by Francois Muscat | Sep 28, 2012 | Mobile Marketing
Even though there are many organizations with big mobile marketing campaigns, it’s still a new buzz word in terms of marketing. I often here the questions “what is mobile marketing?”, “should we use it for our marketing efforts?”, “will it have a huge business impact for us?” from many people including my clients. Firstly, let me explain to you what mobile marketing consist of.
In plain English: Mobile marketing consists of a couple of marketing methods through mobile devices such as tablets, cell phones, blue tooth devices, and other mobile devices with a connection to the web. Mobile marketing is a very broad category and it will get even broader and more used in the future. That doesn’t mean that you should go by the rule “mobile is the future”, it’s busy happening right now.
Mobile marketing has changed quite a bit over the last few years. Here’s a couple of mobile marketing methods that you can use for marketing your business on the mobile web and to reach new customers.
Mobile marketing
- SMS
- Gaming
- Presentations
- Push media (notifications)
- LBS (location based services)
- Mobile website/blogging marketing
- Bluetooth
- QR codes
Reach customers on the go
Mobile marketing is a great way to reach customers on the go. The latest craze with tablets and smartphones ensures that if you want to market your business through these devices, now is the time. Wifi, SMS, email, and other mobile technologies means that there are more people open for communication than ever before. Everwhere you will find more and more people who are using mobile technology for shopping, connecting to their favorite social media channel, or simply researching a product on their mobile device before they make the final purchase decision.
With a mobile marketing strategy you will be able to engage, interact, and market your business on the social web.
by Francois Muscat | Sep 26, 2012 | Articles, Mobile Marketing
Mobile marketing is still a common buzz word online and I really believe that it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Smartphones and other mobile devices have really made the social web easily accessible to more people and they can access it at any time. To reach your target audience you don’t have to sit in front of your computer all day long to engage with potential customers through the social web.
Everyday you will find more mobile devices being released that allows users to interact with social media channels such as Twitter, Facebook, Google+, and LinkedIn to name but a few from practically anywhere. This means that people with these devices are always connected even when they are busy. Did you know that you can also monitor your email marketing stats directly from your smart phone or tablet? This enables you to respond very quickly to replies, customer requests, transactions, and sales opportunities.
Monitor your marketing campaign
If you are busy merchandising your online e-commerce store for a promotion you are going to run it’s physically impossible to sit in front of your computer 24 hours a day because I’m sure you have other work to do, but you can use your mobile to monitor your campaign when you are not in front of your computer.
If anyone replies to your latest “specials” tweet and they have a question, your smartphone will notify you and it enables you to send out a direct response to them in near real time answering their question. When your Facebook page receives a comment, you can also be notified immediately and then respond in mere seconds. This is all possible via the mobile web.
All the mobile devices with social media integration are making the social web more accessible to customers and business owners. This is a huge opportunity that you shouldn’t miss and a good reason to take your social media marketing campaign mobile.
by Francois Muscat | Aug 14, 2012 | Mobile Marketing
The mobile buzz isn’t the future… it is happening right now. There are millions of apps available on all the mobile platforms that you can instantly download to your tablet or smartphone. If you are an app developer that have built a great app, how you going to get your app noticed and used against all the other apps?
The old saying of “build it and they will come” doesn’t work online. If you want people to notice and start using your app, you will need to market it so that the audience you are after will notice it. This involves creating some brand awareness for your app and using a couple of other marketing methods. Find a list below that can help you get started with marketing your app to the mobile world.
Mobile app marketing
Brand awareness: Create and tell your story about the app you have built. What problem and needs are you trying to solve with the app? Build and define your brand personality. This might mean to follow a new audience instead of marketing to your current following.
App store: Promote your new app on the app store. How is your app different from other apps that are relevant? What makes your app unique? What are the main features that your app does?
Website/blog marketing: Build a website and blog for your app that you can use for promotion. Make your blog interesting by answering common questions regarding your app. Show real scenarios where your app solves a problem. Also make your app easy to download.
Social media: The more people are talking about your app, the more exposure the app will get on the web. Use popular social media channels such as Google+, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter to spread the news about your app. You can also engage on app forums explaining what your app does.
Release date: Announce the official release date of your app by promoting it via social media and your blog. Continue to engage with your audience and build a following. An easy way to do this is to give out discount codes on your social media channels, and running competitions.
Promote using QR codes: You can increase the downloads of your app by making it very easy for people to scan your QR code with their mobile device and then be redirected to your download page. Use these QR codes in your advertisement content, blogs, email signature, and other print advertisements you have.
