What is mobile marketing
Before delving into the intricacies of this strategy, let’s initially establish a functional explanation of mobile marketing.
Mobile marketing is essentially marketing that is specifically created for mobile devices. It can encompass SMS marketing as well as email campaigns and other marketing strategies intended for mobile utilization.
Traditional marketing methods such as newspaper, television, and radio advertisements are aimed at a wide range of people, while mobile marketing enables businesses to engage in personalized, focused communication with their customers.
Both SMS and email marketing are directed only towards individuals who have already shown interest in hearing from you. These individuals are already involved with your company and are the most probable to make a conversion.
Why is mobile marketing important for a small business
There are different factors why small businesses, specifically, gain advantages from a robust mobile marketing strategy. Mobile marketing is cost-effective and enables businesses to target their audience more efficiently, with a specific emphasis on the customers in close proximity.
Create strong marketing campaigns on a budget
When advertising with a mobile audience in mind, we suggest mobile marketing for small businesses as it allows you to create engaging and successful marketing campaigns on a budget.
Traditional advertisements, such as television commercials, can be quite expensive for your company to pay for. In addition to the cost of creating the materials, a captivating TV commercial necessitates the involvement of scriptwriters, videographers, and potentially costume designers.
On the other hand, sending a text message or email can be done at a minimal cost. Additionally, your in-house marketing team can handle everything involved in creating and sending an email or text message to your customers.
Reach your target audience with ease
When considering marketing, it is important to follow a key principle: advertise in a place where your target audience frequently visits. As approximately 80% of the global population owns a smartphone, utilizing mobile marketing proves to be a wise strategy for reaching nearly all potential customers your business aims to target.
According to current studies, it is estimated that in the year 2025, 72% of internet users will exclusively use mobile devices to access the internet. By familiarizing yourself with mobile marketing for small businesses at this moment, you not only enhance the accessibility to your audience but also prepare your business for future accomplishments.
Improve location-based marketing
By optimizing your website to cater to mobile users and local traffic, such as by creating a Google Business Profile, the chances of your business appearing in local search results are higher. This leads to an increase in local organic traffic and improves the chances of your target audience discovering your business when they require your products or services.
The top mobile marketing strategies for small businesses
Implementing mobile marketing for small businesses requires effort. There are various choices available to effectively execute mobile marketing for your brand. Examining the leading mobile marketing tactics and a few real-life examples can help you comprehend how they can benefit your small business.
1. Improve all marketing with mobile users in mind
To start off, it is important to optimize your online presence with mobile users in mind. First, familiarize yourself with the distinction between mobile-friendly and mobile-responsive website design. Following that, consider transitioning to a mobile-responsive website or creating a mobile app as an alternative to a website for mobile users.
To further enhance the mobile-friendliness of content, you can consider utilizing shorter lines of text. By incorporating headings and subheadings within written materials or employing GIFs in emails, mobile users can effortlessly navigate through the content without feeling overwhelmed by dense blocks of text.
When you are planning your social media content, consider making it more specific for mobile users. Try to concentrate on conveying one main message in each post, along with one specific call to action that targets a particular audience.
If you want mobile users to take notice of your social media posts, you must ensure that your posts are eye-catching and scannable, and that they contain a clear call to action. Otherwise, mobile users will probably continue scrolling.
2. Run strong text message marketing campaigns
Text message marketing is often the first thing that comes to mind when you think of “mobile marketing” because it has a high success rate. Around 80% of text messages are opened and read within 15 minutes of being sent, which makes it more prompt and dependable compared to other marketing channels.
It is important to familiarize yourself with SMS marketing best practices before initiating a text message marketing campaign. Additionally, you should search for mobile marketing examples online to observe the successful implementation of these best practices by other businesses.
After gaining a thorough understanding of text message marketing, establish objectives for your upcoming campaign. For instance, are you aiming to publicize a particular sale or enhance the count of email list subscribers?
By thinking step by step, the text below can be rephrased while keeping the same meaning: SMART goals, which include being specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and time-constrained, aid in evaluating your achievements and recognizing areas of difficulty. Consequently, this comprehension can result in ongoing enhancements to your text message marketing performance.
3. Responsive website design that is optimized for mobile
In order to ensure optimal mobile performance, it is necessary to optimize your website, marketing content, and ads. This entails going beyond being merely ‘mobile friendly’ and instead requires the creation of a highly responsive website that is specifically designed for mobile usage.
A website that is optimized for mobile devices ensures an excellent customer experience for individuals browsing on their phones or any other mobile device. Additionally, it leads to higher conversion rates and reduced bounce rates.
