Put Yourself In Your Customers' Pockets: Effective Mobile Marketing
The phones that people are using are growing more and more powerful every year. Today. most consumers are carrying Internet-enabled smartphones that give them access to the full range of online resources at any time. A marketing campaign which focuses on reaching customers through mobile devices has become less of an indulgence and more of a practical option. In the future, it may well be a necessity. Prepare yourself for effective mobile marketing by reviewing the advice presented here.
In the same way that there are many different kinds of mobile devices, there are many different sorts of customers using those devices in different ways. Try to get a feel for how your customers in particular (both your current ones and the ideal customers you'd like to attract) use their phones and other mobile devices. Do they spend a great deal of time online, or do they limit their Internet use? Are they comfortable with text messages? Knowing how your audience makes use of mobile communications helps you to craft a more effective campaign.
A good mobile marketing campaign has something to offer for both existing customers and new ones. As a general rule of thumb, you'll be using passive advertising techniques to attract new business and more active methods to communicate with your current clientele. For example, setting up a mobile version of your website and linking it into local services like Google+ and Yelp is a great way to present yourself to potential customers. Sending out text messages and emails, on the other hand, is better suited to talking to customers you've dealt with before.
As mentioned earlier, people use more than just their phones to access the Internet on the go. Tablets are rising in popularity, and you mustn't forget that there are still folks out there using non-smart cellphones. It may not be possible for your mobile marketing campaign to reach out to customers using every type of device under the sun. Think carefully, though, before you close off any potential communications avenue.
If you want your mobile marketing campaign to be a success, you had best give some thought to defining the term "success" itself. What are you hoping to convince your customers to do? Are you going to make online sales right through their phones? Is you goal to bring them into a physical store? Do you simply want to spread information and know it's being received? Depending on your goals, you'll want to track your progress using different measures. Choose the ones that best reflect what you're trying to do.
Finally, a word on apps. Take the possibility of creating your own apps with a grain of salt. Ask yourself if you could produce an app (with or without professional assistance) that your customers would find truly useful. An app that's plainly just an advertisement, with little useful functionality, might get downloaded, but it's unlikely to stay on a customer's phone for long. It goes without saying that you need to be even better about providing real value if you intend to charge your customers for an app.
There's no time like the present to take your marketing message into the mobile world. Since it may become a necessity in the future, gaining some experience in the field now is an excellent idea. Let the advice you've just read through sink in and inform the mobile marketing choices you make. You'll have a great head start on crafting a successful campaign this way.
