Mobile marketing is the technique of online multi-channel digital marketing focusing on a specific audience using their smartphones, tablets and other portable devices. With over 80% of internet users owning a smartphone, the mobile world is dictating how brands need to plan their communications to customers. There was a time when websites were designed for desktop viewing primarily and were then adapted to become mobile friendly. Nowadays, with more traffic viewing websites via mobiles or tablets, website design and communications need to be created in order to get the best experience on a mobile.
Websites now must be mobile-friendly to reach audiences in the right format and to feature favourably in Google’s mobile-friendliness rankings. Search engines, such as Google, will be looking for content that loads quickly, fits to the mobile screen size without cropping or zooming and is free from errors known to be specific to mobiles.
Augmented reality is a great tool for the mobile generation where customers can visualise updates to their homes (new kitchens, décor or furniture) or individuals can see how a new hairstyle or colour would look before taking the plunge.
User generated content is a very powerful tool in the mobile world. More people are influenced by their friends and families purchases than by celebrity influencers. Real people are important and help leverage authenticity. If you have a happy customer who posts online and tags your business, that’s top-quality content. A customer who loves their manicure, new hair cut or colour, and wants to tell everyone about it or someone who posts about enjoying your food or loving their new purchases from your company creates fantastic, genuine content. This is recognised by family and friends on social channels who prefer the content of such posts over any celebrity endorsements and are more likely to be prompted to buy the same products and services.
The ease of making purchases from your mobile phone now extends into social commerce so consumers can purchase whilst scrolling through apps including Facebook and Instagram. Businesses with goods and services would be encouraged to utilise the selling features on these social channels.
Chatbots are here to assist in our daily lives. Amazon’s ‘Alexa’ and Apple’s ‘Siri’ are on hand to help us stream music, check facts, create shopping lists or order items online. Marketers will need to edit their keyword strategies because online search terms differ from what people ask chatbots. Rather than entering a generic search such as, “Italian restaurants in Penrith”, people will re-phrase their enquiry to a chatbot, saying “Find an Italian restaurant near me”, in a more conversational style. Marketers need to ensure the re-phrasing is included in keywords for titles, descriptions and content.
Mobile apps now deliver push notifications which are an ideal tool for marketing strategies, covering downloads, subscription renewals, recognising birthdays, highlighting promotions and shopping cart abandonment.
Recommendations to users via push notifications are a simple way for companies and brands to remain in contacts with their app users. Maximising the user preferences on the data collected, companies can suggest related content. Netflix sends push notifications when an app user’s favourite series has a new episode available or alerts them when a new film is release, based on their viewing history. Brands can maximise this technology to wish users happy birthday and share an offer, discount or gift.
The technologies available for marketers to maximise communications via mobile devices continue to develop and opportunities increase to reach end users via their powerful portable devices. Let Acorn Marketing help your business by assessing your needs, creating and managing your general marketing strategy. Get in touch here.
