3 Trends in Mobile Marketing That Will Support Your Sales
The use of mobile devices continues to grow at incredible rates – mobile devices are becoming increasingly popular everywhere. To visualize it let’s look on some stats.
Poles aged fifteen and over have almost 19 million smartphones. In the I am mobi 2015 report, we learn that Poles aged fifteen and over have almost nineteen million smartphones. This number is increasing every year and is a sign of a global trend. This moment is reaching a critical mass that will drive its own growth. This is what is driving more companies than every before to turn to this market and take advantage of the potential of this connected mass of customers. Let’s take a look at three fundamental principles of effective mobile marketing to this audience.
Let’s start with the answer to the question of just what mobile marketing is. In simple words it can be described as a process that uses mobile devices to identify, stimulate and satisfy customer needs. Mobile marketing campaigns can be implemented with a number of tools: SMSs, MMSs, Bluetooth technology (NFC – Near Field Communication), beacons, applications and mobile services. There are many possibilities but how do you implement them effectively?
1. User Friendly Interface
When designing a mobile advertising campaign, you should keep in mind the context in which it will be implemented. This is connected primarily with the fact that mobile devices are used in various conditions, like at work during a coffee break, before going to bed and immediately after waking up, while waiting in a queue or while stuck in a traffic. These different conditions affect the time and way the smartphone or tablet is used. The way that smartphones, tablets and traditional PCs are used differs a lot. To learn more about this, refer to the ComScore Device Essentials study, where you can find a chart that shows how Britons consume digital content over breakfast or during their commute to work.
The size of these devices and their limitations plays an important role. Despite the fact that phone screens are getting bigger, they are still small compared to other devices. When designing an advertising message, for example a push notification, you have to take this into consideration and be sure that recipients will be able to interact with it. Requiring multiple clicks or the introduction of large amounts of text will not work in this context. Projects that you address to mobile customer should be simple and easy to navigate and their content must be concise and clear.
2. SOLOMO – community, location, mobility
This strange-sounding word is an abbreviation of Social, Local and Mobile. Overall, this is a term for the idea of creating mobile applications that will be able to use information about location and reasons why a customer is present at a given place. The essence of SOLOMO is the personalization of offers and services implemented on the basis of such data like purchase histories or actions taken in social media. Research shows that mobile clients are far more likely to click on advertisements based on location.
The analysis provided by the Local Search Association shows that the CTR of campaigns based on geolocation may be twice as high as campaigns that do not use location-based services. The smartphone is a device that accompanies us everywhere. Therefore, providing the client with a promotional coupon while shopping may increase the chance of the message being opened and the offer being used.
3. The use of mobile technology to analyze the offline world
The mobile market is an area of rapid change. Just think about what your phone looked like a few years ago. Today, you probably own a device equipped with a large screen and an impressive set of communication technologies like WiFi, LTE, Bluetooth and NFC and maybe even biometrics. There are now even more “smart” devices now as well with things like watches entering the connected world.
The way we use applications is changing. Bill Bishop, director of Brick Meets Click, says that the percentage of people using the app purchase increased from 21% in 2013 to 41% in 2014. Mobile shoppers use their device for checking prices, using coupons, searching for and publishing opinions about products or even barcode scanning and product payment.
Remember that a few years ago the phone was mainly used for making calls and sending messages. These changes in the consumer behaviour require a reaction from vendors. If you want to run an effective mobile marketing campaign, it should be open to new solutions, bu what kind? First of all, responsive websites built according to the principles of Responsive Web Design dynamically adapt their appearance to the size of the device that they are being viewed on. An example of such a website is the online shop of Gino Rossi.
Beacons are a new and important technology. They are simple transmitters that use Bluetooth to help you reach clients in a specific location. Integrating beacons with mobile applications – for example, from your store – and adding them into an omnichannel marketing platform like Synerise will allow you to create effective mobile campaigns and drive sales.
The ideas mentioned here are just the tip of the marketing iceberg. Trends and technologies change very rapidly and the commercial landscape can shift under your feet if you don’t see the changes coming first. These ideas provide a good starting point for introducing the field of contemporary mobile marketing campaigns.