Mobile marketing is essential to building your brand and drawing more traffic to your website. It’s more important than ever to reach your target audience in places like Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Twitter, Pinterest and LinkedIn with techniques that include live video, as well as visuals that speak to their needs and desires.
We are well into the new digital age, where research, communication, and purchases are mainly done through smartphones and tablets. According to Statista, there are approximately 246.3 million mobile users on the Internet today.
Find more statistics at Statista
Why You Need Mobile Marketing
Pew Research reports that 95 percent of Americans own a mobile device. Most users keep their phones within arm’s reach over 90 percent of waking hours. Americans are spending an average of three hours per day on the Internet from their mobile devices.
Offline purchases in a store are also done primarily through mobile, according to Omnicore. About half of all searches are through voice-assisted technology or AI.
Image courtesy of WIX
When combined with other marketing methods, mobile marketing has proven to increase conversion rates – especially through a promoted ad on places like Facebook and Instagram.
There is still a small number of businesses that have responsive websites that are mobile-enabled. According to an article on TechJury, 8 out of 10 consumers stop engaging with content if it doesn’t display well on their smart device.
It’s not as expensive as you might think to update your website to be mobile-friendly.
You can create a new one or update an existing website in several ways:
- If creating a website from scratch, you will need to hire a web developer and designer to write the proper code
- If you build your site on WordPress, you can install a high-quality responsive template and plugins
- Choose shared hosting such as WIX, Squarespace or Weebly, which are automatically mobile-ready
If your visitors can’t view your landing page quickly and easily the moment they arrive, you could be missing out on prospects who now primarily use their mobile devices to find information and make purchases.
Here are a few more reasons your business needs to start leveraging mobile marketing and website design:
- Google’s search engine factors in mobile-ready designs
- Reach targeted buyers through live video, stories, and mobile ads
- Instantly send a message to your subscribers through messaging apps and SMS
- Connect with your audience in a more personalized way right from their devices
- Gain better insights into who your target market is and what they are looking for
- Increase in subscribers and word of mouth marketing
You may also want to read: 11 Tools & Apps to Improve Your Mobile Marketing Strategy
The Best Social Networks
The best social networks to focus on when it comes to mobile marketing for visual content are Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter. Your target market research will confirm exactly which ones your particular audience is active in the most. For example, Snapchat has experienced a downward trend but is gaining traction again through targeted ads to a younger audience. Let’s take a look at the top performers and how these can benefit your branding strategy:
Mobile Video on YouTube
According to Omnicore, there are approximately 1.9 billion active users on YouTube, with over 30 million who are active daily. They point out that 1/3 of Internet users are on this growing video platform.
The best performing video content:
- Is professional
- Can clearly project what the topic is about
- Answers a pressing need or question
- Has a strong call to action.
Live Stories and Video on Facebook and Instagram
The advent of instant reach began with Snapchat. After Facebook’s failed attempt to acquire that company, the social media giant developed its own version of live stories, as well as live video. These have been expanded to Pages. This is one of the fastest ways to capture an interested audience and take them behind the scenes of your business. Instagram, in particular, is growing in popularity over Facebook, with many brands engaging through the Stories feature.
Video on Twitter
Users on mobile especially gravitate to video – both live and uploaded on Twitter, which reports that 82 percent watch videos from hand-held devices. This includes breaking news, live events, television show clips, celebrities, and branded videos. Promoted content is now experiencing an upswing as well with an overall positive brand sentiment according to the social network.
Augmented Reality through Facebook Messenger
As the demand for better visual content has grown social media companies like Facebook and YouTube have been working on developing 360-degree realistic worlds in which the user can experience a product, service or story. A GrowthEnabler reports that the “market for AR in 2022 is expected to reach US$117 billion as compared to US $34 billion of VR.”
At the end of 2017, Facebook launched its own AR technology inside of Messenger, which allows users to express themselves through photos, videos, emojis, stickers, and GIFs. This is a great opportunity for brands to capture their audience’s attention as well as receive feedback from them.
In Conclusion
A well-rounded mobile marketing plan will enable your business to stay on top of the latest trends for your target market, which places you ahead of the competition. This will attract an entirely new audience who are quickly jumping away from their computers and conducting their transactions on the go.
Featured image: Copyright: ‘https://www.123rf.com/profile_adam121‘ / 123RF Stock Photo
Susan Gilbert
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