According to Statista, mobile devices made up 58% of global internet traffic in early 2022. That number has been rising steadily for years, with no sign of decreasing. If you ignore mobile marketing, you’re missing out on a huge portion of potential customers.
Mobile marketing is any tactic you use to reach customers on their smartphones, tablets, or even smartwatches. With an effective mobile marketing strategy, your business can reach people any time of day (because nearly everyone has their smartphone close by at all times), and it also feels more personal and tailored than a display ad on Google.
There are many unique and effective ways to integrate mobile marketing into your overall marketing strategy. Keep reading to learn some of our favorites.
Optimize Your Current Website For Mobile
Before you put time and money toward driving traffic to the mobile version of your site, you should make sure that it looks great and functions well. Start by visiting your website on your smartphone to see how it performs. Is the site easy to read on a small screen? Do pages load quickly? Can you click on items easily, or are they too small?
By spending just a few minutes on your site, you may be able to identify some quick fixes you can make to improve smartphone and tablet-user experience right away. If your website needs a bit of help to be more mobile-friendly, here are some places to focus your time:
Mobile First Design
According to Google, mobile-friendly sites will show up higher in search results and if a site is not mobile-friendly, users are five times more likely to leave. Because of that, many developers are now operating under a “mobile first” philosophy, meaning they design websites for mobile screens before designing them for desktops.
The rationale is sound: mobile is the way of the future. Plus, designing for a small screen means you can only fit the most essential information and features on the page, eliminating any fluff that will cause visitors to become disinterested and click away.
Your developer can add additional features for larger screens that improve the user experience, like extra visual effects and animations, but starting with the smaller screen means that the most important aspects are a priority for all screen sizes.
Going mobile first is a smart strategy if your entire website needs an overhaul because it means rebuilding the entire site from the ground up.
Responsive Design And Navigation
When a website is “responsive,” it means the content and design automatically adjust based on the size of the screen your visitor is using. Common screen sizes include desktop, tablet, and mobile phones.
If your website is not responsive, it’ll be tiny and very hard to navigate on a small smartphone screen. If your navigation menu is also not responsive, it’ll be hard to read and even harder to click on the links.
When your website is hard to use on mobile, users will bounce away quickly and you’ll miss out on any potential conversions that your other mobile marketing strategies queued up.
Improve Load Time
Did you know that about 50% of mobile users will leave a website if it takes more than 3 seconds to load? Reducing your mobile site speed by just 0.1 seconds results in an 8% increase in conversions, so you can’t afford to ignore your speed.
A few things you can do to improve load speed are:
- Keep your design simple — Your site can be visually appealing, but overly complicated designs just take longer to load. Reduce or eliminate animations and pop-ups on the mobile version of your site.
- Use fewer images or reduce their size — Images beautify a site, but they also slow it down. Focus on images that really enhance your pages and make sure they’re compressed or a small file size.
- Hire a rockstar coder — A pro can reduce bloat in your code that’s slowing down your load speed.
Make Your Content Skimmable
While we’d like to think that website visitors carefully read every word we publish on our websites, that’s simply not the case. Most people skim articles in search of the answer to their questions. They’ll read headings and the bits and pieces that catch their attention.
There are several things you can do to make your content quicker to digest, which is beneficial for mobile and desktop users. Try these strategies:
- Instead of long paragraphs that fill the entire smartphone screen, break text into shorter sections
- Include bullet point lists because they stand out and are quick to digest
- Make sure you use headings and subheadings that are engaging and brief
- Include graphics or images to break up the text (but make sure they’re compressed or small file sizes so your load speed doesn’t suffer!)
Optimize For Voice Search
Today, 71% of consumers prefer to use voice search rather than type their question into a search bar. A great way to improve your mobile marketing is to optimize your site for voice queries. Here’s how:
- Use conversational keyphrases — Instead of optimizing your content for an isolated keyword (which is actually an outdated strategy anyway), focus on full phrases or questions, like “What’s the difference between a bank and a credit union?”.
- Include an FAQ section on your website — Think about the questions people may ask about your product or service, and include them on your site. FAQ sections are really the heart of voice search.
- Speak your customer’s language — Instead of using academic rhetoric or industry jargon, try to speak about your product or service using the same words your prospective customers use.
- Claim your Google My Business (GMB) profile — Many voice searches are for local businesses like, “restaurants in San Diego,” so make sure you claim and optimize your GMB so it’s easier for local customers to find you.
