Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is one marketing trend you won’t want to miss out on!

Just as the internet has transformed the way that businesses of all sizes market their products and services over the past 10 years, mobile marketing is now shaking things up again. Here’s why mobile marketing is the hottest new trend:

Virtually every person in the UK now has a mobile phone. Around 25% of those are smart phones with full internet capability and this number is growing by about 20% every three months.
The mobile internet market is estimated to be 3 times bigger than the regular internet based market. Also when users are searching on mobile devices the search results are based on the user’s current GPS, so if your business is not listed in the local search results they simply aren’t going to find you.
By 2014 it is projected that more internet searches will be carried out using mobile phones and other mobile devices than PCs.
91% of mobile phone users keep their phones within reach 24 hours a day. People have their phones with them all the time, even when they are in the bathroom!
Mobile phones are always on which means that messages can be sent and acted on at any time of the day or night.
Every mobile phone has a built-in payment system (i.e. the SIM card) and with the proliferation of mobile apps users are now well accustomed to the idea of accessing and paying for services using their phones.
Free reporting and analytic tools make it is easy to track your mobile campaigns and make adjustments where necessary.
Integrating social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube with your mobile website is simple and will help boost your profits even more.

Mobile marketing lends itself perfectly to promoting local services and there are a number of ways to do this.

SMS Marketing

One of the easiest and most affordable ways to follow up with prospects and customers is through mobile text messages. And if you have an automated system in place to do that, it’s surprisingly easy—and extremely effective. 98% of people who receive a text message WILL open the text within 1-5 minutes. Compare that with a typical email open rate of less than 10% and you can immediately see why mobile text messaging is such an effective way of getting your offers seen by potential customers. Research also shows that mobile discount vouchers have a redemption rate of 15% to 40% compared to less than 2% for traditional printed vouchers – that’s up to 20 times higher.

So how does it work? Let’s say your business is the local beauty salon and you have a mobile text marketing strategy in place. You print an offer with a mobile short code (usually a single word) on your appointment cards and signs in your salon as well as on your website. It could look something like this: “Text: MANICURE to this Number: 72727 and Get a Free Manicure When You Spend £50 or More on Beauty Treatments.” Anyone who text messages that phrase to the short code number will receive an automatic follow up message to their mobile phone saying “Show this message to the cashier and get your free manicure. Enjoy! Offer ends 01/10/2011”

What happens? Your customers opt-in and you get a list of mobile phone numbers that you can now use to send them appointment reminders, more offers, videos, discounts, event invitations etc. For instance, let’s say it’s Tuesday morning and your bookings are looking thin for the rest of the week. You can send out a group text message to your list with an updated offer along the lines of “Hey, you’ve been working hard so why not treat yourself to a luxury spa pedicure? Just show this text to the cashier to get a 20% discount. Offer ends…”

QR Codes

Another great use of mobile marketing is to drive traffic to your website using QR codes. A QR code is a matrix barcode or two-dimensional code which can be read by QR scanners, mobile phones with a camera and smartphones. The information encoded can be text, a website URL or other kind of data and can be used to lead viewers to mobile sites, discount vouchers, videos or images.

Mobile Web Design and Mobile Landing Pages

A note of caution about websites: most will not display information properly on mobile phones, so if you’re planning to use QR codes, text messaging or any other form of mobile marketing to drive website traffic make sure you send them to a special mobile-friendly version that includes features that allow your visitors to instantly call, get directions, make a booking etc. Typically, a mobile website is much simpler in presentation than a traditional website. Typically it will have with less text, fewer and smaller images, a streamlined structure and simple navigation. Each page is designed to be much narrower and smaller to display correctly on mobile phones and other mobile devices. Mobile sites can have full e-commerce functionality these days, plus with mobile apps so cheap and easy to develop, what you can do with mobile marketing is limited only by your imagination!

Our mobile marketing services

If you’re planning to introduce mobile marketing to your promotional mix the first thing you’re going to need is a mobile website built and optimized for mobile devices. All of our premium WordPress websites come with the option of a mobile version optimised for smart phones plus we can also offer you the option of stand alone mobile landing pages specifically for your mobile campaigns. Additional services we offer include: