Mobile Marketing Strategies:
An Introduction to the Basics

Mobile marketing is no longer an option if businesses want to reach their customers. People are spending a significant amount of time on their phones consuming content and shopping for products and services. Without an effective presence on mobile platforms, you will lose market share from your competitors and find it more difficult to gain customers online and offline.

What is Mobile Marketing?

Mobile marketing is a digital marketing strategy that engages a target audience on their mobile devices. The channels utilized in this strategy include apps, SMS, MMS, email, social media, content marketing, websites, and push notifications. Because of how people use their smartphones, mobile marketing is one of the most effective methods for reaching an audience.
Its effectiveness is due to its capability to communicate a message to its audience in an immediate and specific manner. Through mobile marketing, small businesses can send out a message immediately to a specific audience based on their location, interests, and preferences.
Here are some mobile marketing statistics that emphasize its importance in reaching your customers:
  • People spend almost 5 hours on their phones every day
  • People check their phones at least 30 times during work hours
  • Younger individuals use their phones just to pass the time
  • One out of five internet users enjoy seeing mobile ads
  • Two-thirds of ecommerce traffic is from mobile users
  • Almost 50 percent of consumers prefer to shop on mobile devices
  • People are more likely to see ads on mobile
  • More conversions are occurring on mobile devices than on desktops
  • Customers use their phones to research businesses before making a purchase
From these statistics, you can see why mobile marketing strategies are a necessity for businesses today. If you want to find out more about mobile marketing and its best practices, continue reading this article.

Mobile Marketing Strategies: Advantages and Disadvantages

Advantages of mobile marketing

There are other advantages to marketing your business to your audience’s smartphones and tablets than the widespread use of mobile devices. Here are other advantages that mobile marketing can offer to your business:

1. Easily-accessible audience

Mobile marketing platforms give you access to devices that are essential to people’s lives today. The interactions in these platforms are real-time and immediate since a majority of your audience will respond immediately to your mobile marketing messaging.

2. Cost-effective marketing methods

You can target marketing campaigns based on user location, behavior, and intent with mobile marketing. This allows you to focus your resources on a smaller segment of your audience who are qualified to become your customers and are more likely to visit your location to make a purchase or avail of your services. Moreover, in-app ads, SMS, and push notifications are among the most affordable marketing channels that your business can use.

3. Location-based targeting

Through mobile marketing, you can target recipients of your messages based on their location. Since people are practically attached to their smartphones nowadays, location-based targeting can lead to immediate returns even if it is as simple as sending them a message via SMS a promo for the day. You can also create an immersive brand experience when they enter your store by taking advantage of more advanced technologies like geofencing.

4. Personalized messaging

TMobile marketing lets you personalize your messages to your audience. These personalized messages can give your business brand recall and conversions from your target market more than generic marketing messaging.

5. Immediacy

People carry their smartphones with them all the time. Sending your marketing messages through SMS or push notifications will prompt an immediate response from them. And, with the right application of urgency in your copy, they are even more likely to take immediate action after reading it.

Disadvantages of mobile marketing

There is no such thing as a perfect marketing strategy. You can expect the same from a mobile marketing strategy. However, instead of using these as reasons not to use them, you must keep these disadvantages in mind when formulating your mobile marketing strategies and take appropriate measures to manage the risks.

1. No room for mistakes

Since customer response is immediate, you cannot afford any errors in the copy you send out through mobile marketing channels. Any errors can affect your brand’s reputation negatively, especially if it’s a promotional message containing the wrong details. So, you need to double-check the details of your mobile marketing campaigns before implementing them in your business.

2. Limited channels for non-smartphone users

Although a majority of mobile users are using smartphones, there are still a few who prefer basic mobile devices. You might have a hard time reaching them other than through SMS if some of your target audience belong to this category.

3. Requires you to stay on top of trends

Your audience's preferences and behavior will change. This is the same for how they use their mobile devices. For your campaigns to remain relevant and effective, you need to stay updated with mobile marketing trends and adjust your strategies accordingly.

4. Requires the use of mobile marketing tools

You cannot rely on your smartphone if you want to take advantage of any mobile marketing platform for your business. You need to use a few tools to manage and implement your campaigns effectively. Unfortunately, these tools will cost you money.

Mobile Marketing Strategies to Reach Your Audience on Mobile

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SMS marketing

SMS marketing is the first mobile marketing strategy used by businesses and organizations. But, it remains one of the most effective methods for reaching your audience on their mobile devices. It works great for time-sensitive offers since most people will open their text messages within the first 20 minutes.

Before sending SMS messages promoting your brand, your customers must first consent to receive it and they should be able to unsubscribe at any time they choose. You must also identify your company as the sender to avoid your recipients from mistaking your messages as something sent by a random number. Lastly, for effective SMS messages, these must provide immediate value to your recipients that will prompt them to take action fast.
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Push notifications

Push notifications are the most popular mobile marketing example people know of when it comes to smartphones and devices. It uses web or app push notifications to promote your offer directly to their phones. Push notifications will appear on their home screen even if they are not using the app. This gives you a more direct and striking method of reaching your audience on mobile.