SMS and MMS Marketing
Now that your website is ready to be viewed by mobile users, it’s time to dive into the real meat of mobile marketing.
SMS (text) and MMS (multimedia video or image) marketing mean sending marketing text messages to your customers. A popular way to use text message marketing is to share discount codes or other special offers with your loyal customers. The best part? SMS open rates can be as high as 98%! That’s nearly unheard of in the marketing world, making it a great place to invest some of your marketing dollars.
A word of caution though: you don’t want to overuse SMS marketing. It’s best to have people opt-in before ever sending them a text and to send messages sparingly. Since people often have their phones right at hand, it can feel invasive to get too many text messages from a brand. Stick to time-sensitive promotions for this type of mobile strategy.
Social Media Ads
The most popular social media platforms have billions of users, so creating content and ads for social media is a part of your mobile marketing strategy that you really shouldn’t overlook. Many businesses are having great success with boosted posts on Facebook, shoppable pins on Pinterest, and influencer marketing on Instagram.
Social media ads help you target a specific type of customer and reach them in the places they spend a lot of time online. It doesn’t require that they type a search query into Google that relates to your brand, so it gets you in front of them more often and more easily.
Some social media best practices to follow include:
- Don’t try to be on every social media platform. Prioritize the main channels that your target audience is on and put your efforts there for the best payoff.
- Repurpose your content to multiple channels, but customize it. For example, hashtags really aren’t relevant on Facebook, but they can help boost your reach on Instagram.
- Be responsive! If your customers reach out to you through a direct message or leave a comment on your posts, make sure you get back to them.
- Size your images and videos correctly for the platform you’re on.
- Monitor and test your content and ads. If things are working, great! If not, make adjustments.
If your ads lead to any landing pages, make sure that the pages are optimized for mobile using all of the mobile-first strategies we described above.
After all, it would be a shame to entice a social media user to your website, only to lose them because the landing page isn’t mobile-friendly.
Location-Based Marketing
Location-based marketing (also called geofencing) uses the GPS on a person’s smartphone to show them ads relevant to their current location. When you create a geofenced ad, you can set boundaries based on the city, state, or specific area code. Then, only people who enter your predefined area will see your ad.
Geofenced ads are highly effective because of how relevant they are to users. When you share a promotion for your store or restaurant with people who pass by your storefront, you entice them to stop by and take advantage of the deal.
QR Codes
QR codes work like a barcode that you scan with the camera on your smartphone. They may go to a landing page, a restaurant menu, a social media profile, make a phone call, send a text message, or many other things.
They’re great because you don’t need any specific expertise to make them (you can easily find a QR code generator online) and you can change what they’re linked to if necessary.
Some great ways to use QR codes are:
- On your packaging —Help buyers quickly access a how-to video about the product they just bought
- To get reviews — Have your QR code link to wherever your business collects reviews to remove friction from the process
- To share discount codes — Increase customer loyalty and satisfaction by offering a discount code for their next purchase
- As a replacement for a paper receipt
- To connect customers to your social media profiles
- To get users to download your brand app
And much, much more.
Optimize Emails For Mobile
Nearly half of all emails are opened on mobile, so you want to be sure your design takes mobile into consideration. The strategies for making your emails mobile-friendly are similar to how you make your website mobile-friendly:
- Make them responsive
- Reduce image file size for quick loading
- Make sure links and buttons are large enough to click easily (and lead to mobile-optimized pages)
You should also keep the text brief and skimmable and put your most important information above the fold. Mobile users are often on the go and may delete the email if you don’t get to the point quickly.
Make An App
Mobile apps can improve a customer’s experience with your product or service and increase engagement with your brand, but not every business will benefit from creating its own app.
Before you hire an app builder, consider what you can potentially offer to your customers through an app.
- Would it help them book an appointment with your business more easily, or get reminders about existing appointments?
- Do your users have accounts with your business that would benefit from a quick mobile sign-in option?
- Are you selling products that they may want to buy quickly when they’re on the go and thinking about your brand?
- Are you offering educational content that they may want to consume during their commute?
- Would they want to place a to-go order on their phone and pick it up curbside at your business?
If you think any of these use cases fit your business, then it may be time to consider building your own app to better serve your target audience.
Be Strategic About Your Mobile Marketing
It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all of the mobile marketing tactics at your disposal, which is why it may help to have a trusted professional in your corner. If you’d like to learn more about what Nettra can do to help your business reach more mobile users, get in touch with our team.