To optimize your website efficiently, consider using mobile-specific platforms, implementing HTML5, and ensuring adaptability and responsiveness. It is crucial to create mobile-friendly content that is easily consumed, scales effectively, and loads rapidly.
4. Mobile-friendly content and copy
As previously mentioned, it is important to consider mobile optimization not only for your website infrastructure, but also for the content itself, ensuring it is mobile-friendly.
To ensure that your content is mobile-friendly, consider the following tips:
- Use high-quality images, videos, and GIFs. Mobile content needs to be visually engaging and interesting.
- Copy needs to be short, concise, and to the point. Use short sentences, break up paragraphs with headings and sub-headings, and use ordered and unordered lists for any content that can be skimmed.
- Use large fonts (size 14px or bigger), as small font sizes are hard to read on a small screen.
- Add alt text, image names, and captions to all media so that viewers can see what it is if it’s taking a while to download on a slow data connection, or if their browser does not automatically load media.
- Most people watch videos on mute, so adding subtitles is essential to get your message across even with the sound off!
5. Opt-In (and Opt-Out) forms
When it comes to digital marketing, particularly email marketing, it is advisable to seek consent from recipients and offer them the option to unsubscribe. This rule applies to mobile marketing as well. By using opt-in forms on your website, emails, and other communication platforms, you not only obtain permission to engage with individuals but also enhance the growth of your email and SMS lists.
When considering the thought process, you can rephrase the given text without adding or removing any information. You have the option to use a basic pop-up or employ a more intricate lead-magnet offer. This offer would entail providing a free resource download in return for obtaining an individual’s email address or phone number.
Equally important is the presence of an opt-out option. When individuals are aware that they can choose to opt out, they are more inclined to provide you with their contact information. Moreover, they are also more inclined to unsubscribe from your email or SMS lists on their own, thereby saving you the task of doing it for them when they no longer respond.
When contact lists are regularly purged, their open rates and CTR increase, leading to improvements in email reputation and deliverability.
Mobile marketing: Advantages and Disadvantages
Advantages of mobile marketing
Mobile marketing is a highly effective part of digital marketing because it provides various distinct benefits.
1. Easily accessible to a large audience
Reaching the majority of all internet users instantly, connecting with your audience through their phones provides immediate and real-time contact.
As of 2022, there are currently more than 6.5 million smartphone users worldwide, and this number is expected to increase to over 7.6 million by 2027. By 2025, approximately 72.6% of all internet access will be carried out through smartphones, which accounts for three-quarters of all internet users.
Additionally, when considering tablets and other mobile devices, the mentioned statistics only pertain to smartphones. Mobile marketing, specifically SMS or text marketing, stands out as a distinctive channel with open rates as high as 98%. This impressive figure further establishes the effectiveness of mobile marketing as a marketing approach.
2. Highly cost-effective marketing
Mobile marketing is an effective and diverse method that allows you to reach your audience at a lower cost. This is attributable to various factors.
- Your existing content and messaging can easily be re-purposed and optimized for mobile
- Screen sizes are smaller, which means the new content you create for mobile is inherently smaller and simpler, which takes less time and costs less money
- Precise targeting and location-based marketing allow you to focus your marketing efforts on the right segments of your audience, reducing wasted ad spend
- Mobile-only channels like push notifications, in-app ads, and SMS or text marketing are some of the cheapest channels available
In terms of ROI, mobile marketing is proven to be both effective and cost-effective when compared to other marketing techniques.
Disadvantages of mobile marketing
When planning your mobile marketing campaigns, it is important to be aware of the potential drawbacks, despite the significant advantages that mobile marketing offers.
1. Immediacy means there is no wiggle room to fix errors
Mobile marketing is inherently a method of communication that takes place immediately and in real-time. If you happen to make a mistake in your message, there is no opportunity to rectify it prior to the recipients seeing it. Consequently, transmitting an erroneous message and subsequently sending a correction notice does not align with the desired first impression you aim to establish.
2. Easy sharing and viral potential can backfire
In the appropriate context, your content has a significant potential to be quickly shared extensively. Nonetheless, in an inappropriate context, it can become a substantial drawback.
If your brand’s content is being shared and circulated in a negative way, it can have a detrimental impact on your brand reputation, leading to costly and challenging efforts to fix. Hence, ensure that all your content is thoroughly considered and will be received as intended before sharing it with anyone on their mobile phones.
3. Costs to the user
When formulating your mobile marketing plan and selecting strategies to reach various segments of your target market, it is important to consider that while channels such as email and SMS marketing can be cost-effective for your business, they may result in data or text message charges for your audience.
