Mobile technology is more common, faster and smarter than ever before.
People are now using mobile devices like smartphones and tablets for much more than calling and texting.
In the past, human beings used to rely on the traditional desktop computer and laptops to carry out their basic business operations.
Now that mobile devices are becoming widespread, accessible and convenient, there has been a significant paradigm shift in the marketing dynamic to using mobile devices as a platform to reach the target audience.
Approximately 70% of the bandwidth used across all networks is video.
An average person spends an enormous amount of time in a day, immersed in a video, application, TV form or social media platform on their mobile device.
As a result, there has been an unprecedented increase in mobile marketing and mobile advertising.
Mobile marketing is treated as a digital marketing strategy, whereby it implements concepts of the past, in a now more effective way.
Mobile advertising is an aspect of mobile marketing and it is a set of tactics that aim to influence consumer choice. So what is mobile marketing?
What are its features?
What makes local mobile attractive to business owners?
These are some of the key topics of interest to be discussed.
Table of Contents
Relationsip Between Mobile Marketing and Mobile Advertising
First off, these two phrases are normally thrown around like they are somewhat synonymous. There is a thin line between their meanings. However, it is important to note that they cannot be treated interchangeably. The two have a significant difference.
To explain them in relation to the other, mobile advertising is an aspect of mobile marketing. This means that mobile marketing is a much broader spectrum that has mobile advertising as one of its components.
What is Mobile Marketing?
Put simply, mobile marketing means carrying out marketing on mobile devices. Mobile devices include smartphones and tablets, among others.
Mobile marketing is a multi-channel digital marketing strategy that is aimed at reaching a business target audience through mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets via Social Media like Facebook, SMS texts and MMS, Websites, Email and Mobile Apps.
Mobile marketing uses a set of tactics and to gain knowledge of consumer needs in order to grow their business.
How Does Mobile Marketing Work?
Mobile marketing requires a successful strategy that has to be implemented once the analysis has been done on the target audience. The strategies can come in two ways: Design development and Marketing strategy.
Design development focuses on building the product. What does your audience require? How can you achieve quality? How can you put up your products on the online store?
The marketing strategy now encompasses what you need to do to stay on top. Where is your audience? Are there competitors in your field? Where are they located? How can you gain a competitive advantage over them?
Develop a successful and useful app in order to obtain the best visibility. This ensures that when someone looks up your app, they are most likely to download it and use it. This is achieved through App Store Optimisation (ASO). After that, provide your marketing strategies and solutions in order to attract more people.
Objectives of Mobile Marketing
- To create brand awareness
- To understand your audience
- To find your mobile marketing strategy
- To explore your mobile marketing channel
- To increase conversion rate.
- To improve brand attitude
Why Mobile Marketing?
Mobile marketing is more personalized. People have easy and fast access to mobile devices as smartphones and tablets lie right in the hands of customers. As a result, the user can reach multiple companies, get a variety of products and multiple services as well as different solutions to their problems
There is high social media browsing, hence the need to channel this traffic to mobile marketing websites.
Gone are the days where e-commerce was only on desktops. Now mobile purchases are happening more on mobile devices than on any other machine. Companies, big or small, have to get their mobile marketing apps to stay at the top of the game.
Statistics have revealed that searches on mobile devices have increased significantly as most consumers search more on mobiles than desktops or laptops.
There are more rising mobile-friendly websites that are responsive and accessible to smartphones, irrespective of their operative system, whether it’s Android, iOS or Apple.
Features of Mobile Marketing
These are the characteristics of mobile marketing. These include:
- Personalisation
Mobile marketing is aimed at personal interaction with customers
- Real time communication
Mobile marketing allows for direct conversation with the business owners and customers
- Accessibility
It is easier to use mobile marketing as devices are readily available
- Automation
Mobile marketing aims to shift messages from one platform to another seamlessly
- Consumer controlled interactivity
- Analytics
Types of Mobile Marketing
- SMS Marketing
This type of mobile marketing entails sending short text messages to potential customers. SMS (Short Messaging Services) is one of the most outdated forms of marketing but it is still in use because the majority of mobile users find text messaging convenient.
- MMS Marketing
This involves sending messages which contain multimedia content such as video, sounds and images from one end-user to the other. MMS (Multimedia Messaging Services)aims to create an impact that is found on TV ads. MMS can be used by both small and large companies. The only downside is that they are quite expensive.
- Social Media Marketing
There has been an unseen increase in the use of social media services over the years. An average person goes through at least two social media platforms in a day. Because of this, businesses are now running their ads through social media platforms such as Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, in order to attract and direct retail traffic to their business platforms.
- Mobile App Marketing
There is a need for businesses to develop suitable application software that can top other competitive apps. Mobile Apps are designed to create a connection with potential customers and address their needs. More companies are developing apps. These apps are available on Playstore. Some are obtained at a fee while some are free of any charge.
- Mobile Games Marketing
Companies develop gaming apps to serve as entertainment and a marketing tool. Ads pop up during gaming to entice users to visit the company’s website or contact the game developer for more information.
