Mobile marketing is a fast paced and exciting way to get the word out about your product or services. Since your contact is direct to the customer, you need to make sure you get it right the first time or risk making a bad impression, losing a potential sale, and quite possibly garnering an unfavorable business reputation. Read on for some valuable advice on mobile marketing done right!
Be short and concise with your SMS messages for your mobile marketing campaign. Messages are limited to 160 characters, so put some thought into how to convey your information clearly yet briefly. If you use abbreviations in your messages, make sure they are commonly accepted and make sense to your customers.
Make sure your advertisements work for all types of mobile devices. If your programming is only accessible by one type, like an Android, you will lose out on entire populations of prospective clients from other platforms. Using cross-platform programming is the best method to attract the most customers to your business.
Link to specific parts of your website. If you are having a special sale on one part of your site, you should link directly to that site. Mobile sites can sometimes be difficult to navigate, but if you give customers direct access, they are more likely to take the time to look, and possibly buy.
Never copy someone else’s mobile strategy. Just because they may be doing well does not mean it is the right method for you. Customers like innovation, and if you are sending out similar messages or styles as your competitor, they may not be interested in making a change to you.
When marketing through e-mails or text message, try to include the recipients name in the message. This personal approach makes customers feel important, instead of like just a customer number. Successful businesses help each of its customers to feel individually important because they are important to a businesses growth and success.
Target your message to the people you are sending it too. If you send your customers too many messages that do not apply to them, they are very likely to cancel any text message or e-mail subscriptions. Do not send your customer “junk” mail through their cell phones if you want to keep them interested.
Have your coworkers or employees test the marketing that you send out before you send it to your customers. To get an opinion that is not biased, you could hire a tester.
Listen to your customers in your mobile marketing campaign so that you can always better cater to them. If you assume you know what your customers want, you are going to make a serious you-know-what out of yourself. Instead of assuming, listen to their needs and then work from an informed standpoint.
Make unsubscribing to your text messages or e-mails an easy and painless process. Remember that just because a customer is unsubscribing to your messages does not mean they no longer wish to be your customer. If you make unsubscribing a difficult or impossible task, your customers will lose respect for your company or brand.
Get permission before starting to add cell phone numbers to your database. Getting permission means you have found someone who is interested in your service or product. If you fail to get permission, you are sending messages that will likely never even be read. Sending messages without permission can also be a great way to ruin your reputation.
The fastest growing category with mobile browsers and mobile apps are social networking websites. So business must accept social networking and go where the people are. Mobile marketing success will depend upon your business making a presence on the social networking sites and using it correctly to grow your business.
If you want your mobile marketing to be really effective, apply search engine optimization techniques and technology to your mobile website. Of course, you should optimize for Google first, because Google controls the mobile search market.
If you are using SMS marketing you need to be honest with your customers about how often you will text them. If SMS messages are done improperly it can harm your business because of the close tie-in with the notification system of the mobile device. Some users feel that SMS is too invasive into their personal comfort and space. Be honest and tell your customers what your SMS campaign will be like and stick to a certain number of messages you can send every month. This will help you be seen as a trustworthy company.
Check out the competition. Find out what mobile messaging is like from their perspective. Compare the quality of your messages to theirs and find out if you need to make changes in your strategy. Chances are, they are probably watching what you are doing with your marketing efforts as well.
Compatibility is crucial. When starting a mobile marketing campaign it is essential that it will display correctly no matter which device your customer is using. There are loyal users of every mobile platform and focusing on only one device limits your customer base. At the very minimum it should be viewable on the 3 biggest devices: Blackberry, iPhone, and Android.
There is so much to consider when taking your business to the mobile marketing arena and so much at stake. Hopefully this article has shed some light on the process and given you some smart tips on how to give your business the right exposure using mobile marketing while avoiding some of the mistakes that could really cost you!
