Mobile Marketing
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The kind that works best for your business will depend on your industry, target audience, and budget. This is mobile advertising involving mobile apps. Services like Google AdMob help advertisers create mobile ads that appear within third-party mobile apps. In-game mobile marketing refers to mobile ads that appear within mobile games, like in the example below. In-game ads can appear as banner pop-ups, full-page image ads or even video ads that appear between loading screens. QR codes are scanned by users, who are then taken to a specific webpage that the QR code is attached to.
For example, some advertisers may only want their mobile ads to appear when users are within a 1-mile radius of their business. These are basic Google search ads built for mobile, often featuring extra add-on extensions like click-to-call or maps. If you're ready to dig in and optimize your mobile marketing campaigns, check out our list of 13 mobile marketing tools you need. On July 12, Google rolled out Enhanced Campaigns for all AdWords users, integrating mobile advertising options with classic online AdWords advertising.
Enhanced Campaigns allow advertisers to manage their AdWords bids across various devices in one single campaign, rather than make separate campaigns for mobile vs.
Mobile Engagement & Monetization
AdWords advertisers can simply take the Google search ads they already use, and then set bids to adjust for mobile devices. Enhanced Campaigns image via siteproppc. Both the general and specific data will help develop audience personas that include mobile usage.
The key to defining any effective strategy is to first decide what success looks like. Get the key stakeholders together to map your mobile marketing strategy. Identify goals by asking your team some of these questions:. Just like your other marketing efforts, mobile marketing needs to be tested and optimized. Adding the Device Category field to the Site Content dashboard will display the quantity and quality of much mobile traffic to each individual page on your site.
The table on the Site Content dashboard includes metrics like pageviews and bounce rate. The table will then display the most-viewed pages on your site, per device, so you can see how mobile actually affects your web traffic.
Mobile marketing
That information can hint at which search queries may be leading mobile traffic to your site, what content your mobile audience is most interested in, and which pages to optimize for mobile browsing first. Google has even provided a free mobile-friendliness tool to help marketers determine how to best improve their sites. The most important reason to maintain a mobile-friendly site is to create a consistent and engaging user experience.
Mobile UX has a dramatic effect on every stage of the buying cycle:. Making sure your mobile user experience is as easy and seamless as possible should be a primary marketing goal. Most email marketing providers will use responsive design—a strategy that automatically formats web page content for optimal viewing on any device—but there are still some key considerations for designing email CTAs with mobile users in mind:. Creating a unique landing page for an email campaign is a great way to optimize for the mobile user.
Mobile marketing is a multi-channel, digital marketing strategy aimed at reaching a target audience on their smartphones, tablets, and/or other mobile devices. Mobile marketing is multi-channel online marketing technique focused at reaching a specific audience on their smart phone, tablets, or any other related devices.
A unique landing page also allows you to create a range of metrics that will help monitor the mobile success of the campaign. Here are a few things to keep in mind as you design this unique, mobile-friendly landing page:. Not sure where to start with your landing page?
Check out these templates for inspiration. Be personal, respectful, and clear:. A similar way to reach your audience on mobile devices is MMS, or multimedia message service. The difference is that MMS is a multimedia message that can be sent peer-to-peer, from a mobile messaging service provider or from a website to a mobile phone. Expanded media options allow for a more branded message and create a better tie-in to other marketing campaigns. Because MMS offers a richer media experience than simple SMS messaging, you should make the most of those extra media options:.
Make sure to handle them with tact and detailed strategy.
How to Create a Mobile Marketing Strategy
Mobile apps can support many business goals, including extending your product, driving engagement, and even supporting e-commerce. You will also want to make sure the app encourages user engagement in order to build relationships and loyalty, and—of course—drive conversions. Those conversations are driven by two types of messages: Both communicate directly to your audience, so both should be considered strategic marketing channels. Push notifications are messages or alerts delivered by your app to the user.
For a push notification to work, the user needs to have already downloaded your app and agreed to allow push notifications. A mobile marketing strategy is not a stand-alone effort, but it is a large chunk of any long-term or short-term marketing campaign—and its importance is only growing. From email, to PPC, to SEO, to content, to social media marketing, there is a mobile marketing channel to reach every part of your audience where they are most comfortable.
Optimizing your website and email sends for mobile devices, taking advantage of the SMS and MMS channels, and building a native app for your most highly engaged audience are all big projects. So, start by updating your buyer personas to get a better idea of where the majority of your target audience spends its mobile time.
That will give you your start line, and the rest will fall into a logical order. Optimizing your marketing strategy for mobile will give your brand an edge over the competition. Mobile is the most personal channel that exists--it's in someone's pocket, sits next to their bed, and is checked throughout the day.
For commercial purposes, virtual numbers , short codes , and custom names are most commonly used and can be leased through bulk SMS providers. As the name implies, shared virtual numbers are shared by many different senders.
Senders may have different shared virtual numbers on different days, which may make it confusing or untrustworthy for recipients depending on the context. For example, shared virtual numbers may be suitable for 2 factor authentication text messages, as recipients are often expecting these text messages, which are often triggered by actions that the recipients make. To avoid sharing numbers with other senders, and for brand recognition and number consistency, leasing a dedicated virtual number, which are also known as a long code or long number international number format, e.
