Now that smartphones have gone from being rare techno-toys to living in everyone’s pocket, a smart marketing campaign should always include a mobile marketing element.
Many businesses understand this fact, yet they resign themselves to ineffective mobile marketing. If you don’t want your own mobile campaign to turn out this way, here are some simple ways to make your customers more responsive to your efforts.
First of all, recognize that you have some serious responsibilities to your customers. Your mobile marketing campaign involves a lot more than just setting up a mobile-friendly version of your website; you’ll be contacting your customers directly on their phones. You need their permission to do this, of course.
Make sure everyone who signs up for your messages knows exactly what they’re getting into. Make it easy for them to opt out at any time. Respect their privacy by keeping information-gathering to a minimum, and always be upfront about the information that you do collect.
The mobile version of your website does have a big role to play in your campaign. Any links that you send out in your marketing messages should, of course, point to the mobile site rather than the standard one. This means that your mobile site needs to be extremely robust, mirroring virtually all of the features of your main site.
You’ll probably want to allow your customers to make sales directly from their phones, and this means that your security needs to be airtight. If there must be differences between buying on your mobile site and buying on your main site, make sure you make them very clear to your customers before they commit to a purchase.
Although you don’t want to go data-mining through your customer’s personal information, you should use your own records to personalize and customize your marketing messages.
Inserting recipients’ names into your messages is practically a given, and modern software will allow you to do much more. You can schedule automatic messages to go out on dates that are special to individual customers, from birthdays to anniversaries of their first purchase.
If your products or services include warranties, you’ll definitely want to send messages telling your customers when it’s time to extend their warranty. With really advanced software, you can even make customized recommendations to your customers based on their past buying history.
Because the customers who sign up for your messages are volunteering their attention, you owe it to them to reward them for their time. Make sure that you have plenty of real value to offer to your mobile marketing audience.
Reward their attention with access to exclusive deals. It’s a great idea to extend a small but significant discount to customers who make a purchase after following a link from a marketing message.
In addition, if you want to give some of your most devoted customers a sneak peek at new products or services you have coming up, look no further than your mobile audience. The people who sign up for these messages are your most ardent supporters; treat them accordingly.
In the end, successful mobile marketing all comes down to respect. If you make it clear to your mobile audience that you appreciate the confidence and interest they’re showing you, they’ll respond positively.
It may cost you money to make special offers, and assembling appealing messages make take a great deal of effort, but never doubt that your customers will be able to tell you’ve worked hard on your mobile campaign. You’ll know you’ve done the job properly when you see more and more sales being made faster and faster.