Marketing is crucial for the success of any business. Whether running a startup or an established enterprise, advertising your products to potential customers is of utmost importance. It’s the best way to let your target consumers know about whatever you have in store for them.
Among the main techniques used today is mobile marketing. Its effectiveness is boosted by the fact that many people own mobile devices. The strategy employs the features of both a smartphone and a feature phone to reach potential customers. Among the most common channels used to send marketing messages that include calls, SMS, MMS, emails, and mobile applications.
Most companies today, for instance, have invested in automatic call center systems, like Power Dialer, to manage calls and even send business texts. Such innovative features are vital in modern digital marketing strategies.
In this article, you’ll learn how to boost customer engagement through mobile marketing. So, read on.
Contents
What Is Mobile Marketing?
Mobile marketing is a multi-channel strategy that involves advertising products and services via mobile devices. It targets potential customers who use feature phones, smartphones, or tablets to accomplish their daily tasks. This type of digital marketing takes advantage of modern mobile technology, such as location and Internet connectivity, to tailor campaigns.
These technology features allow companies to send personalized information to their customers. For instance, the marketing team can use the customer’s location to tailor relevant marketing messages to them. As such, it’ll be easier for the target audience to not only understand the messages, but also relate to the brand.
Understanding mobile marketing is one thing, but knowing how to leverage its power requires skills and experience. That’s why many companies, especially the upcoming ones, still struggle to engage customers through mobile marketing campaigns despite having the necessary resources.
So, how can you take customer engagement to the next level using modern mobile technologies? Here are a few tips to consider:
1. Use Conversational Text Messaging
Text messaging is one of the most effective strategies in mobile marketing. In fact, more than half of the marketers still use it in their campaigns. One of the main reasons text messaging still tops the list is its high open rates. About 98% of messages are read within the first few minutes. Unlike other mobile marketing techniques, text messaging isn’t limited to users of smart mobile devices. Feature phones can receive these messages via SMS, giving you a platform to reach more people in a short time.
However, it’s not all about sending texts to customers and hoping for the best. You need to know how to get to the hearts of your potential clients through simple texts. The key to success in this strategy is using a conversational tone in your messages.
Conversational text messaging refers to the ‘one-on-one’ engagement between a customer and the company. It’s more like a conversation between two parties through text messages. There are many text conversation solutions today that can help you reach your customers and effectively engage with them.
You can also manage individual messages, and replies, and even view the message history in case you missed something. The best part is that it can be used hand-in-hand with mass messaging. When you send texts to many people and some of them respond, you can answer their questions using conversational texting.
Another benefit is that it allows customers to explain their problems without necessarily calling your agents. It’s a useful feature in situations where the target audience prefers texting over calling or doesn’t want to reply immediately.
On top of text marketing, you can also invest in ringless voicemail software to boost your chances of success. This program allows you to deliver voicemail messages without disturbing the recipients. It can also come in handy in scheduling your ringless voicemails, SMS, or email campaigns.
2. Invest In A User-Friendly App
Mobile apps have become synonymous with modern digital marketing. Almost every company today has invested in both a business website and a mobile app. Although in most cases, they resemble the company’s website, these apps make it easier for users to access the same content in a more convenient way.
As a business, you should take advantage of these software applications to boost your mobile marketing. A mobile app is more powerful when its design and features are user-friendly. This characteristic makes the app a good alternative to your website. Your target audience will only prefer using the app when they find it convenient and easy to use compared to the official business site. In fact, many customers today prioritize the user interface and functionality of the mobile app when assessing the digital aspects of a brand.
An app that prioritizes user experience and convenience have a higher chance of remaining on the user’s device. Remember, many mobile apps offer the same services and compete for space on the customer’s smartphone or tablet. A user will download an app, test it a few times, and decide whether or not it meets their needs. If yours passes this assessment, then you’ll have another avenue of increasing your sales provided you play your cards right.
What are some of the factors that make an app user-friendly? Here’s a list of the most important things to consider:
- Launch time: A good app should take the shortest time possible to start and load all the content. Of course, other factors. like the processing speed of the user’s device, can affect your app’s operation. But, it’s recommended that you optimize your app for entry-level and mid-range devices.
- Invest in an appealing design: Digital marketing relies heavily on the customer’s emotions, and you can leverage that with your app’s design. Proper graphics, cool fonts, and an easy-to-use user interface (UI) enhance better customer engagement.
- Prioritize security: It might not be as exciting as cool layouts and fonts, but security is still a crucial part of a user-friendly experience. Roll out regular updates to your app’s security protocols, and also include security features, like 2FA, if the user’s personal data is at stake.
