Mobile Marketing: Why is it important for you?
According to an article by Smart Insights, Mobile Marketing is one of the key digital marketing trends for 2016. The time users spend using their smartphones has increased tremendously, and it has opened a perfect field for marketing. In fact, on one hand, mobile digital media time is far greater than desktop, and the Mobile Advertising spend has not yet caught up with the consumption of mobile media (which is a positive thing, considering that Mobile conversion rates are much lower than desktop’s.)
What is Mobile Marketing? It is a set of strategies that enables a company to communicate with potential customers through any network or mobile device. Given that 9 out of 10 users have access to internet through smartphones, this kind of marketing makes it necessary to find new ways to reach consumers, different than the conventional website strategies. Actually, to adapt the supply of products and services to smartphones (and to take advantage of this interesting juncture) is an essential measure nowadays. In fact, Google has been penalizing those websites that are not fully adapted for proper display on mobile devices.
When compared with the actions taken in traditional media, Mobile Marketing has great advantages. The first one is that it spreads its actions through the very Internet-access tool: smartphones are always at hand. However, a better advantage is that today there is nothing more personal than a mobile phone. Therefore, because there is a global reach close to the 100% of the world’s population, Mobile Marketing enables brands to deliver an interactive and custom advertising, which was impossible to develop with older technologies. Smartphones don’t just make mass communication easier: it is a channel that makes it easier to send highly targeted campaigns to users. Mobile Marketing flexibility is significant because it allows to meet the demand of different brands and markets and with different objectives.
Of course, this type of marketing is not exempt from criticism. Some of the problems that arise when doing marketing through mobile devices are, among others, the wide variety of operating systems and the several ways in which the same information is presented to different users. On the other hand, the interfaces are much smaller, and they limit the successful adaptation of websites to mobiles. Finally, as it’s noted by Reputation Defender, the social activity of users on their mobile devices is exposed because of the potential mismanaged published information. It can clearly become a serious violation of privacy.
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Nevertheless, experts foresee a bright future for Mobile Marketing. It is known that Mobile advertising will keep increasing faster and wider. An increase by 43% for 2018 (compared to a 6% in 2013) is expected. In that case, mobile advertising spending would reach 42 billion dollars at the end of the current decade. After all, the advertising formats that have higher growth actually belong to advertising display networks and are mobile oriented. In consequence, the investment growth in Mobile Display between 2013 and 2018 will reach a 96%.
There are traditional Mobile Marketing techniques: Sending SMS and MMS, promotional calls, data transmission via Bluetooth… but the techniques are permanently experiencing reinventions. A good example is creating wide databases and sending emails. Because a vast majority of Internet users check their email inbox from their smartphones, and every time a new message arrives, they are notified, users pay more attention to email messages. Another technique is the use of mobile applications: The apps market has grown exponentially over the years. Using a mobile application not only helps to improve the user experience regarding your business online, it also increases the online perception of it and allows you to have a direct connection with the online reputation of your company. It is very useful in order to carry out promotional campaigns value.
Finally, “Advergaming” is another way to perform Mobile Marketing. This technique is simple: users download a game, often for free. In exchange for playing, they are particularly receptive and permissive about permanent advertising about the products and services of the sponsoring companies. Not just that: players may win privileges in the game (in order to be more competitive against other players), by advertising to their contacts and helping companies with their consumer experience surveys, among others.
Today, we are all part of the so-called ‘participatory marketing’. The concept of passive consumers belongs to the past. Thanks to Internet, social networks, globalization itself and the increasing level of competition among firms, a new kind of consumer has been created: an active one, more knowledgeable, aware and demanding. People want to have more access to information about the brands involved in their daily lives; and if consumers have a negative experience with a product or service, now they have thousands of ways to make it viral. This is allowed by Mobile Marketing, and may be of great benefit to your company if you know how to use it.
