Technology is ever-changing. It welcomes new development and new trends every year. One of these trends has clearly made an impact not only to users but to businesses as well as the rise of mobile technology.
In recent years, more and more people are drawn to technology and the internet. Data shows that almost 58.8% of the world’s population can now be found online and are accessing the web from any parts of the planet.
With the massive number of people accessing the web, 50% of which are using mobile devices. It has grown in number over the years and has made an impact. Mobile technology has overthrown the market usually dominated by desktop and laptop computers. People are now turning to their smartphones and some have completely ditch computers to access the internet.
As this trend continues to grow, it has changed the landscape for digital marketing as well. The need to target this unique kind of user birthed mobile marketing.
What is Mobile Marketing
To simply put it, mobile marketing is directing ads towards mobile phone users. It is a strategy to make your business appeal to these users. It is a series of techniques to promote your products or services on mobile phones. Your brand or business should be optimized in a way for smartphones and other mobile devices.
Mobile marketing is consists of optimized ads that appear on smartphones or tables or any other mobile device available on the market. It runs tailored mobile ads that appear on social media apps, mobile apps and websites.
As mobile marketing is directed towards users it opens a personal connection between marketers and business owners making stronger advertising opportunities as it offers a lot of personalization options.
Types of Mobile Marketing
The integration of mobile phone in doing your marketing campaigns get easier by the day as technology becomes more accessible even in the most remote area of the world. Here are the types of mobile marketing that you may use for your campaigns.
• App-Based
Considered as the most effective and cost-friendly, this type of advertisement is deployed within the application itself. What makes this so effective is that mobile phones are usually used through applications as people spent 80% of their time engaging on apps.
Marketers can leverage services like Google AdMob to help create advertisements in third-party apps. Facebook also allows advertisers to integrate their advertisements on its mobile application.
• In-game mobile marketing
A variant of app-based mobile marketing has become the most popular method in recent years. Advertisements are deployed directly within the mobile game. Different kinds of in-game ads are pop-up, full-page image or video ads.
• QR codes
QR codes are matrix barcodes that contain web links that can be activated by scanning through a mobile camera. QR codes are widely used to enhance the consumer experience.
Marketers usually combine physical and digital strategy in using this technique. This is a unique tool that enhances users’ curiosity, can be placed anywhere and easy to track.
• Mobile Search Ads
These are ads that are optimized for mobile devices. Mobile search ads are standard search engine advertisements and are usually displayed in search engines or a webpage. It can easily be spotted as it is integrated with smartphone features like “click to call”.
• Push Notification
Ideal for keeping your audience in the loop, push notifications can be a great way to announce a new promotion or app features. Push notifications are a type of messages that pop up on mobile devices by third-party apps that are on idle mode or are not being used or run.
Push notifications can also serve as a reminder for users to revisit the application.
• Location-based marketing
Most people rely on their mobile phones to search for businesses and established near them. As people do this, location-based marketing comes into play. This type of mobile marketing involves SEO optimization, geotagging and targeted PPC links for your business.
Location-based marketing attracts customers in the same location as your business and it works well with businesses that operate in a single location. It also helps you stand out among competitors.
• SMS Marketing
One of the most obvious and upfront use of mobile marketing. Though this can be counted as offline marketing, SMS can be a great tool to support your digital marketing strategies.
Businesses can leverage SMS marketing to effectively promote and grow your business through short link messages incorporated in text messages, helps in customer support and lead generation by using keywords and short codes.
So How Does Mobile Marketing Complements Digital Marketing?
Digital marketing has been the go-to type of advertisement for many businesses and marketers. It has become a staple to ensure the success of any business venture. While digital marketing strategies like social media marketing, email marketing, influencer marketing and others have dominated the advertising scene, it is important to note that half of the population that can be found online are using mobile phones.
Mobile marketing is an essential part if not the very core of your digital marketing campaigns. If you dismiss or do not want to start any mobile marketing efforts, you may be missing a lot of potential customers that your competitors may target. It is key to adapt digital marketing intended for mobile so your online marketing and advertising efforts will thrive.
You should also note that time spent on mobile devices is increasing by the day and have become an essential of many people’s lives. As more and more people ditch their computers, an increase in the number of customers who will use their mobile phones to browse, search for products or make a purchase will also rise.
Mobile marketing can create a seamlessly integrated customer experience as it acts as a link between your existing and potentials clients to all your active digital marketing campaigns.
Final Thoughts
No matter the size of your business, it is always important to know the trend of your customer’s behavior. In doing so, it is important as well to make sure that your business or your brand can adapt to these trends.
As technology continually evolves, digital marketing also continues to shift. One of which is leaning towards mobile marketing. In the coming years, it is expected that this marketing tactic will continue to grow and expand. If you have not considered using it or still having doubts about whether to try it or not, maybe now is the time for you to take it for a test drive before your competitors leave you far behind.
