Mobile Marketing 101: The Ultimate Guide to Dominate the Digital Age

Digital marketing continually offers new approaches to reach, delight and convert customers. Connecting with customers anytime and anywhere is possible thanks to mobile marketing.

U.S. consumers spend 234 minutes on their phones daily, a number expected to grow to over four hours in 2021. Since people spend a significant amount of time on their mobile devices, you need to be there too, ready to meet their needs. 

Mobile marketing reaches customers in places that other marketing channels simply cannot. 

Today we’ll look at what mobile marketing is, different types of mobile marketing and best practices to help you level up your mobile strategy.

What Is Mobile Marketing?

Mobile marketing is a digital marketing strategy that aims to reach customers on their mobile devices. In 2020, the number of worldwide mobile users stood at 6.95 billion and is projected to reach 7.41 billion by 2024. 

As mobile device usage has gained widespread acceptance among people of all ages, so have marketing techniques that target this ever-expanding customer base.

Mobile marketing serves customers by giving them the information they need when they need it. Tailoring that information to their preferences, buying habits and even their location provides a highly customized, personal experience that captures attention and builds brand loyalty. 

Let’s look at six different types of mobile marketing and discover which strategies you should incorporate to meet (or exceed) your business goals. 

6 Types of Mobile Marketing

1. SMS marketing
2. App-based marketing
3. In-game mobile marketing
4. QR code marketing
5. Location-based marketing
6. Search ads marketing

1. SMS Marketing 

SMS (Short Message Service) marketing is also known as text message marketing. SMS marketing enables you to send transactional messages, time-sensitive alerts, promotions and updates via targeted, permission-based texts. 

Texting has replaced email as consumers’ preferred way to communicate electronically. 

While many businesses continue to use email marketing, many complain that email open rates and click-through rates (CTRs) are declining. The average email open rate across all industries is now 20.94%, making marketers question how to optimize their campaigns.

Conversely, customers read 90% of SMS messages within three minutes. Customers can opt in and out of SMS messages at will, ensuring engagement with your most loyal customers. 

SMS messages are generally limited to 160 characters and don’t require an internet connection. They allow businesses to send brief, trackable messages with just a few clicks, making SMS a convenient and appealing alternative to email marketing.

Send 300 character messages with Textedly! 

Here are several ways to use SMS marketing effectively:

• Texting appointment reminders can increase your revenue by 20%.
• Sending SMS surveys measures customer satisfaction and increases engagement.
• Offering textable coupons generates brand awareness and customer loyalty.
• Promoting text to win campaigns excites customers with prizes they’ll love.
• Sending tracking and order updates keeps customers informed on the status of their purchases, deliveries and shipments. 

Learn more in The Complete Guide SMS Marketing Guide

2. App-Based Marketing

App-based marketing involves advertising via mobile apps. Mobile apps are applications designed with specific functionality for your website or online store. Mobile apps offer you more control, enabling you to take advantage of location-based alerts and push notifications. They are downloaded from an app store and accessed via an icon on a user’s mobile device.

It’s not necessary to create a specific mobile app to take advantage of app-based marketing. Third-party mobile apps like Facebook integrate ads so that customers are often unaware they’re viewing an ad.

3. In-Game Mobile Marketing 

If you’ve ever played a game on your phone, chances are you’ve seen in-game mobile marketing in action. In-game mobile marketing ads can appear as full-page ads, video ads or banner pop-ups that appear between screen loads.

50% of mobile app users play games, rivaling popular music apps like Apple Music and Spotify. In terms of time spent, mobile gaming is second only to communication and social media apps. If the target for your product or service skews toward gamer demographics, using in-game mobile marketing may be worth considering.

4. QR Code Marketing

QR (quick response) code marketing enables customers to quickly and easily engage with your brand. Users scan QR codes with their mobile device cameras, directing them to social media sites, designated webpages, or special offers. This scanning feature is quick and easy, eliminating typing (fat finger syndrome, anyone?) and app usage.

