With the number of mobile device users climbing off the charts in recent years, it’s no secret that mobile marketing is a can’t miss strategy for small businesses. But, with endless possibilities in a mobile-friendly world, it can be difficult to even know where to start.
Prioritizing the top mobile strategies to make small business budgets stretch across the most important aspects of mobile marketing is key to getting the most bang for your buck. Well, we did the heavy lifting for you and sifted through the countless mobile marketing strategies to identify the best fits for local businesses today.
The main things to note when starting out in mobile marketing is:
• What mobile marketing is.
• The benefits of mobile marketing.
• The best mobile marketing strategies.
• How to get started with mobile marketing.
What is mobile marketing?
Mobile marketing encompasses any and every type of marketing that reaches users on smartphones, tablets, Androids, smart watches, and any other mobile devices. In other words, mobile marketing is the use of technology and tactics to reach your target audience when they are on the go. So, whenever you digitally reach someone on a device other than their stationary desktop or laptop then that is, in fact, mobile marketing.
Now, of course by definition mobile marketing simply means marketing to users on mobile devices.
This means that not only can reach consumers on the go, but you can reach them in a more personal manner at any point in their day, which makes mobile marketing a huge asset for any business.
Let’s get into more of the benefits:
5 benefits of mobile marketing for small businesses
If it’s not enough that there are over 3.6 billion smartphone users in the world, there’s also a ton of mobile marketing stats and data that indicate how beneficial mobile marketing actually is for small businesses.
Here are the top four benefits of mobile marketing strategies for small businesses:
1. Mobile clicks are cheaper
Most marketing costs something–either your time or your money. But you can maximize your marketing budget by choosing the right strategies, and mobile marketing can help. Clicks coming from a mobile device cost 24% less than those coming from a desktop device. So, if anything, this mobile marketing stat means that it’s an even better fit for small businesses looking to save.
2. Mobile experiences drive purchases
Not only is mobile marketing cost-effective, but people are more than 60% less likely to purchase from a brand after a negative mobile experience. Plus, 70% of smartphone users have bought something in a store after using their phone to discover more information.
This makes it all that much more imperative for small businesses looking to grow.
3. The nature of mobile marketing is different from desktop or print marketing
Hint: you want it that way! The point of mobile marketing is to get to folks who you otherwise may not always reach because they can’t access your print ads or aren’t seeing your ads on their desktop. Mobile marketing strategies allow you to get to the point quicker and reach people across a range of devices, which can help you increase awareness for your brand and attract more customers.
4. Mobile marketing is personal
Remember, you’re usually reaching people on their own personal device like their iPhone, smart watch, or tablet. So, mobile marketing by default is very personal with tactics like texting your audience via SMS or reaching them in their social news feeds mixed in with their friends and family. You’ll be able to access them when they’re at their leisure and are more receptive to new information.
5. Mobile marketing enables a good customer experience
Mobile marketing doesn’t just benefit your business. With today’s busy lifestyle, people crave convenience. Being able to learn about a business, redeem coupons, make payments, or contact a business on one handheld device is a major benefit to your customers. With such convenience and consolidation, you have created a positive customer experience for them.
7 mobile marketing strategies your small business needs
What makes mobile marketing easy to integrate into your current marketing plan is that you can take standard local marketing tactics you may already be familiar with and simply twist them to be mobile-friendly.
Here are the seven mobile marketing strategies we suggest you start with!
1. A mobile-friendly website
Without a mobile-friendly site, your other mobile marketing efforts become less effective. The best kind of site for mobile-friendliness is a responsive site. A responsive site can adjust to any device a person is using so they can easily read your web content, click on any buttons, and navigate your site with ease.
Without a mobile-friendly website, you’re creating a negative user experience. For example, if someone finds you via a social ad or a local listing on their smartphone and clicks to your site only to have a bad mobile experience, they will likely abandon your site and forget about your business.
If you’re unsure if your site is already mobile-friendly, then have a team member test it on a mobile device or even test it yourself to fully understand where your site’s mobile experience currently stands from a user’s perspective. Or, leverage Google’s mobile site tester which is one of many out there that will grade your site’s mobile capabilities for you once you plug in the URL.
If your site isn’t mobile-friendly, talk with your website provider or marketing partner to get it in tip-top shape. You might also mention that Google indexes the mobile version of your site first, so by not having a mobile-friendly site, you’re impacting your performance no matter what device you’re on.
2. Mobile search advertising
Similar to how you can adjust your website to be mobile-friendly, you can also optimize your search engine marketing efforts to be mobile-friendly as well. We already know that 55% of people use a mobile device to search for businesses, so you want to make sure your PPC ads show up when they search.
You can also take advantage of ad extensions available for mobile. The Google Search platform gives us the option of Call Ads as well that only show to devices with the ability to make calls (i.e., mobile phones and most tablets). In addition to call ads, you can attach Call Extensions to any text ad type to enhance your chances of having your business number show.
By shortening your ad copy and trying out call-based ad strategies you’ll provide a more efficient mobile experience for your target audience when they’re surfing those search engines.
3. Local listings
Getting set up on free listing sites like Google My Business is huge for local businesses looking to grow their mobile presence. This is because when people are on the go, they’ll be pulling out their smartphone from their back pocket to find your small business via local listings.
