Mobile is now highly recognised as a marketing channel for enterprises and brands. One of the accusations levelled against Marissa Mayer in a recent document from Yahoo‘s activist investors was the internet giant’s failure to engage with the mobile channel.
With the increasing recognition that smartphone owners are not simply looking to emulate their desktop experience on a more portable device, comes the opportunity to use the unique features of mobile to sell more products.
Here are some of the things that your mobile marketing campaigns should be that your desktop and webs didn’t have to be.
1. Location-aware
By virtue of the platform, consumers may use their mobile devices in a range of different locations. This could include the home or while shopping.
However, the most effective mobile marketing will focus on tapping into consumers’ interests outside shopping and using them to sell products. A classic example would be selling merchandise to a sports or music fan.
Instead of having to queue at a physical merchandise store, the fan could be sent a notification while sat at Wembley Stadium offering them a deal on buying a team shirt with the name of the player who just scored. In this way the mobile platform is being used to target the consumer to full effect in the context where they are most likely to respond.
Content from our partners
2. Interest-aware
Location is not the only way to get a handle on a smartphone user’s interest. The apps they download can be as well. If in-app advertising is done effectively, the successful marketer can launch a focused campaign that feeds off the genuine interest of the smartphone owner.
Taking the above example of Wembley Stadium, another way of approaching the above example is to integrate the advertising into an app itself. For example, a fan could be offered a dedicated fan app for their favourite team.
This app would then serve up a mixture of content that the user is interested in: interviews with their favourite player, remixes of their favourite songs. The tailored advertising then sits within the app, suggesting possible purchases in as non-intrusive a manner as possible.
3. Activity-aware
It is important to consider another element of the mobile landscape; smartphone owners don’t use their mobile devices to just do one thing, as they would on a desktop PC. There is a tendency to constantly flick from app to app rather than staying in one place.
India-based InMobi’s Miip is designed to be a companion that "stays with them throughout their journey". What this means in practice is that it presents a collection of product feeds and related content for consumers within and across their favourite apps.
Miip claims to provide a consistent experience for the consumers whatever they happen to be doing on the mobile device. The ‘discovery zones’ are offered for every context, including "leaning back, on-the-go, immersed in content, or looking for something new."
4. Irritation-aware
People may have more than one mobile device these days; for example, one device might carry personal contacts and the other business contacts. However, it is becoming increasingly rare to have more than one person per mobile device.
The important lesson from this is that mobile devices are more personal than a ‘personal computer’, which is often shared by a family or by several hot-desking co-workers. People’s devices are very much their own zone, and the space is one that they feel comfortable within.
Seeing that personal zone polluted with lots of adverts, no matter how relevant they are, will undoubtedly cause considerable irritation. If you offer an SMS app with advanced features but fill it with ads, chances are that the smartphone user will have little patience and quickly swap back to the interruption-free default.
5. Attention-span aware
Finally, take account of how people use their mobile devices. They will often have their phone sat next to them, idle, while they go about other tasks, and simply check it when a notification comes through.
Even if this translates into further browsing on the device, it is still important to consider that the user is not necessarily looking to be sold anything.
Any adverts that try to do so should be as short and to the point as possible, not to mention visually appealing and eye-catching. Anything reliant on a close reading is likely to be met with boredom and a swift press of the lock button.
