For better or worse, mobile phones are part of the fabric of our daily lives. Your customers — and potential customers — are using their phones to compare prices, find local businesses, and buy gifts and clothing. They’re no longer listening to local radio, reading the paper, using the phone book, or watching television, which has made reaching thousands of people at once with advertising much more difficult than it used to be. Smart marketers are keeping up with these trends and finding new ways to reach their customers with mobile marketing.
Reaching Local Customers
Image via Flickr by TheBetterDay
If yours is a brick-and-mortar business that needs to draw local people in the door, think about all the ways they might use their phones to seek out your products or services. Make sure you turn up in map searches and on review sites like Yelp. Encourage your customers to leave reviews for you. Learn how to do pay-per-click (PPC) advertising on Facebook and Google that targets your local market.
Answer Their Questions
People who have cell phones on fast networks such as T-Mobile pull out their phone any time they want to find quick answers to questions. That’s why content marketing is so valuable. Think about the questions your potential customers are asking just before they’re ready to buy and publish blog posts that answer those questions succinctly. You can then use PPC ads to present your blog posts to people who are searching for answers and target your ads toward your demographic.
Be Mobile-Ready
Of course, it does no good to drive mobile users to your website unless your site is mobile-friendly and responsive. Responsive means your site isn’t designed for a specific screen size and will adapt itself to look good on any screen. Test your website on a variety of phones to make sure it works well on all models and screen sizes. The easiest way to create a mobile-friendly website is to build it using WordPress with a responsive theme.
Send Mobile-Friendly Emails
If you communicate with your customer base via e-mail, consider that the majority of them are probably reading their email on their smartphones now. If you’re sending simple text-based emails, you can adapt to a mobile readership by simply keeping your messages short and to the point. If you send HTML newsletters or other formatted emails, make sure the formatting is responsive and, again, that your messages are succinct. No one wants to spend 20 minutes scrolling through a single email message.
Use Social Media
Many people spend a lot of time on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other social media. Your business should be reaching out to customers through social media channels regularly. Create visual or text-based posts that communicate your brand clearly, and look for ways to interact with your customers. Ask them questions and share humorous messages and fun video clips. Remember that you can also advertise on most social media channels, but make sure your ads are friendly and engaging. Social media isn’t a good place for a hard sell approach.
Advertise on Mobile Entertainment Channels
Your younger customers may rarely listen to the radio or watch television anymore, and they don’t read newspapers or magazines, either. So how can you advertise to them? Consider buying ads on Pandora, YouTube, and other entertainment channels that are popular with cell phone users. One approach is to survey your best customers to learn which sites and apps they use most, and then buy advertising on those sites and apps to target other likely customers.
Use Text Messaging Sparingly
If your customers will allow you to collect phone numbers, you may be tempted to use texts to market to them. This can be a good strategy if your customers consider the texts valuable, but it can backfire if it feels intrusive. Make sure you use texts sparingly and only to offer specials and things your customers will value. Always provide an opt-out option.
A solid mobile marketing approach will help you target new customers and stay in touch with your regulars. Remember that digital marketing is constantly evolving, and you’ll need to keep updating your plan to stay relevant.
