Mobile marketing refers to a series of inter-twined marketing activities and processes that are carried out on mobile devices, such as mobile phones, smartphones and tablets. There is a great promise for advertisers in the mobile market, which continues to grow year after year on the basis of distinguishing features, such as accessibility, cost-effectiveness and time-relevance. Other benefits include a well-defined market that makes it easy to target ads on the basis geographic and demographic relevance.
While many marketers believe that mobile marketing is the future of marketing, others contend that the era of mobile marketing has already begun, and if you don’t benefit from this gigantic and well-segmented market, then you are missing out a lot of potential business.
In the year 2012 alone, searches made from mobile devices registered an increase of 200%. In 2014, mobile search is expected to exceed desktop search.
Types of Mobile Marketing
Businesses can choose from a variety of marketing strategies, such as app-based marketing, location-based marketing and business SMS services.
App-based Marketing: Businesses can advertise their products and services on mobile apps. According to estimates, users spend up to 80% of their time on mobile apps, making them the ideal advertising platform. Businesses also have the option to become more actively involved with their customers by creating apps that add value to customers’ lives.
In-game Mobile Marketing: Games are another effective medium for promoting your products and services. Try to use ad placement features that do not spoil the gaming experience of the user. Ads, such as pop-up banners can appear on the game loading screen.
Location-based Marketing: These ads will appear on a user’s mobile device on the basis of their current location. For instance, you could be looking to promote laundry services within 1-mile radius of your business. You can achieve this objective with location-based marketing.
Mobile Search Ads: These include search ads from Google and other ad networks. This is a very cost-effective platform for targeting your ads. You can target ads on the basis of keywords that a user is searching to solve a particular problem. If your business provides a solution to that problem, you can promote your business for those keywords. When a user searches for the same keywords on Google, it will display your website in the search results page. Search ads can be placed on CPC and CPM models.
Business SMS Services: Text messages are an effective way of promoting your product or service. People usually have their mobile phones with them at all times. An effective SMS service can promote your ad to thousands of cell phone devices in a few minutes. The effectiveness of SMS marketing depends largely on three factors:
Quality of Message
It can be difficult to describe your offering in 140 characters, but with little effort, you will come up with a catchy tagline that does the job. You may get more space by paying more.
Bulk SMS Gateway
Bulk SMS gateway is used to dispatch multiple SMS from a computer device. The type of gateway you use has an impact on your marketing results.
Accuracy of User Phone Data
Some phone listings are more accurate than others. If you use an authentic listing of your customer segment, you are more likely to get effective results.
I’m good at marketing but not so much as mobile marketing. I know how to use QR codes, but that’s about it. My webhosting provider gives me a great deal on a mobile website development for $10/month, so i might take them up on their offer.