Facebook recently released statistics revealing that there are 751 million mobile active users on the platform. This is a massive 54% increase from 2012. This is just Facebook, so imagine how mobile and tablet marketing is impacting the rest of the web.

Mobile marketing is rapidly becoming a necessity as it is growing at an immense speed. I don’t have to tell you how much value is placed on mobile phones today. A consumer can do almost anything from the palm of his hand – from updating his social media profiles, to Internet banking, to checking in on a flight, to purchasing the latest gadget. It’s literally as easy as pressing a few buttons.

The Stats

• Recent statistics show that 45% of businesses have a desktop site alone and only 25% of brands have implemented a mobile strategy.
• According to a press statement from Gartner (a leading information technology research and advisory company) companies will generate 50% of web sales through their social presence and mobile applications by 2015.
• Mobile commerce is expected to reach an increase of 55% over the next five years seeing as it is so easy to purchase goods using mobiles and tablets.
• According to research done by Barclays Corporate the amount of money spent on mobile and tablet devices is expected to reach around £20 billion over the next ten years.
• Ashleigh Highfield, from Microsoft, explains that the time gap between search and purchase is one month, whereas on mobile this gap is only one hour.

How to Market with Mobile

The statistics above should be enough to convince anyone that a mobile strategy is an inevitable requirement for any marketing campaign.

Optimise your website
Your current website should be optimised for mobile and tablet users. The mobile version will be simplified, i.e. easier to read instead of just a smaller version of your desktop site. As with any website, the user should be your main concern. Information should be limited to only the most crucial, navigation should be very basic and the site should load fast. Mobile users have even less patience than desktop users – hence why they search on their mobiles instead of desktops. They’re on the go and want their information delivered in the same way. 

Use targeted ads
Advertising should be targeted to mobile and tablet users. Once again, mobile users are completely different from desktop users – searches are done differently and as such advertisements need to be more specific and concise. 

Keep it short
Web users already want short content. Less is more – in most cases – when writing for the web. Mobile marketing needs copy to be even shorter. Screens are smaller so users have to do more scrolling to read long text. Although this seems petty, this might discourage them from reading at all. 

Know your audience
Because a mobile site is much smaller than a desktop site it’s important to know exactly who your audience is and what they want. You have less space to tell them what they want so you need to tell them what they already think they want.

Always include a C-T-A
Mobile users are more impulsive to purchase so make sure that your mobile site is actionable by including a call-to-action. 

QR Codes
Quick Response Codes are not essential as they link offline marketing with web traffic, however, they are effective because they’re user friendly and to the point.

Social Media
Social media is important regardless of the kind of marketing you’re doing, but mobile users spend a large amount of time on social media platforms. Mobile users also use social media to search for products or services while on the go.

Your content marketing strategy should incorporate a mobile site and/or application. Because of less information most mobile sites and apps focus on transactional content, so anything that a user can download and so forth. 

With a mobile site you need to decide what information is the most important and how you will lead mobile users to the rest of your information.

Sound Idea Digital is a complete digital marketing agency. For more information, contact 012 66 44 227 or email to info@soundidea.co.za

Carina Claassens is a Writer for Sound Idea Digital l carina@soundidea.co.za l @SoundIdea | Sound Idea Digital l www.soundidea.co.za