Push messages are best used with opt-in triggers such as a customer viewing or buying a product, reading a post, or reaching a session count on your website. This will help you target those who are more likely to subscribe to push notifications and avoid spamming your audience with the opt-in. You can use push notifications for order tracking, service updates, announcements, special offers or contest promotions, and thank you messages.
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Location-based mobile marketing

A location-based mobile marketing strategy targets customers based on their present location to send timely messages that entice them to purchase in the near future. It uses the mobile users’ Bluetooth signal, camera, GPS, Wi-Fi, cellular signal, or mobile data to trigger a predetermined marketing action.

There are three different methods of location-based marketing. These are:
  • Geotargeting – This method delivers targeted advertising based on the users’ location, interest, behavior, and intent. This works by running an ad that targets people within a specified distance from a shop and that satisfies a qualifier. For example, a restaurant can use geotargeting to target people in a 5-mile radius of their location who have recently searched "restaurants near me".
  • Geofencing – This is a strategy wherein a mobile device triggers an RFID, WiFI, or cellular signal and receives an advertisement through social media or text. For example, a user walks near a shop and receives an app push notification that promotes an offer from that shop valid only for the day.
  • Beaconing – This works the same way as geofencing. But, it only relies on Bluetooth-powered beacons to create a virtual space. Any mobile device entering this space with its Bluetooth turned on will receive a push notification from these beacons.
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Social media marketing

Social media marketing is great for mobile marketing since a majority of users access it through their mobile devices. Social media marketing through mobile devices gives the business a higher engagement with its audience. This is due to mobile users being more likely to respond and engage with brands through comments and user-generated content.

As for social advertising, mobile users are more likely to view the ads they encounter. This gives your mobile ads a better chance of reaching and converting your target audience. However, these ads musthave enough entertainment value, a compelling copy, and a relevant offer for their target audience.
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Video marketing

A significant portion of mobile users prefer watching a video to reading a guide or tutorial on their devices. These are easier to understand so you can deliver your message more effectively. Moreover, since video provides more opportunities to deliver entertaining content, you can engage your audience in various ways to nurture your relationship with them and improve your brand’s standing from their perspective.

Since you are targeting mobile users, it is advised to transcribe subtitles for your videos since some of your audience might watch on mute on mobile. And, uploading your video content to hosting platforms like YouTube and embedding them in your website decreases the effect of videos on your website's page load speed.
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Website optimized for mobile browsing

A website optimized for mobile browsing has a highly responsive design. Its text, images, and buttons automatically adjust to the user's screen size and viewing orientation to provide the best experience possible. Mobile responsive websites have faster page load speeds, higher conversion rates, more pages per session, and longer browsing sessions than mobile-friendly ones.
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Mobile-friendly content and copy

If you want to create effective content and copy for your audience through mobile channels, it should not only follow the basics of content writing and copywriting. It should also have a format that users can easily consume through their mobile devices.

Here are some tips for creating mobile-friendly content and copy:
  • Use high-quality graphics, images, videos, and GIFs for better engagement with your audience
  • Make sure your content is short and to the point by using short sentences, breaking up your paragraphs, and making your content skimmable
  • Add captions, image names, and alt text for all your website media
  • Make sure your emails have a readable format and fast load speed on mobile
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Local SEO

A third of search users use their mobile devices to search for restaurants, shops, cafes, and services near them. When they view their results, they rarely go past the local business listings since users can find what they need from this part of the page. As a result, businesses listed on top of the local search results have the best chance of attracting local clientele through mobile marketing.

To get your business on the top spot of local search results, you need to optimize your website and business profiles for local search. This involves creating location-specific content and including an address and map of your location on your about page. It also requires you to create a consistent and updated profile for your business in online directories like Google My Business, Bing Places, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Four Square. Lastly, local search users are more likely to click your link when you have numerous positive reviews so it helps to encourage your customers to leave reviews in these directories and to respond to their reviews appropriately.
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Voice search optimization

Mobile users are more likely to perform a voice search through their devices. They use voice search to look for location-specific recommendations like stores, services, and restaurants. With most voice searches ending up with a phone call and in-store and website visits, it is important that your website and local business directory listing are optimized for voice search.

Optimizing your content for voice search requires the targeting of questions and long-tail keywords to reflect the way users will phrase their queries. You must also use a conversational tone in your content to increase its relevance for voice search and to align your content with your audience's expectations.
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Do You Need a Mobile Marketing Solution for Your Business?

Implementing mobile marketing strategies to promote your business requires an expansive set of expertise. It requires web and app development, copywriting, and other technical skills to take advantage of the benefits it can bring to your business. Unfortunately, it can be impractical to hire a team of marketing professionals in terms of management and financial requirements. But, with our mobile marketing services, you do not have to hire or manage an in-house team since we will take care of everything for you.
Contact us and schedule your free consultation to find out more about our services and how we can help you.
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