Put Your Brand in People's Hands, Literally: How to Target Your Mobile Customer
When you're standing in line for a coffee or a movie ticket, you'll likely reach for your smartphone, and chances are, you won't be the only one doing so. Mobile use in 2014 surpassed that of desktop activity, and that means a greater number of people are online through smartphones and tablets.
For online marketers, this is a massive opportunity to reach consumers with information on sales, specials, and events, so it's crucial that businesses have a mobile-friendly version of their site up and running. Mobile users are now making up over half of Internet traffic, so with these facts in place, the challenge of the year is how to effectively reach this growing market of consumers.
Knowing your audience
Yes, it's a marketing cliché, but knowing your audience is a cardinal rule that's at the heart of any campaign. Your company may have a large audience in mind, yet mobile users may occupy only a certain percentage of that audience. The largest group of mobile users consists of those aged 18 to 29, which is a demographic who is constantly online, often via a phone or tablet. If you want to win them over as customers, you'll have to know what it is they want in a product and what they respond to in a brand's style, content and approach. That's a challenge all by itself, but once you've got that nailed down, you can take that strategy and hone it into a mobile-friendly campaign.
Getting responsive
Taking a "one size fits all" approach to web design won't cut it anymore due to the plethora of technology choices that exist out there. With the variety of devices being used by consumers, responsive design is now an essential strategy. It almost sounds like something interactive, but a responsive design means that a site will be presented in the optimal format according to the device accessing the site. In other words, when someone on a smartphone visits your site, she'll see something optimized in a format that will be different from what a laptop user sees. Just as marketing messages are being tailored to reach specific demographics, it's also important to tailor site design itself to make sure it's as effective as possible.
Putting mobile marketing in action
Using social media and text messaging as part of a mobile marketing campaign isn't exactly new, but different companies are benefitting from the immediacy and inexpensive cost of what mobile campaigns can achieve. Household names like Chipotle and Target have provided success stories during the past year through app-based campaigns. These campaigns worked because they knew their audience, how to reach them, and what they would respond to. A new innovation known as timed mobile content is also allowing companies to engage with customers in real time to gather people's feedback on products and services.
App-based marketing opens up a great opportunity because, unlike the spam we do our best to protect ourselves from, the consumer chooses to download the app and receive info on sales and events. She's already interested in the brand after shopping at a brick-and-mortar store or having visited a website and is interested in being a future customer. Statistics have shown that 98 percent of SMS promotions are opened and read, so the potential for a sale is high. Mobile promotions are an excellent way to send customers discounts, sales, or coupons. Once you've narrowed down who your mobile audience is, and come up with an idea for connecting with them, you can put your campaign in action.
The arrival of a mobile society
As mobile activity increases, so do mobile sales, and Wi-Fi service is practically a given everywhere you go. Google has even announced that sites that don't have a mobile-friendly web site will be penalized when it comes to search engine results. Consumers are getting accustomed to finding information and graphics presented in a manner that will translate with the device they're using. With opt-in mobile campaigns, businesses large and small have an excellent pathway for putting their brand in the hands of consumers and stepping up their chances at increasing customer loyalty and company profitability. Having a plan in place to target mobile customers is becoming a marketing standard, as not doing so will likely cost you a big opportunity for growth.