Unlike a shared number, it can receive SMS replies. Senders can choose from a list of available dedicated virtual numbers from a bulk SMS provider. Prices for dedicated virtual numbers can vary.
Some numbers, often called Gold numbers, are more easy to recognise, and therefore more expensive to lease. Senders may also get creative and choose a vanity number. Dedicated virtual numbers also enable features like SMS keywords from their bulk SMS providers [10] that help senders create comprehensive inbound marketing and automated campaigns. Short codes offer very similar features to a dedicated virtual number, but are short mobile numbers that are usually digits.
Their length and availability depend on each country. These are usually more expensive and are commonly used by enterprises and governmental organisations. For mass messaging, short codes are preferred over a dedicated virtual number because of their higher throughput, and are great for time-sensitive campaigns and emergencies. Over the past few years mobile short codes have been increasingly popular as a new channel to communicate to the mobile consumer. Brands have begun to treat the mobile short code as a mobile domain name allowing the consumer to text message the brand at an event, in store and off any traditional media.
A custom sender ID, also known as an alphanumeric sender ID, enables users to set a business name as the sender ID for one way organisation-to-consumer messages. This is only supported in certain countries and are up to 11 characters long, and support uppercase and lowercase ASCII letters and digits Reputable bulk SMS providers will check customer sender IDs beforehand to make sure senders are not misusing or abusing them.
The message size will then determine the number of SMS messages that are sent, which then determines the amount of money spent on marketing a product or service. Not all characters in a message are the same size. A single SMS message has a maximum size of bits. This is important because there are two types of character encodings, GSM and Unicode.
Mobile Marketing | What is Mobile Marketing?
Latin-based languages like English are GSM based encoding, which are 7 bits per character. This is where text messages typically get their character per SMS limit. They are split into smaller messages, which are recombined by the receiving phone. Concatenated messages can only fit characters instead of For example, a character message is sent as 2 messages. The first is sent with characters and the second with 24 characters. It is meant to encompass all characters for efficiency but has a caveat. Each unicode character is 16 bits in size, which takes more information to send, therefore limiting SMS messages to 70 characters.
Messages that are larger than 70 characters are also concatenated. These messages can fit 67 characters, and can be concatenated up to 4 times for a maximum of characters. Although this may sound complicated, most SMS service providers will have a character counter built inside their platform. SMS character counter services are available for free if your SMS service provider does not have one. Texting is simple, however when it comes to SMS marketing - there are many different content structures that can be implemented. Popular message types include sale alerts, reminders, keywords, and multimedia messaging services MMS.
Sale alerts are the most basic form of SMS marketing. They are generally used for clearance, flash sales, and special promotions. Typical messages include coupon codes, and information like expiration dates, products, and website links for additional information. Reminders are commonly used to in appointment-based industries or for recurring events. Some senders choose to ask their recipients to respond to the reminder text with an SMS keyword to confirm their appointment. This allows people to text a custom keyword to a dedicated virtual number or shortcode.
Through custom keywords, users can opt-in to a service with minimal effort. Once a keyword is triggered, an autoresponder can be set to guide the user to the next step. They can also activate different functions, which include entering a contest, forwarding to an email or mobile number, group chat, and sending an auto response.
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 for phones without GPS features. What Is Mobile Marketing? This allows people to text a custom keyword to a dedicated virtual number or shortcode. The FCC has ruled that the technology is compliant with all regulations. A marketing program will prepare you to enter this changing world and contribute to its growth.
Similar to email, SMS has anti-spam laws which differ from country to country. Permission can be obtained in a myriad of ways, including allowing prospects or customers to: In most countries, SMS senders need to identify themselves as their business name inside their initial text message. Identification can be placed in either the sender ID or within the message body copy. Spam prevention laws may also apply to SMS marketing messages, which must include a method to opt-out of messages.
One key criterion for provisioning is that the consumer opts into the service. The mobile operators demand a double opt in from the consumer and the ability for the consumer to opt out of the service at any time by sending the word STOP via SMS. Operators around the world are connected by a network known as Signaling System 7.
SS7 is what carriers around the world use to talk to each other. ON-NET routing is the most popular form of messaging globally.
Mobile Marketing
For senders that need consistency and reliability, seeking a provider that uses ON-NET routing should be the preferred option. Grey Routing is a term given to messages that are sent to carriers often offshore that have low cost interconnect agreements with other carriers. Instead of sending the messages directly to the intended carrier, some bulk SMS providers send it to an offshore carrier, which will relay the message to the intended carrier.
At the cost of consistency and reliability, this roundabout way is cheaper, and these routes can disappear without notice and are slower. If the routes are managed well, then messages can be delivered reliably. Hybrid routing is more common for SMS marketing messages, where timeliness and reliable delivery is less of an issue.
Enterprise-grade SMS providers will usually allow new customers the option to sign-up for a free trial account before committing to their platform. Most providers can provide link shorteners and built-in analytics to help track the return on investment of each campaign. Depending on the service provider and country, each text message can cost up to a few cents each.