Despite the incredibly high amount of time that consumers are spending on tablets and smartphones, mobile advertising on a whole remains mostly an underutilized and overlooked concept. This year, mobile use finally exceeded PC use in the U.S, establishing itself once and for all as a leader in digital media marketing strategy. As innovation continues to rise and the channel of mobile marketing evolves, it seems that mobile marketing will only grow bigger.
In the United States alone, there are now 10s of millions of active smartphones, and mobile consumption continues to grow. If one thing is clear about business marketing efforts, it is that mobile interaction should play a significant part. Unfortunately, the thing that remains unclear to most businesses is how they can best utilize mobile advertising to ensure that they are making the right impression with their target market. For example, should you focus your mobile effort on a desktop format? Should you develop an app or try something new?
Putting a mobile advertising campaign together is complicated, but here are three sure-fire steps that will help to take your marketing strategy from Zero to Hero this year.
1. Location, Location, Location
Perhaps one of the most valuable aspects associated with mobile advertising is the fact that this platform gives you valuable information about the physical movements of your consumers. As a brand, you should be grabbing hold of this valuable asset, and placing it within the center of your creative process. For example, imagine that you were an electronics business trying to reach out to your target market in time for Black Friday. You might want to find out whether these people visited a Best Buy in the past three weeks or so - as this could indicate that they were doing product research. Learning about location allows you a great insight into the intent and mindset of your customer, thereby allowing you to form a strategically worded and timed message.
What's more, location-based marketing can also give you an opportunity to nab customers out of the waiting hands of your competitors. According to many marketing experts, mobile advertising is a useful method of geo-conquesting. For example, if you're a company selling Toyota cars and you want to steal some of Ford's customers, then you can take steps to target customers visiting a Ford dealership. You can even use incentives and alerts to tempt people into buying from you instead with the seduction of discounts and special offers.
2. Using Device-Based Profiles
The location-based data that you generate through mobile advertising is also useful at allowing you to target certain demographics. The movement of a mobile device can help to build up a detailed user profile, which can be an
The location-based data that you generate through mobile advertising is also useful at allowing you to target certain demographics. The movement of a mobile device can help to build up a detailed user profile, which can be an indicator of behavior. Imagine you were looking for fitness enthusiasts above all else as the ideal market for your product. If you have a whole bunch of user data that suggests a certain individual has checked in at gyms, fitness events, and sports stores - you can assume that the owner of that smartphone is a fitness enthusiast.
What's more, you can also create useful parameters by using location. For example, local bars that are trying to fill up the slow hours in an afternoon by advertising happy hour events can make their marketing efforts more beneficial by reaching out to consumers who are within walking distance.
3. Personalize Your Calls To Action
By far one of the most significant mistakes that marketers make today when it comes to establishing a mobile advertising campaign, is that they try to copy and paste ads that were created for other platforms onto a smartphone. The format that you would use for a television commercial or digital banner ad won't necessarily translate to a mobile platform. For example - most customers don't want to sit through a thirty-second trailer to get information on their phone, and banners on a smartphone screen can be jarring and difficult to read.
The truth is that mobile marketing is a powerful tool if you know how to play to its strengths. More than any platform available today, the mobile world permits advertisers to reach out from those tiny screens and connect with customers as they move throughout their daily lives - influencing both online and offline actions. However, connecting with that audience means using a degree of personalization - incorporating the user profiles you create and location data to develop targeted call-to-action ads. If your customer is in town at midday, then you may want to drive them to a store with directions to a nearby location. However, if they're sitting on their couch on a Monday night, they might be more swayed by an advertisement for e-commerce purchase. The circumstances of your customer should dictate the creative you serve.
