Five Strategies Marketers Can Use to Maximize Their Mobile Campaigns

According to the Pew Research Center, 95% of Americans now have mobile phones. Of that number, 77% are using smart devices. This news comes as no surprise, as the proliferation of digitalization has been mounting for some time now. For marketers, this means that optimizing campaigns for mobile is now not a nice-to-have feature. Rather, it’s a must if you want to stay competitive, relevant and in touch with your target audience.

If only 17% of people have yet to make the switch to mobile, that means a majority of your core customers, across myriad industries, are logging in to visit your website, shop your ecommerce store, and communicate with your teams while they are on-the-go. If they’re faced with slow loading times, pixelated graphics, and a design that’s less than user-friendly, chances are high they’ll quickly click off your page and visit a competitor instead. To convince them to stay, the importance of a tech-savvy, responsive mobile design cannot be overlooked.

Yet, a smart design is only half the battle. You’ll also need to routinely refresh your mobile strategy to make sure you’re meeting your customers’ expectations and demands. Here are five tools and strategies you can use to maximize your mobile offerings, keep visitors engaged and build your community of devoted followers.

1. Digital promotions.

It’s a simple fact. Customers love a great deal, regardless of the product price point. To this end, it’s smart to offer them a digital coupon, discount or other promotion that they can easily click on to save a few bucks. Doing so can encourage them to come back for more and over time, that leads to valuable brand loyalty. Up the potential that they’ll actually click on your link by tailoring the deal to products and services that you know they’re interested in.

Audience analytics can help you determine what web visitors have clicked on in the past, which items they’ve added to their carts, and which they’ve actually purchased. Understanding this data can help you customize your online promotions to ones they’re most likely to accept. This is key, as customers today crave personalization and unique messaging. It’s one of the reasons they embrace trends such as custom phone cases (read more now about these products). A tailored product expresses individualism and personality. If you show your customers you understand this sentiment by delivering personal messages that show you’re listening to their needs, you’ll be one step ahead of the competition.

2. SMS messaging.

Enabling an opt-in SMS messaging program can allow you to easily contact all of your interested brand advocates in a mass message. These messages reach your audience almost immediately, making them one of the most effective forms of mobile marketing around. A recent study found that 82% of consumers will open a text message from a business within just five minutes of receiving them. On the other hand, they may take longer to open an email, read through a flyer on their windshield, or even scroll through your social media feed.

To keep this strategy effective, focus on messages that are most likely to be well-received and avoid spamming your audience with irrelevant information that they’re quickly ignore. The crux of SMS messaging lies in reaching your audience quickly, so use this form of communication to relay limited-time offers such as one-day sales that you want your customers to know about as soon as possible.

3. Mobile payment.

If you’re not accepting mobile payments, you could be missing out. As our society inches toward going totally cashless, more consumers than ever before are foregoing their wallets altogether and storing a majority of their financial data on their smartphone. Couple your mobile payment technology with a loyalty program and you’ll double up on your potential to convert. From Apple Pay to Google Wallet, you’re not limited in the type of mobile platform you use, so do your research and find one that fits your business model and budget.

4. QR codes.

Today’s modern customer isn’t satisfied with just buying a product and calling it a day. Rather, he or she wants to know as much about that product as possible. Where was it made? How was it sourced? What are all of the ingredients within it? To this end, scannable QR codes are essential. With one click, shoppers can quickly learn all the ins and outs about a product, including details that would be too lengthy to affix on a paper product label. This type of technology is especially useful in the grocery field, as shoppers want to know where their food came from and precisely what is in it.

5. Geolocation services.

Location-based promotions are key to drawing customers into your brick-and-mortar business. If someone has opted in for SMS message updates, you can use geolocation technology to learn when they’re close to your physical store. Then, you can send a quick text message just to them alerting them of in-store discounts, and you can even offer them a personalized deal, such as a one-time-use coupon code, to encourage them to pivot inside. The two most common types of technology used to locate nearby shoppers include beacons and radio frequency identification (RFID) tags.

These are just a few tools that forward-thinking marketers can use to tap into their mobile potential and engage today’s new customers. By leveraging these programs and more, they can capture shopper attention and promote further business by appearing as relevant, interested and tech-savvy as possible.