The era of the smartphone is now, meaning it’s now vital for businesses to create mobile-specific marketing strategies to continue developing a return on investment (ROI) – ignoring mobile optimisation – and the mobile search – is no longer an option.
With mobile web usage surpassing desktop for the first time last year, it’s unsurprising 71% of businesses believe mobile marketing is core to their success. However, considering there’s an abundance of mobile advertising strategies available, determining the most beneficial methods will depend on your industry, target audience and budget, it’s never a one-size-fits-all operation. Want to enter the world of mobile? Here are data driven tips on how to optimise your mobile marketing and create a profitable strategy:
Mobile search and micro-moments
According to Google: ‘82% of smartphone users will turn to their phone to influence a purchase decision while in a store.’
A key advantage of smartphones is that they enable us to act on impulse – users will take immediate action when wanting to research, locate or purchase something urgently; these are known as micro-moments. Unfortunately for marketers, consumers have high expectations and little patience; our demand for quick answers is increasing, so the need for high quality, relevance and usefulness has never been more vital.
By determining your exact engagement path with customers, you can begin to formulate messages that will appeal to them during these “I want” moments. You can also use micro-moments to refine strategies to increase your exposure, conversions and the quality of your customer engagement.
Local awareness via social media
The popularity of social media has made it a fundamental necessity for mobile marketing, in fact – nearly 80% of social media time is now spent on mobile devices. Reaching people locally is essential for determining the volume of consumers who are interested in what your business is offering offline and online. Also, as people are conducting more research in advance of a purchase, knowing a product is available nearby makes an advert actionable and useful for customers.
Facebook Local Awareness allows you to produce geo-targeted advertisements to social media users who are near your business’s location. These can be personalised with a map card which shares locally relevant information about your business, including distance to business, store location, hours of operation and a direction link. It also adds a call-to-action button from where you can choose products, get directions, call now, learn more and send message enabling you to drive offline sales.
For example – in the UK, Argos has used Facebook local awareness to drive in-store purchases by advertising the latest products from individual brands and including a ’Get Directions’ call-to-action, which reveals a map to the user’s closest store. It also features similar products nearby and automatically removes the advert if the product has sold out.
Mobile action-orientated
‘88% of consumers who search for a type of local business on a mobile device, call that business within 24 hours’ (Social Media Today).
Implement click-to-call through PPC
Pay-per-click advertising (PPC) is a fantastic solution for putting your products or services in front of people at the top of the results pages, but it still means users need to visit your website to find a contact number; this can become tedious and a hassle – especially if they require quick access.
Adding click-to-call telephone numbers to your PPC campaigns allows a user to click on a number or phone icon and dial your number immediately from your ad, making accessibility through mobile web browsing considerably easier. These ads can be shared within a specific ad group or throughout an entire campaign and can be counted as conversions.
For example, PGS Services in Guildford, UK, has added click-to-call to promote its plumbing service so, if someone who requires a plumber urgently in the area searches ‘Guildford plumbers’ on their mobile and one of its ads appears, the potential customer can click onto the call icon to immediately contact the business.
Efficient telesales system
Considering click-to-call is designed for quick accessibility to customer service: having an efficient call handler operating system is crucial for ensuring these mobile callers generate into a completed conversion. Statistics indicate that 61% of mobile searchers think click-to-call advertising is the most valuable touchpoint when shopping, but your business’s call handling standards could be affecting this.
For example, Worldpay – a leader in global payment processing technology, discovered that it was actually turning customers away through its IVR (Interactive Voice Response system) as part of its call routing: customers were terminating calls at this stage without progressing any further. Considering that it handles a large number of calls on a daily basis, Worldplay needed to identify the different types of calls it receives to optimise its marketing efforts and ultimately increase the number of inbound sales.
After implementing call tracking software provided by Mediahawk, Worldplay determined a substantial amount of customers were hanging up due to the IVR routing on its product pages. Once the IVR routing was removed, callers were able to go straight through to the telesales handlers – increasing sales and reducing the number of customer hang-ups.
Get on Google Maps
Optimise your local search engine visibility via Google My Business through map listings which allow your customers to connect with your business directly. Taking up this much room (see advert below) on the mobile SERPs could really make a difference to your business.
Paris House has successfully created a Google my Business profile that includes its address, contact number, website and menu calls-to-action for mobiles. By optimising its local listing, those who find the restaurant are more likely to make a booking as the action can easily be completed via a mobile.
Mobile optimised websites are fundamental
‘57% of users say they won’t recommend a business with a poorly designed mobile site.’ (Impact BND)
Ensure tap targets are clear
When a webpage loads on a mobile it appears compressed; resulting in smaller tap targets areas on web pages that a user interacts with to carry out commands. If your tap targets are too small, or too close together, this makes the accessibility of links, buttons and ads more difficult, creating a frustrating user experience (UX) and potentially reducing your page visits.
Google’s Android UI guidelines recommend the minimum size for a tap target should be approximately 7mm (48 CSS pixels). Provide enough room around tap targets for a fingertip, regardless of the display used. The example shown here from Typeform shows very spacious menu tap targets that are easy to click on mobiles.
A frequent issue where tap targets appear too close together is in ordered/unordered lists, which will often size differently on mobile screens. A ’tap target size’ error on mobile SEO tools is usually caused by tap targets being too close together, rather than the target itself being too small. Another popular and helpful technique is to use ‘100% width’ on buttons to ensure they retain the desired proportions on a variety of screen sizes. These can be easily tapped by all mobile users.
‘See more’ and ‘see less’
Hiding large amounts of text with ‘see more’ and ‘see less’ buttons is perfect for hiding bulky amounts of text to make the website more orderly while allowing users to skip more detailed information if only a short summary/explanation is required. Sunrise Care (pictured) has used this tool on its mobile version to ensure the limited space available on a mobile screen hasn’t been filled with large amounts of material.
Read also:
Bigger, stronger, faster: Why the impact of Phase 3 of the digital evolution will be huge