Mobile Marketing’s Rule of Three!

The rapid and widespread growth of mobile apps is seen, alongside other shifts in user technology products, as proof of the vast online marketing potential still to be tapped in the mobile channel. But shiny new devices that might impress with their creative ingenuity are not necessarily those that find favour with consumers!

All too often, history has shown that technology serves businesses best when it caters specifically to new consumer behaviour patterns. The dramatic developments and many innovations in the mobile mainstream can be a cause of confusion when it comes to businesses working out marketing strategies as to how they might best reach their potential audience using new channels and platforms.

At this stage in the evolving mobile internet, it does appear that there are three key guiding rules for staying focused and making the most of recent changes that look, not only set to stay, but will transform the customer search traffic medium:

Accessibility: Just like website accessibility, itself, where desktop PCs and laptops are still in use with standard crossbrowser compatibility and w3c compliance, there are still many consumers out there in the real world with far more basic mobile devices, including many who will never buy a ‘smart’ iPhone or iPad tablet.

As with all mobile engagement systems, applications for smart devices continue to combine the greatest complexity with the lowest consumer usage, as opposed to more universally adopted channels such as straightforward voicecall and text messaging.

This of course, has a distinct advantage for targeted brand identity marketing when it comes to addressing niche market consumers who will access sites via mobile and getting to understand their specific search needs and behaviours.

Customer Focus: Remembering that key technology applications service real consumer needs, and will be adopted across the board – a sure and efficient method for businesses to sustain long term engagement with their target audience.

To implement effective marketing campaigns, you need to ensure that your mobile services, applications, and advertising do serve your audience’s existing needs first, no matter how basic, while also providing an avenue for them to graduate up to more advanced activities.

For example, presently SMS reaches a far wider audience than mobile web or its applications. So it may be that email marketing and SMS alerts will continue to enable businesses to connect with their wide customer base using a more basic, albeit preferred method of access that fits with their existing devices and usage patterns.

However, staying reassuringly in touch by this method, whilst at the same time messaging that alternative channels, say via smartphone, could be soon offered, will both encourage audience loyalty, may even help drive adoption as these same customers trade up to smarter devices.

Engagement: Marketing by direct advertising via mobile will need to be very engaging indeed! Consumers will always say they dislike advertising and resent the intrusion. Yet, when probed more deeply, they will acknowledge that advertising can be acceptable, provided they get something in return, even as ‘entertainment value’.

Ads will continue to be a part of the mobile experience for the foreseeable future. We are likely to see the introduction of more ad-supported applications, making ads more involving and less annoying, obviously benefiting all parties involved.