Mobile Marketing: Definition, How It Works and Examples

There’s a diverse range of options in the world of marketing and each has its pros and cons. Print advertising can target specific demographics, but reaching a geographically dispersed audience can be challenging. Television and radio reach a broad audience, but producing them can blow up your budget and your schedule. Enter mobile marketing, a game-changer in the world of advertising.

With the widespread use of smartphones, you can now reach customers directly on their mobile devices, wherever they are and whenever you want. Mobile marketing allows for precise targeting based on location, demographics, user behaviour and other data that help discover your target market. By leveraging mobile marketing techniques such as text message marketing (also known as SMS marketing, short for “short message service”), mobile apps and mobile advertising, you can be sure your message is delivered to the right audience, increasing the chances of engagement and conversion.

Plus, a mobile marketing platform provides a wealth of actionable insights about user behaviour, engagement rates, conversion rates and more. This data-driven approach allows for continuous optimisation and improvement of marketing campaigns, ensuring maximum return on investment (ROI). By meeting customers on their own terms — in the palm of their hands — we have the ability to make a lasting impact. Now, reaching customers on the go is not just a strategy, but a necessity. Let’s see how it works.

What you’ll learn:

• Making the Most of Mobile Marketing
• What is mobile marketing?
• How is mobile marketing different from traditional marketing?
• What are the types of mobile marketing?
• What are the best practices for mobile marketing?
• What’s next for mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing is the practice of reaching and engaging with customers through their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. It encompasses a wide range of strategies, including mobile advertising, mobile apps, text message marketing and mobile-optimised websites.

The business benefits of mobile marketing are immense. For one, it allows you to connect with customers in real time by capitalising on the immediacy and personal nature of mobile devices. This facilitates targeted and personalised marketing campaigns, leading to higher engagement and conversion rates. It also provides valuable data and insights, allowing you to analyse customer behaviour, preferences and trends so you can finesse and optimise your marketing strategies. 

Also, mobile marketing represents a unique opportunity to reach customers on the go, tapping into their daily routines and capturing their attention when they’re most receptive. For example, using location-based strategies, mobile marketing can identify a new neighbour searching for furniture and direct that potential customer to your nearby bedding store, possibly yielding a conversion.

The current state of mobile marketing is nothing short of remarkable. Consider these statistics.

• According to Statista, the number of smartphone users worldwide is projected to reach 3.8 billion by 2021.
• Mobile devices account for more than half of all global Internet traffic, as reported by StatCounter.
• A study by eMarketer reveals that the average time spent on mobile devices per day is over 3 hours in the United States.
• Mobile advertising spending is skyrocketing, with a projected global expenditure of $247.4 billion in 2020, as estimated by Statista.

These trends highlight the undeniable influence of mobile devices in our lives and the immense potential for your businesses to connect with your target audience through mobile marketing.

There are several key differences between mobile marketing and traditional marketing. The most obvious difference is the channel: traditional marketing is typically achieved through television, radio, print media and billboards. By reaching customers through their mobile devices instead, mobile marketing has many advantages over traditional marketing.

First, mobile devices are always within reach, so you can deliver timely and relevant messages in real time and capture your customers’ attention when it matters most. With easy access to user data and preferences, mobile marketing also allows for more-personalised campaigns. It also uses location-based targeting, which lets you deliver hyper-localised offers, promotions and recommendations to enhance the customer experience and drive foot traffic.

Plus, mobile devices offer a wide range of interactive features, like touch screens, augmented reality and mobile apps. This helps create immersive and engaging experiences that leave a lasting impression on your customers.

Finally, with mobile analytics tools, mobile marketing easily provides valuable data and analytics to measure the effectiveness of your campaigns. These tools facilitate a data-driven approach that helps you to maximise your marketing strategies, make informed decisions and achieve better results.

Mobile marketing can be an important component of your overall marketing strategy. Here are some tips to keep in mind for integrating it into your current plan.

• Understand your audience: Identify your target audience and analyse data to gain insights into their preferences, habits and mobile usage patterns. This will help you to reach them and engage with them more effectively.
• Use mobile-optimised content: Ensure that your website, emails and other marketing materials are mobile-friendly and responsive. Adapt them for smaller screens, faster loading times and intuitive navigation for a seamless mobile experience.
• Integrate across channels: Integrate mobile marketing with other channels to create a cohesive and consistent brand experience by aligning messaging, design and promotions across various touchpoints, such as social media, email marketing and off-line advertising.
• Adapt your strategy: Use mobile-specific strategies like mobile apps, location-based targeting and mobile advertising platforms to maximise the impact of your marketing activities. Experiment with different tactics and channels to find what works best for your business and target audience. For example, a newsfeed Facebook advertising might be more appropriate than Twitter to reach Generation X customers vs Generation Z or “Zoomers.”

