If you’re interested in making some money on the side, then maybe mobile marketing is for you. A lot of people want to get into mobile marketing, but they aren’t sure where to start. Use this article as a guide to help you on your way to your mobile marketing goals.
Make sure your advertisements work for all types of mobile devices. If your programming is only accessible by one type, like an Android, you will lose out on entire populations of prospective clients from other platforms. Using cross-platform programming is the best method to attract the most customers to your business.
You must get someone’s permission to send them messages. If you do not, it will be considered as spam and you could get in trouble over it. Ask people to sign up as customers, and have them tick a box that said they agree to receive promotional offers via their mobile phones.
Inform your audience of how frequently messages will be sent. Give them options if they don’t want messages as frequently as you would like to send them. The last thing you want to do is become the pest who sends out messages daily, when your audience informs you they would prefer weekly messages. Frequency expectations can help with this.
Pay close attention to what your competitors are doing, this is a great way to gain an edge in social marketing. Don’t follow their every move, if you do, you’re going to blend in with them. You have to stand out from your competitors. Blending in means, at best, you’ll be splitting customers; at worst, you’ll lose them all.
Start using tools such as AdMob or Mobilytics: these tools allow you to track how many people opened your messages and connected to your website. There are many other tools you can use. Establish statistics and find out who is not receptive to your campaign and how you could improve it.
To encourage more people to sign up for something you’re offering, give away something free. For example, if you’re trying to get people to sign up for a ringtone service, offer them one ringtone at no charge if they text RINGTONE to your number. People love getting something for free, and having them text to get it makes it feel less like a transaction.
You cannot have a network marketing business without a cell phone. Your downline and potential sign-ups need to feel you are available during regular business hours, and a cell phone will give you the flexibility of being able to go out and meet people without missing a single call. A smartphone will also allow you to pick up email on the go.
Use QR codes on all of your print materials, from business cards to product packaging. This is a great way to give people quick access to all the content you want to provide, from cleaning instructions to alternate uses. You can even have a link to a coupon for future purchases, or a sale page.
The ads you run on mobile websites also need to be properly formatted, so this is something you definitely have to look into if you’re planning on running ads at all. Check out services like Apple’s iAd and MobClix to find various ways to run banner ads on mobile websites.
Know your audience. If you are planning to market to mobile phones, you should design your ad around them. Many phone have difficulty downloading large amounts of data. If it takes too long to download, many people will simply exit the program before it even reaches the point where they can see your message.
Be sure to alert your subscribers of any fees, even those that you aren’t charging. If there are standard rates applied to their cell phone bill from the provider because of your messages or even if you are charging a small fee for the service you are providing, you should give that information to your subscribers immediately to ensure there are no legal situations later.
Check out the competition. Find out what mobile messaging is like from their perspective. Compare the quality of your messages to theirs and find out if you need to make changes in your strategy. Chances are, they are probably watching what you are doing with your marketing efforts as well.
You should be focusing on all your stats as a mobile marketer and not just a few popular ones. Measure your entire success, meaning your repeat usage, bounce rate, unique visitors, and your more popular stats like downloads, opens, activations and registrations. You want a feel for it all here.
Just as you would test your website and advertisements on different computer browsers, you must also test your mobile website and mobile ads on various mobile devices. Different mobile devices come equipped with different browsers, and have varying screen sizes and resolutions. Your website and ads can look completely different from device to device. At the very least, you should test on all of the most popular devices.
Use your mobile QR codes everywhere you can. They are links to mobile devices, but the can be used in print advertising too. Any kind of advertising that your business produces should have your mobile QR code on it, even your business cards. Put it on your store signs, brochures, television ads, and catalogs.
Keep messages short. Remember, in this fast paced world that cellphones are now a part of, shorter is better. It takes less time to read a direct, short message than it does to read a lengthy appeal for business. Keep your communication direct and concise so that people actually read what you send them.
Now that you have a better idea about how to be successful with mobile marketing, you should start feeling more optimistic about how you should approach your goals. Remember that there is plenty of information out there for you to learn about mobile marketing, so always be on the lookout for new things to learn and apply all that you know and you should have no trouble obtaining success.