- Simplify the onboarding process: Onboarding simply refers to the steps you take to help new users understand your app and know how they can get the best out of it. This process is utterly important, and it needs to be quick and precise. Take your time to create great onboarding that highlights the essentials of your app. Remember, there are many alternatives on the Internet today and a user won’t hesitate to jump ship if they find the experience confusing.
3. Take Advantage Of Mobile App Features
Creating a user-friendly app is one thing, but taking advantage of the results is what can boost your mobile marketing even further. There are many features a mobile app possesses that can come in handy in your marketing campaigns. Push notifications, for one, are among the most important aspects you should include in your strategy.
Customer engagement isn’t only about listening to their grievances, but also reminding them what you have in store. Push notifications are excellent for sending such reminders. These pop-up alerts appear on the user’s mobile screen and attract their attention.
When users opt-in or subscribe to these alerts, it means they agree to your engagement policies. You can use this opportunity to notify customers about news, offers, and special events. However, one challenge that many businesses face is creating push notifications that are informative, compelling, and exciting to the customers.
Hiring a marketing team that’s skilled in creating these messages is very crucial to increasing user engagement. After all, an experienced marketer will know the right time for publishing specific content. They’ll also keep in mind the needs of the target audience since not every customer will be interested in a given type of content.
4. Streamline Customer Experience Using QR Codes
To engage your customers even better, you’ll need to invest in current inventions, one being QR codes. Using these codes ensures that the users of your app can access information as efficiently and quickly as possible. Many customers today take advantage of this feature to compare prices in stores. If your business is in the e-commerce industry, this is one feature that should be included in your mobile app.
QR codes could also come in handy in other areas other than shopping. Regardless of the primary purpose, make sure you use these codes to provide shortcuts to valuable information. For instance, if a customer would want to learn more about a specific product, they can simply scan a QR code and the app will take them to the source of that information.
Among the most popular uses of QR codes you might want to consider include:
- Offering information on a given item
- Taking customers to your contact page
- Taking customers to specific campaign landing pages
- Offering coupons
5. Leverage The Power Of Social Media
Almost every person with a smartphone device today is an active user of at least one social media platform. Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, and WhatsApp are among the most used apps. That explains why nearly all mobile marketing strategies include social media as part of the plan. So, to take your digital marketing campaigns a notch higher, you’ll need to consider investing in this area.
Although email still plays an important role in digital marketing, social media is slowly overtaking it in terms of customer engagement. Your customer service agents are likely to engage better with your clients through social media. Also, the fact that more people are joining these platforms every year makes them the best place for meeting your potential customers.
So, how can you use social media to improve customer engagement? First, you need to hire agents who’ll manage your accounts. Many customers today reach out to brands through these platforms. Unfortunately, their questions are often left unanswered for many hours, leaving them frustrated. Hiring social media managers will ensure that every message is responded to as soon as possible. Engaging your customers this way will help build your reputation in the online market.
Such platforms should also serve as a source of information on your brand’s performance. Customers usually go to social media whenever they feel their needs aren’t met. Digital natives believe that these websites are the best places to air their disappointments, but there’s also a lot of positive feedback posted on these platforms.
As a business, make it a habit to frequently scan people’s timelines to see if your brand is mentioned anywhere, whether positively or negatively. Be sure to respond to complaints, if there’s any, and work on them right away to ensure that the experience of your customers is improved. Also, don’t forget to also show some love to people who talk positively about your brand on these platforms by, at least, liking their comments.
6. Use Email Marketing
It might be lagging behind SMS and social media in some areas, but email remains one of the best mobile marketing techniques. Therefore, as you prioritize SMS and social media interactions, don’t forget to invest in email marketing. Apart from retaining its effectiveness in the world of marketing, email offers a more official approach compared to its counterparts.
So, why include email marketing in your mobile advertising strategy? At least 60% of emails are opened from mobile devices rather than desktops. Many users prefer using their smartphones for this task because they can open their emails while on the go. Also, the fact that emails pop up just like text messages makes them good attention grabbers for mobile users.
Emails in your mobile marketing, however, should be optimized for the target devices. Ensure you create mobile-responsive emails to increase unique mobile clicks. Other factors you should consider include the fonts (they should be easy to read from any mobile device) and high-quality images.
Conclusion
Mobile marketing is one of the most effective forms of digital marketing. As technology continues to advance, it’s imperative that you invest in modern marketing strategies, and targeting mobile users is a step in the right direction. If you’re looking to enhance customer engagement using this marketing technique, be sure to consider major mobile features.
One of the must-have business tools you’ll need here is your brand’s mobile app. Also, leveraging the power of conversational text messaging and using email marketing to interact with your prospects will help boost your chances of success. QR codes and mobile social media are other aspects that should be on your priority list.
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