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Mobility presents an unprecedented opportunity to transform your business and build towards competitive advantage. From QR codes to eCommerce apps, it’s pretty clear that smartphones have transformed customer behavior. As we enter 2013, It’s time to be sure your business prioritizes “adding mobile to your marketing mix”, in order to remain competitive and relevant.
By 2015 there will be one mobile device for every person on the planet. Bottom line: More people are using their mobile devices than PCs to access the Internet.
If you’re not integrating mobile campaigns into your marketing mix and tapping into this market on the move, you’re simply missing out. The expectations of consumers are growing quickly.
Consumers use mobile devices to search and interact with businesses from anywhere at anytime and the mobilized shopper of today is impacting merchants, retailers and most every other business in ways never seen before.
WHO DOES MOBILE WORK FOR?
With a significant amount of traffic being driven to websites from mobile devices, company’s that sell directly to consumers and B2B company’s can benefit from a from a mobile engagement strategy.
If you’re a business owner who understands the value of marketing and promotions and your company already spends a monthly budget on items such as:
1. Website and Email Promotions
2. Print Advertising
3. Directory Listings
4. Direct Flyer Campaigns
5. Yellow pages
then with the proper execution, mobile can amplify your existing investments, generate leads, speed up the sales cycle enhance engagement with your
brand, drive traffic, increase loyalty, create customer insights and more…
MOBILE IS A UNIQUE CHANNEL
Mobile is a low-cost, effective, and highly personal and intimate channel as mobile devices are always on, always available and mobile users are almost never far away from their phones. As a marketer, you hold the power to focus on reaching and engaging your mobile audience with dynamic campaigns.
THE BIG PICTURE MOBILE STRATEGY
When defining your mobile strategy, start by identifying your objectives. Are you looking to win new customers (acquisition) or keep your existing ones happy and loyal (retention)? Or do you see mobile as a transactional channel, making it easier for your customers to buy from you on the go?
Once you have these answers, evaluate all the different ways that mobile might be able to help you achieve them and, confirm if mobile can deliver these goals more effectively than other channels. Your goal, should be to end up with something of real value to your customers, rather than a fancy app that does some amazing things, but is of little / no use to anyone that you have to market heavily in order to get some benefits out of your investment in it.
EFFECTIVE MOBILE CAMPAIGNS
Creating a compelling mobile experience is a competitive necessity. You need a solid mobile strategy that successfully positions your company empowers it to sell more effectively, and at the same time reinforces your brand. The right strategy for creating exciting customer experiences involves a few easy steps:
Step 1. Find out what your target market wants you to offer.
Do they need location-specific information? Are your consumers looking to be entertained? Are they looking for a financial incentive that can be offered through a rewards or loyalty program?
Step 2. Choose the right mobile marketing strategies for this campaign:
•Create a mobile-friendly website
•Start Email and SMS Text messaging campaigns
•Create QR (quick response) codes to bring your print advertising to life by being mobile responsive
•Use location-based mobile marketing tools
•Location-based advertising is of particular interest to brands with retail outlets. It takes advantage of the mobile phone’s ability to pinpoint the user’s current location; With this insight, through an app or a mobile advertising campaign, the brand can target customers as they come within a few hundred meters of one of it’s location and tempt them in store with a money-off offer, or just a message about what’s on offer for the day!
•Create loyalty and rewards campaigns
- Mobile is an excellent loyalty and CRM (Customer Relationship Management) tool. The process involves collecting mobile phone numbers of existing and potential customers, while asking their permission to use the mobile as an ongoing communications channel.
- Some of the most effective CRM programs use pervasive, text messages.
•Companies such as DigiStream Media offer self-service platforms that enable business owners to collect and manage their database of mobile phone numbers, then use them to create marketing campaigns that incentivize local consumers to patronize a business.
•Develop a mobile advertising campaign
•Build a mobile app
•Develop your mobile SEO
Step 3. Launch mobile marketing campaigns and market them using social media outlets.
Integrate mobile campaigns in your marketing using social networking to syndicate your offers and expand your reach to people following your target’s social profile.
Step 4. Track what is working and make any necessary adjustments.
•Opt-in, opt-out
•Response rates to ads,
• Text messages
•Downloading your app from a mobile landing page.
•Track redeemed coupons and the profit made from each campaign me
•Check-in analytics – Sending users a push alert that asks them to “check in” when they are in your store.
While customers and prospects are talking about your brand and offers you can harness priceless customer data. Gathering, analyzing, and understanding the metrics is a part of the new, data-driven mobile marketing landscape. With the right tools and guidance, these metrics can provide a wealth of knowledge that will boost your customer relationships like never before.
Refine your mobile marketing campaigns and make them work harder to deliver the maximum return on investment.
Mobile engages more people around the globe than any other device. Today’s consumers reach for their mobile devices for convenience and out of need to make their lives fun, functional and productive.
As a marketers you need to deeply understand how these behaviors shape specific mobile campaign strategies if your brand is going to keep pace in today’s always-on, always available consumer lifestyle.
In my next article, I’ll share how-to create websites optimized for mobile. Mobile websites are the epicenter of any mobile strategy. Having a mobile-optimized website, if you don’t, should be your top priority and #1 action item for engaging mobile customers and allowing them to connect with your business.