Target review channels: Target selected review channels that specializes in app reviews. This can greatly enhance your exposure.
by Francois Muscat | Aug 13, 2012 | Mobile Marketing
Just like it is really old school and outdated for a business to not have a website or a presence on the social web, not having a mobile friendly online presence is the same. People accessing the online universe and their favorite social media channel increases every year exponentially and it continues to grow at an alarming rate.
With all the advancements done to mobile technologies and as network connection speeds increases, it is foolish to not take advantage of getting a unique mobile website for your business. With your mobile website people will be able to reach you on the go and increase visitors to your website. Who doesn’t want more eyeballs to their business?
With this said, it’s very important that you create an optimized mobile website that will work and be displayed correctly on most mobile devices. Find below a couple of tips to help you design your mobile website.
Mobile website design
Your mobile website should be much simpler than your normal online brochure. Don’t use big images making your mobile website slow. Also, use less text and use a minimalism design to get your message across. Think how you can simplify your design, the navigation and your content to make it as easy as possible to read your mobile website. Focus your mobile website content on the needs of your visitors.
Check mobile markup language: Mobile browsers are not the same as traditional desktop browsers. To ensure a high level of user friendliness, validate the code you are using by using many of the free mobile markup checkers available online.
Target tablets and smartphones: Design your mobile website for tablets and smartphones. This is the highest segment at the moment in mobile. Even though there are more smartphones than tablets at the moment, tablets are all the buzz right now and the usage also increases.
Screen display size: The display sizes of mobile screen are increasing. From iPads to iPhones, make sure your design layout is fluid and will provide the same user experience when used on both screen sizes.
by Francois Muscat | May 23, 2012 | Mobile Marketing
Everyday you will find more people who are accessing the internet from mobile devices such as tablets and smartphones. Even though the mobile web is growing at the speed of lite, most websites were not designed to be accessed via a mobile device with a smaller screen, mouse, and keyboard.
There are millions of phones and tablets in the world that exceeds the number of computers. The potential for internet marketing on the mobile website is not big, it is massive. The number of web enabled mobile phones is growing. The new generation (smartphone) enabled phones with optimized mobile web browsers are quickly beginning to replace the older phones with no web connectivity.
Smartphones such as the iPhone, Android, and Blackberry ones offer computer like functionality and are busy growing in popularity. New 3G data plans have made accessing the mobile web more affordable. Businesses online are quickly responding to this trend and developing mobile friendly versions of their websites and blogs.
Utilize the mobile web
If you want to create a mobile version of your website, here’s a couple of ways you can utilize the mobile web with your website.
- Create a subdomain on your main domain that will be used for the mobile friendly site eg: “http://m.yourdomain.co.za”.
- Build a responsive theme for your website to automatically re size and style your website when someone access your website from a mobile device.
- If you don’t have a mobile website, find a mobile website developer that can convert your website for the mobile web.
- Search online for various mobile website templates that you can optimize with your look and feel.
When you are in the process of designing your mobile website, structure your mobile website around mobile visitors. These people are looking for quick access to information. Use short and direct content by keeping it to the point. The navigation should also be easily accessible. Think about what your visitors might be looking for and provide them with the answers for their questions. If you can answer their questions, you will make it useful to them.
by Francois Muscat | Feb 15, 2012 | Mobile Marketing
In this new digital connected world where our daily lives depends on technology, it is no surprise that mobile use is on the rise. More people are starting to use smartphones as it can run your daily life straight out of your pocket. If you want to check email, search for local restaurants, find out what is being said online, or just have fun and share a picture with your friends, use your mobile.
With this growing trend, what should a internet marketing agency focus on when it comes to mobile marketing? Understanding how mobile can support your other internet marketing strategies is the best place to start.
Most people searching for local businesses is done on a mobile device. These are the people who are looking for new restaurant, movie schedule, driving directions, etc. Sadly, most local businesses does not have a mobile website dedicated to these visitors. Mobile friendly websites should be simple and they should not be as cluttered than the websites viewed on normal browsers.
Mobile websites should generally be designed to be compatible with mobile devices and sometimes needs special requirements. Local businesses that doesn’t have a mobile website, are missing out on a huge growing market segment.
Here are a couple of reasons why your mobile website needs to be different from your normal business or personal website.
Mobile website tips
- There’s a variety of screen sizes. Screen sizes vary tremendously from the small to the much larger smart phones with touch screens.
- With smaller screen sizes, images must be reduced or even eliminated on only focusing on content.
- Smaller mobile pages needs less text than the text found on your website. Remember, the screen is only that small and you want to get your message across.
- Don’t use frames and flash animations. Also, reduce HTML tables and focus only on compliant XHTML code to make your mobile website compatible with most mobile phones.