Restaurants have capitalized on QR technology during COVID-19, inviting guests to view menus on their phones rather than holding physical menus during in-person dining.

5. Location-Based Marketing

Nearly 46% of all Google searches seek local information. If you want to attract customers to your brick-and-mortar business, you shouldn’t ignore location-based marketing.

Location-based marketing employs mobile ads and notifications that target customers within a specified radius of your business. Whether you choose a one, five or ten-mile radius (or more, depending on your type of business and competition), customers receive text notifications containing information, events or special offers.

Help your customers by ensuring your business’s physical address, business hours and contact information are clearly listed.

6. Search Ads Marketing

Search ads are also known as sponsored ads, paid search, pay-per-click (PPC) and cost-per-click (CPC) marketing. 

Search ad marketing displays advertisements in SERPs (search engine results pages) that answer customers' search queries. Search ads are placed at the top of SERPs and are labeled as ads to differentiate them from organic search results.

Search ads for mobile often include maps or click-to-call features, making them easy to use for people on the go. New businesses often invest in search ads to attract interest while building page or site authority via backlinks. Google Ads is currently the world’s leading provider of search ads. 

Mobile Marketing Best Practices 

Whichever mobile marketing method you choose, abiding by a few best practices will help you start on the right foot. 

1. Define Your Mobile Marketing Objectives

What are your marketing goals for mobile? Mobile strategies should not replace but be a subset of your existing marketing plan. Common mobile objectives include:

• Increasing sales
• Improving customer service and satisfaction
• Increasing customer engagement and loyalty
• Improving customer retention

Defining specific objectives helps narrow down the methods you’ll use to achieve them and measure ROI.

2. Design Mobile-Friendly Creative

Mobile marketing images and messages should be optimized for mobile devices and platforms, creating superior viewing experiences. 

Since mobile device screens come in various shapes and sizes, it’s imperative to test user experience to ensure design compatibility. Avoid horizontal scrolling by using full-width layouts whenever possible. 

3. Less is More

Most mobile devices have relatively small screens, so messages should be concise. If images and messages are hard to see or understand, you’ll lose your audience’s attention fast. Use consistent branding to help customers identify your messages and stand apart from the competition. 

4. Consider Mobile SEO

Don’t discount the importance of mobile SEO (search engine optimization). Today, even Google considers mobile compatibility a major factor in page ranking criteria. Here a few DOs and DON’Ts to keep in mind for mobile SEO:

• DO test page speed. Slow sites lose visitors. Evaluate your mobile page speed by using tools like Google PageSpeed Insights.
• DON’T create a separate mobile site. Alternate URLs increase redirects, SEO errors and maintenance costs.
• DO shorten URLs, titles and meta descriptions. Keep site information concise to ensure your entire message shows.
• DO optimize for mobile keywords. Customers search differently on mobile than on desktop, so make sure you cover all your bases.

5. Track Results and Keep Testing

You won’t know what’s working (and what’s not) if you don’t track, tweak and keep testing your mobile marketing efforts.

• Track results: Use analytics tools that show how your customers respond and interact with your mobile marketing efforts. Does SMS perform better than email? Do you get better results on a weekday or a weekend?
• Tweak: Get regular updates to discover which mobile marketing channels need improvement -- or which could be eliminated.
• Keep testing: Once changes (if any) are made, track, tweak and test again. Remember that seasonal factors and market changes may influence results.

Level Up Your Mobile Marketing with Textedly

SMS marketing is a popular mobile marketing tactic that’s easy to get started with.

If you want to incorporate SMS marketing into your overall marketing strategy, partnering with Textedly is a step in the right direction. Textedly is an SMS marketing platform that gives businesses the tools to send 10 or 100,000 bulk SMS mobile text messages – instantly.

Textedly makes communicating with your contacts easy and efficient. Send mobile text messages for marketing alerts, sales events, coupons, discounts, announcements and more with just a few clicks.

Start your 14-day free trial today – no credit card required!