MOBILE MARKETING – THE LATEST & SMARTEST

It’s said that by 2020 the number of smart phone users in India will rise to 467.9 million. This is just the statistics for India. Now just imagine how huge the number will be with all the countries combined.

Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing has grown up to be an important segment in today’s business world. According to Wikipedia, Mobile Marketing is defined as the “marketing on or with a mobile device”. The phrase that Mobile is the future can’t be said anymore, because it has already arrived. If there are companies who haven’t identified their importance, are tailing behind in the market. 

Just take a walk around any major city and you’ll find more than enough people with faces glued to their smartphone screens. Simply ignoring the rise of mobile isn’t just an option if you want to thrive in the business world.

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel, digital marketing strategy aimed at reaching a target audience on their smartphones, tablets, and/or other mobile devices, via websites, email, SMS and MMS, social media, and apps. Mobile is changing the way people engage with brands. Everything that can be done on a desktop computer is now available on mobile devices. From opening an email to visiting a website, it's all accessible through a small mobile screen.

Mobile marketing works very like other types of marketing. The only difference is that, here your customers use their mobile to find and reach your business.

In simple words, you target, connect, and communicate with them through their mobile devices.

Mobile marketing includes a whole set of activities that are linked to the business strategy and overall marketing strategy. The advantage of Mobile Marketing lies in the use of different strategies that can be integrated to your business model, as same marketing techniques cannot be applied to all kind of businesses. 

Here are some of the types of mobile marketing strategies that exist in the current market that can be properly integrated to your business model as per it’s nature.

i)        App-based marketing: It’s the type of mobile marketing that uses mobile apps. With an excessive hype in the use of smartphones, app usage has also greatly increased. Having a dedicated app for your brand has advantages like Customer engagement, New channel for marketing and communication, Brand awareness. Most of the companies have recognized the potential that Mobile App possess to increase the interaction between the organization and its targeted customers. While planning to invest in Mobile App always develop customized apps for your business as this would help to increase the chances of success of that App and minimize the chances of any technical glitches that might crop up. You must keep in mind that an App can prove to be a very beneficial element to promote your business on a vast level only if it is developed by efficient service provider.

ii)        Mobile-Friendly or Responsive Website: Having a mobile-friendly website is expected.  Mobile web offers a consistent brand experience accessible to all smartphone users. Mobile search and display can help support discovery of your mobile site.

iii)     SMS marketing: Sending relevant offers to your customers via text is known as SMS marketing. If done right it’s a very powerful marketing tool. Over the past few years SMS marketing has become a legitimate advertising channel in some parts of the world. Response rates of the SMS campaigns are immediate because they are real time and calls to action upon faster than traditional marketing. A great SMS marketing service makes it easy to customize your text message campaigns to the needs of your SMS subscribers. From creating promotional messages to quick industry updates, SMS truly molds itself to whatever the needs are for your business.

iv)            Mobile search ads: Mobile search ads can be used for several purposes which include generate leads, increase sales, app downloads, website clicks, geographical targeting. A mobile search ad campaign can be set up from your PPC ad network such as Google AdWords or Bings Ads. You must choose mobile ads specifically if you plan to run this type of ad campaign. A mobile ad campaign can be best used to share your phone number and give directions to your local store to the people in a specific target location.

v)          Push Notifications: A push notification is a message that pops up on a mobile device. App publishers can send them at any time; users don't have to be in the app or using their devices to receive them. Push notifications look like SMS text messages and mobile alerts, but they only reach users who have installed your app. Each mobile platform has support for push notifications — iOS, Android, Fire OS, Windows and BlackBerry all have their own services.

vi)            Location-based marketing: Location-based services are offered by some cell phone networks to send custom advertising and other information to cell-phone subscribers based on their current location. The cell-phone service provider gets the location from a GPS chip built into the phone, or using radiolocation and trilateration based on the signal-strength of the closest cell-phone towers. An important advantage of push notifications in mobile computing is that the technology doesn't require specific applications on a mobile device to be open for a message to be received. This allows a smartphone to receive and display social media or text message alerts even when the device's screen is locked and the social media application that is pushing the notification is closed. 

vii)    QR codes: A Quick Response (QR) code is a kind of matrix barcode which is a combination of numbers, bytes, alphanumeric, and kanji. It’s used to store data. The user scans the QR code from the mobile’s camera. The code is scanned and is translated into a URL and redirects the user to the desired website.

viii)        In-game mobile marketing: An in-game mobile ad appears in the mobile game when a user is playing the game or has the game opened. An in-game mobile ad can be a banner ad, a video ad, or an image ad featuring on full screen. In-game mobile ads aren’t for everyone. They don’t work for all the niches, so before setting up your ad campaign, make sure you do your homework. Your product or brand must be related to games or gamers.

These ads can be used for creating brand awareness. Showing your brand name multiple times to your target audience in a day will help them remember you.

Mobile marketing strategies will look different for every brand. It’ll always depend upon the nature of the trade the company is in. The key is to take the time to understand your audience, your business goals and how you’ll measure them, and the opportunities available on mobile to get started. The mobile marketing landscape is complex, but by using a solid strategy and ensuring that your brand’s materials are compatible with the latest technologies, you can make certain that you maintain a competitive advantage.

Team Chee-Ron's,
Vyasan H.