- Barcode/ QR Marketing
Barcodes and Quick Response codes enable customers to information on a product easily using their mobile phones.
Tools for Mobile Marketing
While there are new tools being developed every day to facilitate the efficiency of mobile marketing, there are some tools that are primarily important.
- SMS and MMS
- Mobile websites
- Mobile applications
- Mobile games
- Mobile video,audio display ads
- Mobile wallets
- Mobile coupons
- Social media
- Barcodes and QR codes
- Push notifications
- Near Field Communication (NFC)
Mobile Marketing Strategies
This strategy is aimed to push the agenda of mobile marketing and pull potential customers.
A mobile marketing strategy is a set of tactics that aims to drive traffic and improve customer rates after formulating a plan that is built after data analysis.
Components of a Mobile Marketing Strategy
- Market Research
This involves niche identification and competitor analysis. Who is your competitor? Where are they located? Who are your customers? What is their location? Are they interested in the product/service you are marketing?
- Content Plan, to drive traffic to the app store.
- Explore mobile marketing channels e.g social media marketing, SMS or MMS, Notifications and Alerts etc.
- Opt In, Opt Out
- Demographic and Geolocation targeting.
Benefits of Mobile Marketing
Mobile phones are personal. This means that they are carried constantly and everywhere. Thus it is more convenient and accessible
Mobile devices have a built-in payment mechanism. This could be through developed financial technology or a mobile wallet like Android or Apple Pay. This makes business practice easier.
Mobile triggers instant reactions. This helps to influence consumer behaviour.
Consumers are identified individuals because there is a personal interaction between business owners and their customers.
More emails are read and answered from mobile devices like smartphones and tablets.
The conversion rate is high on mobile devices
There has been an unprecedented growth in business activities carried out online.
Mobile Marketing Trends
- Brand Activism
- User generated content
- Going live
- Social Commerce
- High quality branded content
- Google core web vitalis
- App Store Optimisation
Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertising is practical work undertaken to reach and convert users to potential customers.
It is a pull-based approach to mobile marketing.
Mobile advertising is a type of advertising that appears on mobile devices.
How Mobile Advertising Works
To remain on the cutting edge in advertising, mobile advertising has to acquire a different strategy.
First off, find a target audience for your products and/or services. A search algorithm can help you with that.
Advertisement can take place as:
- Text ads via SMS
- Banner advertisements on mobile websites
- Mobile Apps
- Mobile Games
- Push Notifications
Objectives of Mobile Advertising
Create awareness on business products
To generate leads
To drive conversions
To increase the visibility of the product
To drive web traffic to site, landing page and app store.
Types of Mobile Advertising
- SMS Ads
This is where text messages are sent to promote a business company on mobile devices.
- WAP Display Ads
Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) is available in both image and text aads. It is used in mobile-friendly landing sites.
- Search Ads
These are ads that appear when you are looking up something on search engines like Google.
- App Display Ads
These are mobile applications developed by business owners and they contain ads that drive retail traffic to business websites.
- Push Notifications
These are the ads that pop up when you are browsing.
Benefits of Mobile Advertising
Mobile advertisements are cost-effective. It is cheaper to pass an ad through mobile means because it focuses on target advertising.
Mobile advertisements are more personalized as there are direct interactions between potential customers and business owners.
It is easy to access mobile advertisements because mobile devices are personalized gadgets hence easy to obtain information on business products.
There is immediate engagement in mobile advertising as consumers can immediately read or watch ads and be informed about a certain business.
Mobile advertising allows for creativity. This is a result of more apps and mobile games being developed to attract more customers.
What’s the Future of Mobile Advertising?
Mobile advertising is gaining more popularity as the majority of people around the world are using mobile devices like smartphones, tablets and phablets.
Mobile advertising is being implemented by many companies, large or small as there are lots of profits generated from using this approach. There is a promise for the marketing industry to keep on being bigger and better with each passing day.
Why Is Local Mobile Attractive To Business Owners?
Business owners are inclined towards mobile advertising as it is convenient to achieve their goals and objectives.
Mobile is easily accessible and a cheaper alternative to reaching customers.
Local mobile ensures immediate involvement with customers.
More advancements are coming in to push mobile advertising to the top of the ladder. More than a third of marketing agencies are implementing mobile marketing and advertising in order to reach global markets.
Do you as a Kenyan business use mobile advertising to reach your customer? What are the pros and cons of mobile advertising for your business?
2 Comments
DOM · 19 October 2021 at 11:58 AM
Hi Steph, was a pleasure reading your article, was looking for something almost similar. Actually was looking for companies/websites offering mobile advertising tailored for Kenyan audience. Still have to admit reading was worth my time, anyway have you any information regarding my search could highly be appreciated. Thanks
stephanie · 19 October 2021 at 3:31 PM
Hello Domnic, thank you for your comment. Let me research more on mobile advertising then get back to you. I’ll get back to you asap.