is obvious.

To have a mobile marketing strategy is important simply because mobile users are continuing to grow.

In 2015, mobile web traffic surpassed desktop for the first time. Now, as of January 2019 data by Statista, there are over 3.9 billion unique mobile internet users estimated worldwide. On the other hand, according to Stone Temple, the percentage of visits from desktop devices decreased from 43% (2016) to 37% (2017), as well as the time on websites from 60% to 51% in the U.S. With this, mobile traffic is expected to claim ⅔ of all traffic by this year. In addition, the forecast for tablet users in the U.S shows to pass the 180 million mark for the first time in 2019.

Undeniably, almost everything you can do with a laptop is also available on mobile devices. Consuming contents – videos, articles, pictures – is no exception. Consumers not only want everything at their fingertips, but now want the devices to be in their pockets or in their hands at all times. With these reasons, it is no wonder why U.S. consumers today spend more than 5 hours on their smartphones each day. In addition, the mobile e-commerce is also up and increasing as almost half of the online transactions happened through mobile.

As a business, it’s important to be present where your customers are. In this case, if they’re on mobile, it’s only right to plan a solid mobile marketing strategy.

So what strategy should you invest in? Here are some mobile marketing strategies you can implement:

This is also known as in-app marketing or in-app advertising. This is simply having ads inside mobile applications such as social media apps, sharing economy apps, entertainment apps, and more. Mobile apps can include widgets, virtual machines or native applications. This kind of mobile marketing strategy is used by a wide variety of types of businesses. However, it would be more useful for businesses who have social media pages or websites such as e-commerce or online stores, so it would be easier to redirect users who are interested in the ads.

These mobile ads can be either banner pop-ups, full-page image ads or video ads usually shown inside a mobile game between loading screens. This kind of strategy is suitable for game apps as ads will interrupt customers who are, obviously, into games (or at least spending time on one!).

These barcodes can be put on any physical object and can be scanned using a mobile device’s camera. After scanning, this redirects users to the linked website. This is best used for promoting official websites of brands, so it’s most useful for businesses that gather inquiries through their website or providing more information that’s too much to be placed somewhere physically.

This is more known as text messaging. In a text message, customers can get offers and other relevant information about your brand. Most businesses who use this type of mobile marketing strategy are telecommunications companies. However, it would also make sense for other businesses such as apps, e-commerce, even fast food or restaurants to promote their products via text message. This is because getting contact numbers of customers are as easy as making them register accounts on websites which can be connected to their text messages promos.

This is also a text message but includes multimedia items such as images, videos, and audios. This strategy is also mostly used by telecommunications companies.

Location-based marketing refers to ads which will be shown on a user’s device depend on their location determined via GPS technology. This strategy will work if your business is dependent on the concept of location. Meaning to say, if your business store is just around the area where your users are then throw an ad of your product or service as it may be useful to your consumers. For example: “You’re just 30 meters away to grab a burger, fries, and sundae only at Mcdonalds.” Furthermore, location-based marketing works better if you’re aiming to target consumers in a larger geographical area.

These ads are basic Google search ads but built or optimized for mobile. These ads are mostly used by website-based businesses such as blogs, news, and entertainment articles.

These are similar to the banner ads on a desktop computer but only smaller and fit for screens of mobile devices. Banner ads can also be for any type of business. The placing of your banner ads, will only depend on your target market or strategy. For example: If you choose your banner ads to be placed on websites such as Google mail or Yahoo mail, you can make sure that your audiences are those people who regularly check their emails.

Mobile wallets such as Apple’s Passbook lets businesses offer promos, coupons, and passes to consumers. It is best if ads that are shown to consumers are also consumable via digital wallet. For example: Online shops, online travel/flight bookings, and online reservations.

A location-specific message or ads will be received by mobile users via Bluetooth if they are within the proximity of the broadcast. Proximity marketing is a more targeted approach and it reaches customers based on accurate position and not a virtual geofence or geographic boundary. Though this may sound similar to location-based marketing, it can be a little different; with proximity usually meaning smaller distances and used indoors. For example: If a customer walks outside your store, a discount offer will pop-up in order to entice the customer to get inside the store. Once inside the store, another different ad will appear on the mobile device.

Once you have picked what type(s) of mobile marketing strategy fits your industry, target audience, and budget, it’s now time to learn what kind of freedom and restrictions mobile marketing has.

Creating mobile buyer personas or representations of your customers is very important in order to truly understand your target audience. Here are the things you need to include when creating customer profiles for your mobile user audience:

• Demographics
• Psychographics
• Online habits
• Mobile user search intent
• Source of information
• Preferred type of content

Answers for such may differ when targeting desktop device users. You still need to go through understanding your mobile user audience, not just desktop, to create a more effective mobile marketing strategy.

It is better to keep your contents (images and text) direct and simple because the screens on mobile devices are usually smaller than that of a desktop or television. This also means that your contents should be responsive and mobile-friendly.

Sometimes what works for your business may not work for others and vice versa. It is best to open your options and keep experimenting with your mobile marketing strategy.

• Mobile ad extensions – Try using ad extensions such as additional site links, discount offers or coupons, click-to-call, and click-to-download buttons.

Try to invest in these added options to see and analyze what works for your business.

To be able to determine if your mobile marketing strategy is effective, you need to create realistic goals. You also need to analyze how each of the investment you made for your mobile marketing strategy is performing. Keep each mobile marketing strategy that is effective. On the other hand, continue to improve your other strategies by looking at your past mobile marketing report.

Just by looking through the latest mobile statistics, facts, and trends, mobile devices as a technology doesn’t seem to be fading any time soon.

The convenience and experience that mobile devices bring explains why mobile is the channel customers want your business available and reachable in. With a mobile marketing strategy, customers can have their experiences more customized and personalized. To get the best out of marketing, changing and adapting your strategies to accommodate your customers is important.

It’s understandable that mobile marketing can also be tricky. Your other marketing strategies won’t work for a mobile marketing strategy when your mobile user audience have different intent and needs. If you plan to go on to mobile marketing as soon as possible, adish can help you understand your users as well as advise how you can meet your customers’ expectations and provide the experience that fits for mobile users. Be mobile-ready!