By integrating mobile marketing into a holistic marketing strategy, you can leverage the unique advantages of mobile devices to engage customers, drive conversions and build long-lasting relationships.

There are different types of mobile marketing, each with its own unique features and benefits.

Text message marketing involves sending promotional messages and updates directly to customers’ mobile phones via text messages. It’s highly effective and cost efficient, as text messages have high open rates and are usually read within minutes. Text message marketing allows businesses to deliver time-sensitive offers, reminders and personalised messages, fostering direct communication with customers. An example of this could be an appointment reminder for a nail salon, forming a connection with your customer and avoiding lost revenue due to missed appointments.

Mobile advertising refers to displaying ads on mobile devices, typically within mobile apps or mobile websites. It offers a range of formats, including banner ads, interstitial ads and video ads. It helps you to reach a larger audience, target specific demographics and track ad performance with detailed analytics. For example, a résumé-writing service might be advertised in a banner ad on an employment website, promoting the benefits of a professionally written résumé to job seekers.

By promoting products or services within mobile applications, this technique allows you to reach users in a contextually relevant and immersive environment, increasing the chances of engagement and conversion. Some types of in-app marketing are in-app ads, sponsored content and branded experiences. A mobile app for local theatre listings that directs users to a nearby restaurant for a post-matinee meal is one way an in-app ad could be used.

Mobile-optimised websites are designed to be responsive, fast-loading and easy to navigate on smaller screens. This can provide a seamless browsing experience, reduce bounce rates and increase conversions. Photography-focused websites are likely to focus on mobile optimisation, as visitors use their phone as their camera.

The unique features of mobile marketing make it an effective, scalable way to target potential customers and keep your current customers engaged with relevant content in real time. In addition to the tips above for integrating mobile marketing into your current campaign strategy, these are strategies you might want to keep in mind to help you to capitalise on the immediacy and the personal nature of mobile marketing.

Ensure that your content is responsive, loads quickly and provides a seamless user experience across different screen sizes. Your website, social media profiles, posts, images and videos should be mobile friendly and easily shareable. Implement mobile-friendly design elements, like easy-to-tap buttons, clear navigation and concise content.

If you have a mobile app for your business, you can promote it through various channels, such as social media, email marketing and in-app advertisements. Encourage app downloads by offering exclusive content, discounts or rewards. Once users have your app, you can use push notifications to deliver personalised messages, updates and offers. App-based marketing allows for direct and targeted communication with your most engaged customers.

Data analytics and customer segmentation let you tailor your marketing campaigns based on demographics, preferences and behaviour. Personalise push notifications, emails and in-app content to provide relevant and timely information to individual users. By delivering personalised experiences, you can enhance engagement, build customer loyalty and drive conversions.

Location-based techniques (such as geofencing, beacons and location-based notifications) deliver targeted offers, promotions and recommendations based on a user’s physical location. For example, geofencing lets you send trigger notifications or offers when a user enters a predefined geographic area. Location-based marketing enhances the relevance and effectiveness of your mobile marketing efforts.

Contact users directly through text messages. Messages should be concise and relevant, with clear calls to action (CTAs). The immediacy, intimacy and sense of urgency created by this tactic are a few of the reasons it’s associated with an impressively high open rate.

Reach your target audience through mobile apps, websites or social media platforms such as the ones we discussed earlier. Optimise your ads for mobile devices and consider using formats like native ads or video ads for better engagement.

Using mobile wallets and in-app purchases gives your mobile customers a convenient and seamless checkout process, enhancing user experience. (More about this below.)

Mobile search plays a significant role in driving traffic and conversions. Refer to mobile search engine optimisation (SEO) best practices, focusing on local SEO to capture users searching for nearby businesses. Include relevant keywords, create mobile-friendly meta tags and ensure your website is indexed for mobile search. By ranking well in mobile search results, you can attract targeted mobile traffic to your website.

These are ideal for repetitive tasks, such as sending personalised messages, scheduling social media posts and segmenting your audience. They not only save time and resources but also ensure consistent, timely and relevant communication with your mobile customers. Salesforces’ Marketing Cloud automation platform, for example, facilitates unified profiles and analytics, personalised content and customer relationship management (CRM) capabilities.

