The term “mobile” tends to confuse a lot of business owners. Questions pop up like “Do I really need it?”, “Is my site mobile ready?” and, “What do consumers expect from mobile?” Deciding to go mobile is, for many, no longer an option.
Q: Why is mobile marketing so important today?
Admit it. Your mobile phone is a remote control for your life. No other form of media can compare to its power in your life. It is your most personal device, and you almost never share it, unlike TVs, radios, newspapers, magazines and computers. Your mobile phone is always on, always with you and most likely, you even sleep next to it!
According to Wireless Intelligence, there are over 6.4 billion mobile connected devices in the world as of this writing. Considering the world population just crossed 7 billion, that’s pretty amazing! A survey conducted by the Cellular Telephone Industry Association (CTIA) determined that 92 percent of Americans simply do not leave the house without their cell phones.
Make no mistake about it. Mobile is not a marketing trend. It is an imperative. Analysts predict that mobile advertising spend will meet and then exceed online advertising spend next year. It is here to stay and it is working for many companies. Here’s why:
Mobile has enormous potential to connect advertising in the physical world directly to response and commerce opportunities on the phone. Mobile is a bridge that makes advertising more accessible and actionable to each consumer and therefore, it has the potential to increase the ROI of every marketing channel to which it is cleverly connected.
Luth Research and the Mobile Marketing Association surveyed marketing thought leaders on the trends, issues and future direction of mobile marketing and offered these compelling statistics:
One of the most compelling benefits of mobile marketing is that it invites your prospective customer into a very intimate conversation, and provokes nearly instant attention and response. Once you are invited into an on-going mobile conversation with a customer, you have a golden opportunity for high engagement and if you cultivate that relationship well, it can be a fruitful one.
Q: What can be done with mobile marketing?
Think of your phone as a mini computer — in fact it is probably better equipped and more powerful than a computer you had 10-20 years ago. This miniature marvel is a tiny gift from the marketing deities because it can help you share so many cool experiences with your audience:
Q: What’s the number one thing I need to do to make more money with mobile?
Sometimes the simplest things make the biggest difference. Your first order of business when building a mobile marketing strategy is to think of ways you can use existing assets to build your mobile contact database. Mobile calls to action can be added to just about any campaign — print, outdoor, TV, radio, social media, online, events, or even banner ads. You can even collect leads from trade shows and events.
Why start here? According to CTIA, nearly everyone is open to text marketing:
When clients first start working with mobile messaging, they wonder if customers will truly read their messages. The answer is a resounding, “Absolutely!”
According to a study by the International Journal of Marketing, mobile marketing campaigns produced response rates of 31 percent while email marketing campaigns yielded 6 percent and print yielded 0.55 percent response.
The most effective form of mobile engagement is through time sensitive special offers or discounts (referred to as mobile coupons) are most likely to lead to a purchase in store or online (ordering physical products or mobile content such as applications, music, eBooks and games).
Q: Are QR codes really hot and what gets a better response, text or QR codes or both?
It appears that QR codes are all the rage these days — as their deliciously geeky boxes of black and white pixels are appearing everywhere from billboards, to TV, to fashion items and packaged goods. QR stands for quick response — and that is a good simple description of what they are meant to do — they are meant to encode simple instructions as a symbol that can be scanned and interpreted by a QR reader. The scanning process drives the user to a specific task on their phone — opening a website, sending a pre-formatted text or email message, calling a phone number, or downloading an app.
In a head to head test between QR Codes and text instructions, we normally see three to four people texting for every person who scans the QR code. It is still a bit clumsy for someone to find the QR code reader on their phone, orient and scan it.
That being said, if QR codes add 25-33 percent to your response, they are worth including! QR codes are inexpensive to create and manage and don’t really add to your printing costs.
QR codes are a feature of goMobi and can be part of your goMobi site.
Q: Is having a mobile site important and how can you easily get one?
The mobile web gets more traffic and engagement than mobile apps. Google/Ipsos ran a U.S. consumer Mobile Movement survey in April 2011 and found that mobile advertising means business. Of people who react to seeing a mobile ad:
Despite these conclusive findings, 79 percent of large online advertisers still do not have a mobile optimized site, according to Google/Kelsey in a 2010 study.
Mobile web traffic is growing tremendously, and like the desktop-based web, is driven in great part by search. Mobile web users expect content to be relevant to their location, load quickly and be easy to navigate or they are on to the next search result. These are the features which make a goMobi site you only serious option if you want to market your business on mobile phones.
Is your business website ready to be found through mobile search? Here’s an easy test you can do. Open your website on a mobile web browser:
I recommend investing in a goMobi mobile website (www.gomobi.co.za). This is the best option for a mobile presence.
Q: Last Thoughts?
If you have a traditional website which has all the information you think you need to market your business or legal practice, do you need a mobile site as well? The answer is a resounding Yes! Your goMobi mobile site can drive traffic to your desktop site, will increase your Google rankings for both sites, enables mobile users to contact you instantly, find your premises, send you messages and find our all about your business in a format optimised for their phone. Research has shown that mobile users will not return to a site that does not work on mobile devices within 2 tries or 3 seconds. They will seek an alternative solution and you will lose a potential client. So go mobile now! Become part of the mobile revolution!
Contributed by:
Lex Faure is a mobile marketer and the founder of Carpe Diem Productions, a marketing consultancy that specializes in working with businesses to develop mobile marketing campaigns, websites and mobile applications. He is owner of goMobi SA, who offer the best mobile web platform available for businesses that are serious about a mobile web presence.
Visit us at: www.gomobi.co.za or gomobisa.mobi and follow us on Twitter (@goMobiSA) and Facebook (www.facebook.com/goMobiSA)
