According to CNN, Mobile devices are now accounting for almost 55 percent of nationwide internet usage in January of this year. The amount of users on smartphones and tablets continues to skyrocket, marketers can no longer think of targeting mobile as secondary to desktop digital media strategies. First and foremost, the website must be mobile and tablet friendly, in other words, responsive to all types and form factors for all kinds of devices including iPads, iPhones, Android smartphones and tablets with optimized user interface and user experience. A website which is not mobile friendly can not only damage a company’s brand but lose valuable traffic from these mobile devices. Smart marketers will develop guidelines for mobile marketing strategies or will lose to their competitors. Here are the ways to optimize your marketing for mobile users and boost sales, clicks and conversions.
1) App Landscape: Managing and setting up mobile ads is another important step in engaging mobile users since apps account for 47 percent of internet traffic from the CNN money report. Mobile ad networks include AdMob (Google Adwords for mobile) can help you engage these users via targeted apps that are relevant to your demographic. Mobile ads can be cheaper with less competition than desktop ads and can help you gain valuable clicks/sales from targeting ads on these mobile apps. Cost per click (CPC) & display ads can be tested to obtain desired results for your brand.
2) Content Developed for Mobile: Content must be developed separately for mobile audience. The biggest advantage mobile devices offer over any other medium is the mobility and this advantage throw a unique sets of challenges for content development for mobile. One has to consider the small screen sizes, dimensions of different screen sizes and data access rates and hardware performances. Mobile content should be short and sweet, so users will be able to consume it quicker and engage at a higher rate. Rich media and video content has higher rate of getting visitor attention that text, user interaction and inputs capture the information that is business goal for the medium
3) Responsive Website UI (User Interface) for Mobile platforms:
Mobile ecommerce or more aptly called Mcommerce is the fastest growing segment of online business marketplace. It is poised to replace personal computer as the preferred medium of buying and selling items online by 2018. A website designed for PC audience is ill suited to be viewed on a mobile screen, it will be unnecessarily heavy to load, in most cases the whole page will be scaled by browser to fit the small screen and very difficult to navigate. If a user accessing you website via mobile faces such difficulty he will leave and your business will lose a potential customer. The lack of mobile optimization by many companies is a big reason why mobile marketing generates a high CTR but lower conversion rate than display advertising.
4) Measure Mobile Advertising:
Using mobile ads to promote brands and increasing mobile sales pitches is the natural progression of the economic potential of the medium. Here like any other ad campaign management careful testing and analysis are crucial for success. Tools are increasingly available that provide meaningful metrics and user interaction data that can give you insights into user behavior and how you can use this incoming data to adjust your ads and optimize future campaigns.
Google analytics for example will give you the exact devices that are being used by visitors on your website along with demographic data to help you measure the performance of your ads and website conversion more precisely.
Deepak Wadhwani has over 20 years experience in software/wireless technologies. He has worked with Fortune 500 companies including Intuit, ESRI, Qualcomm, Sprint, Verizon, Vodafone, Nortel, Microsoft and Oracle in over 60 countries. Deepak has worked on Internet marketing projects in San Diego, Los Angeles, Orange Country, Denver, Nashville, Kansas City, New York, San Francisco and Huntsville. Deepak has been a founder of technology Startups for one of the first Cityguides, yellow pages online and web based enterprise solutions. He is an internet marketing and technology expert & co-founder for a San Diego Internet marketing company.