This approach helps you to build trust and establish a positive relationship with your audience. Opt-in marketing involves obtaining explicit permission from users before sending them marketing messages or collecting their personal information, which ensures that they have willingly expressed their interest in receiving communications from you. This leads to higher engagement, better overall user experience and increased retention rates. You can implement this approach through various channels, like website forms, text subscriptions or app permissions. Offering special discounts to new subscribers is one way to enhance loyalty and connect with your customers.

This goes hand in hand with opt-in marketing. Permission-based marketing ensures that you’re compliant with privacy regulations while you deliver personalised and targeted content that’s relevant to each customer’s interests and preferences. This yields a more positive user experience and fosters customer loyalty.

Monitor key performance indicators (KPIs) to gain valuable insights that can help you to optimise your strategy, ensuring that your mobile marketing efforts are effective and engaging.

This last strategy is essential for facilitating data-driven decision making and maximising the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns. These are some important metrics to keep an eye on.

• Conversion rate: Measure the percentage of users who take the desired action, such as making a purchase, signing up for a newsletter or downloading an app.
• Engagement metrics: Track user engagement metrics, like click-through rate (CTR), time spent on page and app session duration. These metrics provide insights into how users interact with your mobile marketing content so you can gauge the effectiveness of your messaging and user experience.
• App analytics: If you have a mobile app (and you should!), app analytics tools can reveal information about user behaviour, retention rates and in-app actions. Understand how users navigate through your app, which features they engage with the most and where they drop off.
• A/B testing: Conduct A/B testing to compare variations of your mobile marketing campaigns. Test different messaging, visuals, CTAs or targeting strategies to identify the most effective elements.
• Attribution analysis: Analyse the attribution of conversions and actions to understand which marketing channels and campaigns are driving the most significant impact. This metric helps you to allocate your resources effectively and optimise your mobile marketing budget.

Measuring and analysing these key metrics facilitates a data-driven approach for continuous optimisation, ensuring that your mobile marketing efforts are effective, engaging and delivering the desired results.

Mobile marketing is continuously evolving and trending toward more personalised, immersive and interactive experiences. These are some of the key trends shaping the future of mobile marketing.

Video consumption on mobile devices is skyrocketing and it’s expected to continue growing. Short-form videos, live streaming and interactive video experiences are becoming popular ways to capture and retain users’ attention. Just make sure your videos are optimised for mobile screens.

These technologies are transforming the way brands engage with their mobile audience. AR involves overlaying digital content onto the real world, while VR provides immersive, simulated experiences. Both AR and VR enable creation of interactive and personalised experiences, like virtual try-on for clothes or makeup and virtual tours of physical locations. As these technologies become more accessible, we can expect them to become integral parts of mobile marketing campaigns.

With the rise of voice-activated assistants like Siri, Google Assistant and Alexa, voice search is becoming increasingly popular. Make sure that you optimise your content for voice search queries and consider voice-activated assistant integrations in your mobile app.

Chatbots are AI-powered virtual assistants that can engage in real-time conversations with users. With a seamless user experience, they can provide personalised recommendations, answer questions and assist with transactions. Chatbots are becoming increasingly sophisticated. In the future, they’ll likely play a more significant role in mobile marketing, providing instant customer support, personalised product recommendations and even facilitating purchases.

Payment options such as Apple Pay and Google Pay are gaining popularity as more users embrace contactless payments. Mobile wallet integrations offer personalised discounts, loyalty rewards and targeted promotions. As mobile wallets become more widely adopted, we can expect to see increased opportunities for mobile marketing through these platforms.

With growing concerns about privacy and data protection, prioritising transparency and user consent is a crucial consideration. Regulations like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the California Consumer Privacy Act (CCPA) have put a spotlight on data privacy. In the future, mobile marketing strategies will need to adapt to strict privacy regulations and focus on building trust with users through transparent data practices.

Clearly, mobile marketing appeals to the modern audience for several reasons. Mobile devices are always within reach, making it a fast, convenient way to instantly access special promotions and get personalised shopping guidance. It seamlessly integrates with other digital channels (such as social media, email and websites), creating a cohesive and consistent brand experience for your customers.

By capitalising on these features, building a marketing approach grounded in proven strategies and recommended best practices and keeping relevant privacy considerations in mind, you can effectively connect with your target audience and achieve your marketing goals in the mobile-first era.