Ensuring your name and business information is up to date on mobile heavy platforms like Yelp, Bing, or Facebook is vital to boost your incoming business from mobile users. Mobile users will have a heightened chance of reaching you if you have accurate business information, like name, address, website, hours, contact information, etc.
4. Social media marketing
Both organic social media marketing and paid social ads are effective mobile marketing strategies since the majority of people solely scroll their feeds on their mobile devices. In fact, mobile accounted for 83% of all social media visits in 2019.
While your social media marketing strategy should include a presence on Facebook and Instagram, you can (and should!) also include strategies like Snapchat Advertising, Tik Tok, Waze, LinkedIn, and more!
When implementing mobile social media strategies, you’ll want to consider posting engaging content with creative graphics or videos to encourage engagement on your posts and optimize your post content for mobile–which means shorter posts that still pack a punch.
5. Email marketing
While email marketing feels like something that’s traditionally desktop heavy, that’s actually not the case at all. In fact, it’s quite the opposite as 68% of email campaigns are opened on a mobile device.
This means that since the majority of your emails are going to be opened on a mobile device, you’ll want to approach email marketing campaigns with mobile friendliness in mind.
To work with limited screen real estate, not only do you want to keep the meat of your email copy short, but you’ll also want to think about other components that go into emails like subject lines, call-to-action buttons, and pre-header text for previews. That way, you can efficiently use mobile email marketing to welcome new customers, promote your specials or sales, or educate your customers to keep your business top of mind.
6. Geofencing
Geofencing leverages global positioning systems (GPS) or radio frequency identification (RFID) to set up location targeting for your marketing tactics.
Geofencing allows you to set a boundary based around a specific area or radius of an area like a city, state, region, country, or zip code. It will then track mobile devices entering or exiting that area to show ads to people who enter that area.
With geofencing, you can easily reach people on the go based on an area near your business, a complementary business, or even your competitor’s business! Your ad would then show to them in apps on their mobile device and get them to visit your business or take advantage of an offer.
7. SMS marketing
SMS marketing refers to sending text messages to your customers or prospects. An SMS campaign is obviously perfect for mobile marketing—what’s better than sending a text right to your client? And, because people actually tend to be willing to sign up for text offers if it’s from a brand they appreciate.
In fact, 64% of consumers think companies who text value their time, are progressive and would recommend them to others. So, encourage your customers to sign up for regular text promotions from your business.
In SMS marketing you can share links, updates, and new promotions with your potential customers. Not only does this keep you top of mind for your audience, but it also can push them further through the buyer’s journey and all that much closer to deciding to make a meaningful action like a purchase or a booking.
3 steps to get started with mobile marketing
Now that you’re familiar with some of the top mobile marketing strategies you can start deciding which ones you want to implement first! Here are three tips we recommend to help you get started:
1. Prioritize your mobile marketing strategies
While we listed out seven awesome mobile marketing strategies for small businesses, that doesn’t mean you have to implement every single one all at once!
Think about your marketing goals and objectives as well as how your ideal customer spends time on their mobile devices to help you determine which strategy you should use. Are they scrolling on social media? Or, looking for you while on the go?
Then, you may want to look at options like mobile-optimized Facebook advertising or local listings (in addition to a mobile-friendly website, because that’s a must!). As you start to see success with mobile marketing, you can build on your strategy with more tactics.
2. Consider free or low-cost mobile marketing strategies
Mobile marketing is cost-effective for small businesses, especially when you take advantage of free mobile marketing strategies like organic social media and local listings. It’s also important to remember that mobile marketing stat we shared earlier: Clicks from your mobile marketing cost 24% less! So, not only is mobile marketing a fit for any budget, but it can help maximize your budget, too.
3. Turn your current marketing into mobile marketing!
An easy way to slowly dip your toes into mobile marketing if you’re hesitant is to evaluate your current marketing strategies through a mobile lens. If you’re not ready to build out something new and unfamiliar just yet, but don’t want to miss out on high-value mobile device users, then optimizing what you’re currently running to be mobile friendly is a great place to start.
For example, we’re betting you may already have a website, social media account, print ads, or potentially even a search ad campaign already in the works. These are great places to start thinking about how you can finesse those efforts to be more adaptive to mobile.
Using print ads? See if you can take that copy to the mobile space! Already have a website? Run it through a tester to see if it’s mobile-friendly!
Starting your mobile marketing small using what you already have and growing from there will help you to improve along the way without breaking the bank or taking a ton of time out of your already busy day.
Get started with these mobile marketing strategies
While at first glance mobile marketing can feel like a daunting endeavor, once you take a moment to methodically plan out your mobile marketing strategy using the guidelines above, it turns into a cakewalk that can have a big impact on your overall marketing results.
Related Articles
-
8 Best Social Proof Examples to Inspire Your Business
-
5 Low-Cost Google Marketing Strategies to Grow Your Business
-
18 Ways to Increase Your Online Presence (+3 Extraordinary Examples)
-
5 Customer Testimonial Examples We Love (& How to Copy Them)
-
8 Absolute Best Chatbot Ideas for Businesses in 2024 (+Quick Tips!)