A Shift to Mobile Marketing

Mar 24, 15 A Shift to Mobile Marketing

By Jestelle Irizarry, junior executive at The San Jose Group

At the hands of every mobile device, lies a possibly untapped consumer. While social media has dominated most mobile advertising efforts thus far, social media isn’t always the right fit for every brand or company. In a constantly evolving digital consumer landscape, brands are shifting their focus from social media and are concentrating their efforts on mobile marketing.

As it sounds, Mobile Marketing is marketing on a mobile device that provides personalized information to promote goods, services, and ideas. Mobile apps offer engaging interactions with targeted consumers, while also offering superior user experience. The 2015 State of Marketing reported that 68 percent of brands have integrated mobile into their larger marketing strategy, and 58 percent even have a dedicated mobile team. Brands doing mobile in house, or even those who are looking to begin implementing, should consider using agencies whose integration expertise would be able to align all media and advertising materials.

A recent study found that the average person spends 90 minutes per day on their phone, making understanding how and where users are consuming messages one of the greatest assets mobile marketing offers. Ironically, the problem has never been collecting mobile data, but figuring out how to monetize it. Analytics could help brands understand how their target market is using mobile devices if brands could define what type of data they would like to collect and what types of insights they are seeking from that data. For instance, they could seek the number of impressions of a particular advertisement or the demographics of the users engaging with an advertisement.

Relying on a strong web presence but ignoring mobile is almost worse than having no web presence at all these days because you risk frustrating or even turning off your consumers. Brands should work to optimize their websites for mobile use instead of hurrying to create an app because when done correctly, an app can not only engage users but also create a lasting mobile experience. Creating an app can be one of the best things any brand does, but only when they put some time and thought into it. Consumers can sense when an app was just created so a brand could have an app on the market, especially if the app doesn’t meet an actual need, making it destined to fail from the beginning.

Brands often rush to create an app just because their competitors have one, but not every company actually needs an app. For instance, while Longhorn Steakhouse was on point realizing their consumers really enjoy interactive apps, The Longhorn app ultimately failed. The company only briefly amused users who got to flip a virtual steak on a grill. Unfortunately, that was all there was to the app; it did nothing else, and after a few flips, users got bored. The app didn’t provide any relevant information for the restaurant chain, such as locations, nor did it provide any links back to the actual Longhorn website, making it a flop.

Positive industry change has shifted marketing budgets toward mobile. Regardless of the brand or company, a mobile marketing strategy must be implemented because not doing so would give the competition a significant upper hand. By the end of 2014, mobile advertising represented nearly ten percent of all media ad spending, surpassing newspapers, magazines, and radio for the first time. What makes mobile marketing unique is that it is always on, and, as such, provides marketers the constant opportunity to deliver engaging content, messages, and a positive user experience. Brands should consider working with agencies whose integration expertise can creatively align digital and social media marketing with all other advertising efforts.

 

 

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