Making Mobile Marketing Work For Your Home Business

by | Nov 29, 2012 | Blog

It is tricky to understand mobile marketing and creating a plan to use it wisely is also a sticky situation. With so many applications, platforms, and codes, it is difficult to determine which options are your best bet. Here are a few ways you can succeed with your mobile marketing strategy.

Use a variety of ways to communicate your marketing efforts. This will be much more effective. For example, use a direct mail campaign to inform customers of an upcoming sale. Try sending an email a week ahead of time and then send a text the day before.

TIP! Social media is what people do most when they are using their mobile devices, using it when you are marketing is essential. One way to use social media is to ask your customers to send tweets about your company or a deal located on your website.

You might need to invest some money in optimizing your website to be used in a mobile format. Creating a mobile site that appeals to potential customers can be difficult. Outsource this to candidates who are qualified if you desire things to run smoothly.

Have a clear strategy and goals when you venture into mobile marketing. At first, you need to understand what goals you’d like to achieve through mobile marketing. Are you looking to monetize your existing customers more or are you attempting to get long term customer retention?

TIP! Listening to the wants and needs of customers is the first step to successful mobile marketing. Figure out what customers need, and fill that need.

If you want your mobile website to be successful, you need to use SEO techniques. Google is the most widely used search engine through mobile devices and a great starting point for SEO.

Customer bases rarely change but it is important to remember that mobile customers are much more fickle due to outside influences. Outdated or irrelevant technology can actually hurt your business, so it is important to remain up-to-date on new developments to maintain a competitive edge.

TIP! To stay on track with your mobile marketing efforts, decide what you want to accomplish, and write a mission statement that you can stick to. You will be less likely to stray into unproductive strategies if you give yourself a clear reminder of your principles.

Mobile marketing can expand your customer base, but in order to do that, your marketing materials need to work on most mobile devices. Your efforts must work on as many popular devices as possible, or you’ll risk losing customers.

You can use your friends in order to beta-test your marketing efforts with emails, website, banner advertising, and other venues. If you need unbiased opinions, you can hire testers.

TIP! Create your own app. Your customers will be more likely to think about buying something if they use your app, since it quickly and easily displays your sale and promotional information to them.

Use a short code that is dedicated. Even though it’s more expensive, it can safeguard and promote your brand. Doing this will also protect you legally.

You should know that location is essential when it comes to mobile marketing. Mobile marketing is an opportunity to use people’s location to your advantage; there are fewer location-based barriers. People take their mobile devices everywhere. This can help open newer location-based options that don’t exist elsewhere. By remembering this fact, you can take your advertising to the next level.

TIP! Though many mobile users are connecting to the Internet, as well as using text messaging, that doesn’t mean that all these users understand text message abbreviations. If your target audience can’t understand your advertisements, you are wasting your marketing budget.

Mobile Devices

When you call or text someone, remember to personalize it and treat the person at the end of the phone with respect. Keep this in mind.

TIP! Avoid sending texts to consumers in the early morning or late evening. No matter how loyal the customer is, or how exciting the promo, they will not be happy about receiving a text at an odd hour.

To assure the emails you send out are effective, make them mobile friendly. Allow them to click on phone numbers (instead of links), and make sure your pages look great on the mobile devices for any links you do include. As time goes by, the number of people checking e-mail from mobile devices is only increasing, so it’s smart to design e-mails for this audience.

Don’t forget to include links to your social media accounts on your main website. You can almost guarantee that your customers will not take the time to search for you, but if they know you are on a site, they probably will take the time to check you out.

TIP! As a mobile marketer, you should understand how the mobile devices are set up in order to properly understand how to create your sites and other advertising material. Try out a variety of mobile devices so you can gauge how your site and communications look to different customers.

Realize that those on a mobile device won’t be able to navigate a complicated site very well. Your mobile marketing proposal should be simple, and if it is simple on a computer, those using a mobile device will have an easy time viewing it.

It is important to be aware of the marketing strategies utilized by your competitors. This will allow you to stay one step ahead. You need to set yourself apart from everyone else.

TIP! Mobile websites should use search engine optimization techniques just as larger websites do. You should focus your search engine optimization strategies around Google because Google is the most popular search engine used on mobile devices.

Have relevant content. Do not get so wrapped up in the excitement of utilizing mobile marketing that you forget that a purpose must be involved. Offer your customers relevant, pertinent information they can use. It is important to remember that you are sending out information or making information available to a person who is spending time reading it. Always imagine receiving what you are sending out to maintain awareness of the person at the other end of your business marketing.

Don’t forget to still take full advantage of your standard website. Advertise your apps or mobile features on your regular website for an easy way to boost your number of mobile users. When your customers are on the road, they will remember that you have a mobile website and connect to it.

TIP! Try and make your marketing campaign viral, as this is the greatest way to be successful. If your potential customers agree that it’s worthy of sharing, they’re more likely to send it to friends and family members, resulting in a significant increase in the number of people exposed to your advertisement.

Make sure you thoroughly test your mobile website, exactly as you would your regular website. Try viewing from various browsers, and don’t forget to test the display of advertisements on your pages. Different devices run different systems and also have different specs. For this reason, your website and your ads can look quite different on various devices. You should test on the most popular mobile devices, such as iPhone and Android.

Mobile marketing campaigns should use multiple platforms in order to attract more people. Your efforts must work on as many popular devices as possible, or you’ll risk losing customers.

TIP! You should never send messages to your customers without a good reason. You should only message them with useful information.

Expert mobile marketers deploy various aspects of their marketing strategies in sequence. You should operate this way too. You can start by texting and calling. Then make videos and promote your product through social networks. Try to make your product into trend. Use all available resources to improve your approach.

If you want your mobile marketing campaign to be successful, only send out the best possible offers you have. If you do this, then customers are much more likely to find your offers interesting and respond to them positively.

TIP! Prior to implementing a new mobile marketing strategy, it is important to make sure that your current strategies are working effectively. Once you see some success, you need a measuring stick for your campaign’s longevity as opposed to just looking at sales numbers.

Make sure to share your business information on all of the best social networking pages. This is important in making your business known to other people. Start by focusing your on the fundamentals of your business, and then gradually extend your reach. It’s essential to establish a presence on Facebook and Foursquare, at the very least.

Add a discount offer or promo code in your sent mobile messages. Customers who receive a message that includes an incentive like a discount, are more inclined to visit your site to see what you have to offer.

TIP! When you have a sale or an event, send your marketing copy out a few hours ahead of time. Be sure this isn’t in the very early morning hours, however, waking them up and annoying them.

Never forget that everything about your marketing campaign is designed for your customers. Mobile marketing is based around knowledge of what your customers need and want. If you are unable to determine what consumers want, you are unlikely to win their business. Try and get as much information out of your customers, so you understand them and that will lead to success.

One key to having a mobile marketing campaign that works is to perform a usability test to see if things are running right, before you actually go live. You will defeat the purpose of your campaign if you send out messages that do not work or are ineffective. Let coworkers take a look at it first to see what they think before you actually send it to customers.

TIP!

Mobile Devices

TIP!

Test for usability, it only takes a few moments! If your customers are not able to properly view the content of your site on their mobile devices, it isn’t really worth sending it out to them. Ask people you know who own different mobile devices to let you send out some test messages and see how they look.

TIP!

Mobile marketing can have a large impact on the success of your business, so it is important to learn all you can about it. That way, you will be better able to distinguish what will work for you. Use the tips in this article as a starting point for your mobile marketing campaign.

TIP!