Mobile ad spending is skyrocketing around the world. This year mobile ad spending in the United States is expected to increase an astounding 50% and account for essentially half of all digital ad spending (eMarketer). By 2019 this number is expected to continue to grow to nearly three quarters of all digital ad spending.
Mobile marketing is an entirely new medium where some new rules apply.
Whether you are planning on building a mobile web site, mobile application development or a mobile marketing program, to make sure you get the most from your mobile marketing make sure you follow these 4 tips.
Viewability
Your business cannot rely on outdated metrics like clicks or impressions. You want to make sure your ad is seen. Make sure you place ads where consumers will see them. Viewability is more of a watchword than ever before for good reason.
Relevance
Reach your customers with a relevant message. Make sure that consumers find value in your message, ask your self if the app on which you are advertising make sense for your message. Don’t focus on what is cool, rather focus on what is relevant. Businesses can spend a lot of time and money on a big campaign on the hippest app to only lose out due to a lake of relevance with the audience. You need to picture yourself as one of the apps users and determine if your message is relevant and will resonate with the users.
Personalize
Mobile devices are very personal which is part of the reason that mobile ads are so effective. Personalize your message and users generally pay more attention (personalized push notifications, etc) than they do to banner ads.
Timing
Pay attention to the timing of your messaging. Consider your customers and their habits. If you can deliver the right offer at the right time with the right message you will hit pay dirt. Timing can be as important as location and relevance in improving the effectiveness of your messaging.
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It is clear that mobile will continue to grow throughout 2015 and beyond. Study after study details a bright future for mobile, such as when research firm eMarketer anticipated mobile to surpass desktop in search ad dollars this year.
We are seeing smartphones transform several aspects of our life that you may not have considered. From how we access information to how we shop, mobile is transforming the modern world.
We are well past the point of mobile being just for early adopters. Mobile is a fantastic medium for all businesses due to the broad demographic of users it reaches. While many think of millennials when it comes to mobile, fact of the matter is that a quarter of the mobile shoppers are in fact over 55 (comScore).
Mobile devices are where your consumers are at, but how do you get the most from you companies mobile offerings?
Personalization
Making your mobile application or web site more personal to your users can pay huge dividends. Customers have come to expect offers to be tailored to their preferences. Data-driven, personalized marketing is the future and there is no reason your business isn’t taking advantage of it now given the power of mobile devices.
The modern consumer has learned to personalize their device and their mobile experience. Brands that allow for personalization build brand loyalty and reap the rewards of catering to the needs of modern consumers. Personalization helps create user experiences that are more impactful, which translates into sales. With mobile, businesses are able to deliver offers and information based on a user’s location, interests and preferences. Additionally, as users are able to personalize their experience on your mobile offerings it creates a “buy-in” that invests them more into the experience and helps continue use.
Data enables retailers to personalize experiences and drive sales and should be planned for in the early stages of your mobile application development project. An iPhone application developer or Android application developer can discuss information architecture with you and plan ahead for your needs.
User Experience
Modern application design is all about a focus on the user and their needs. No longer are consumers willing to accept difficult to use sites and apps and instead they will opt for retailers that create the experiences they are looking for. Applications will be abandoned quickly if they are not intuitive to users
Key to understanding user experiences is understanding trends in the industry and commonly accepted ways of doing things. Fight against the generally accepted way to accomplish simple tasks and risk your apps being abandoned due to being confusing. Mobile users are picky and won’t waste time figuring out complicated operations.
Seamless Experiences
Consumers are more sophisticated than ever and expect businesses to create the seamless digital experiences that are consistent with a brand’s in-store experience and equally engaging. Studies indicate that 86 percent of senior level marketers say it’s important to create a cohesive journey across all touch points for consumers. This is for good reason as many consumers will check out a product in store and buy it later via mobile app or website.
Businesses can’t rely on a single touch point any more as customers may not go into a location or to a business’s web site to make a purchase. You need to make sure you put the tools consumers need in their hands.
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Smartphone use has become an important part of our modern lives and has become “the way we do things”. According to a recent study by GlobalWebIndex, 80% of all online adults now own a smartphone. Additionally their research discovered that “75% percent of smartphone users are accessing mobile internet services on their smartphones.”
Clearly if your business isn’t presenting a mobile friendly face right now it is missing out on a sizable opportunity to interact with your target consumers and increase sales. Mobile isn’t something you need to think about in the future, mobile is right now.
Moving forward, how do you get the most of your mobile web site and or mobile applications?
1. Start with Strategy
Start with an understanding of your objectives. Any good strategy begins with objectives, but be careful not to only consider your business’s objectives. Any good mobile strategy will be sure to consider who the end users are and what their objectives are going to be as well. In fact, placing a priority on a customer based focus will pay dividends.
You will also want to analyze technical issues as well such as whether you should hire in house talent or look for a mobile application developer to help you with your project. Other technical considerations such as choice of platform should be part of your strategy as well. Are you going to be building mobile applications or a mobile web site? Or both? Your choice can depend on your business and the goals of its mobile program.
If you are looking to deliver data such as locations or reviews to help customers and potential customers while they are on the go, then mobile web sites are a terrific way to deliver that information due to the proliferation of mobile searches. On the other hand, if you want to stay connected to loyal customers and increase engagement with them, then mobile apps are definitely the way to go. Ideally modern businesses would make make both options available.
2. UX is a Priority
Regardless of which strategic choices you make above you will want to make sure you prioritize user experiences as part of your project. Your mobile web site and mobile application will need to provide information to users in a clean, easy to understand format. The smaller size of mobile devices, along with the fact that they are often used on the go, make ease of use a priority that cannot be ignored. You must make information easy to access and easy to consume.
3. Personalize the Experience
Never before have marketers and businesses had access to provide personalized experiences they way they can with mobile. Mobile devices allow consumers to access information instantly creating a great deal of change in consumer expectations towards retailers. Today’s consumers want to be able to choose whether or not they receive notifications and if they opt-in, require that a business is delivering relevant personalized content. One-size-fits-all is not how consumers think and businesses should not try to paint them into that box with their mobile offerings.
4. Alerts and Notifications
Modern consumers are regularly checking their mobile devices (often whether they get an alert or not). We have become somewhat tethered to our devices. Since people are regularly checking their mobile devices, it would be silly not to send out alerts and notifications to increase engagement with your mobile application or business. But please be careful that you do not annoy your customers by sending out too many notifications, sending out notifications about trivial items that will make customers feel like you are wasting their time or sending out notifications at inappropriate times. You will also want to make sure you provide an easy way to opt out or refine the delivery to personal tastes.
5. Leverage Location
By using geo-location, you can generate location-based ads, alerts and notifications that can send out targeted messages to specific customers. Beyond personalizing a user’s experience and content you can also make it contextually relevant by delivering it based on location as well. It is estimated that fewer than one quarter of the offline businesses are making effective use of location based marketing so there is ample opportunity to gain advantage over your slower to adopt competitors.
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