Article #91
Introduction
You have probably heard the term ‘mobile marketing’ not once nor twice, but what exactly is this mobile marketing we speak of? We are currently in a modern era dominated by technology. Let us start simple, everybody is now conversant with what a mobile device is as it is estimated that in America alone, about ninety-seven percent of people own at least one.
Therefore, mobile marketing is the process of advertising and promoting products and services through the use of these smartphones. But how does this work exactly? Well, trade has taken a huge leap from the basic barter trade to currency trade and eventually to the latest evolution into e-commerce. E-commerce referred to the trade of products and even services through the web and came to life after the revolutionary innovation of the internet.
All these revolutions and innovations have made buying and selling become as easy as a click of a button on your mobile phone. So far, we have just dipped our toe into the possibilities of mobile marketing and have much more to expect, as it is just what we need to revolutionize e-commerce even further. Therefore, let us look at some of these mobile marketing techniques.
Types of mobile marketing strategies
1. Use of micro-influencers
A micro-influencer is somebody who has a relatively higher number of followers on social media and regularly engages with them daily through their content. How do they do this? Smartphones are their primary gadget for managing their platforms and uploading their content on the internet. It has become a trend for various companies and shops to approach these micro-influencers with the goal for them to market their products through their platforms, making their products more accessible as a simple google search.
This is a symbiotic relationship, for not only does the influencer get a commission on the product, but it also experiences an increase in followers. This creates a wide pool of customers and target groups for the company’s products and services. This boosts the company’s profit margins without even lifting a finger!
Another close relative of micro-influencers worth mentioning is microbloggers. Like micro-influencers, they use the internet to share short blogs more frequently with their audience and have become an interest to various companies. Through various sites such as virtual blogs, they can market the products revolutionizing the art of trade.
2. Social media marketing
This is what is now known as eMarketing or eCommerce. Social media is a powerful tool that gathers a wide variety of knowledge for an equally wide pool of viewers and audiences. Various entrepreneurs have spotted this trend and have decided to take full advantage of this. Nowadays, almost every business has a social media account, be it Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, etc. These accounts give them an advantage of diversity and multitude when it comes to customers.
In addition to soaring profits for the business, social media marketing strategy has created new jobs such as social media account managers. Their sole job is to monitor the growth of the business and market the business products. This consequently creates new job opportunities, especially for the youth.
3. Voice marketing
If you are a business owner, you probably wished more than once to scream your products to your customers all at once. Well, voice marketing is just what you have been looking for. It is a market strategy in which you can reach your targeted audiences through recorded audio or live through voice devices. The radio is the earliest example of these and is no stranger to e-commerce. In between your favorite stations, you would never miss a business advertising its product, which has proven very effective so far.
The modern-day version of this is through podcasts. Today. It is cheaper and much easier to reach a wide range of audiences than a simple recording on your mobile phone played in a podcast. Alternatively, you can create your very own podcast or join an influencer in theirs and market your product. Another recent advancement in e-commerce is using Artificial Intelligence through automated voice machines such as the ones used in Starbucks and Alexa used by Amazon.
4. Dropshipping
I bet you have come across those drop shipping ads as you surf the internet. This is a new trend in town, and you should pay close attention to it. Drop shipping is the process by which you can purchase and sell products without having them. Don’t call me crazy yet; hang on, I explain. This is possible because drop shipping involves creating a website as a virtual warehouse for your goods.
Here you can advertise the products without even touching them because they are shipped directly from the manufacturer. You can either buy the goods and sell them as your own, or you can use your website to sell directly on behalf of the manufacturer earning a commission in the process. This is regarded by many as the future of commerce, right?
5. SMS and MMS marketing
SMS stands for short message service. It does exactly what it says and is used to send text messages to a specific target group. Unlike other marketing strategies, you have to have the audience’s mobile number to send the text message. SMS is used by various businesses for promotion purposes through short but precise messages to advertise their products. This method has been improved further after the introduction of apps such as WhatsApp and Telegram on mobile phones, which support many people at once, enabling mass advertisements by these businesses.
MMS is another alternative to SMS. It refers Multimedia Messaging Service and can be seen as an upgrade to SMS as it offers the option to attach pictures, videos, and files to a text. This is especially beneficial to those business products that need visual demonstrations and presentations for advertisement purposes.
6. App Marketing
Have you ever seen those pesky messages that pop up when using an app or playing your favorite game on your devices? They are also a form of mobile marketing. The first stestestepprkemarketing first idenidentifiesapp that has several downloads and active users. Then, with the app owner’s permission, you can advertise your goods through various methods. You can use ads that inform the users of your products or in games, and you can provide incentives such as coupons after reaching certain levels, which create awareness of your business and attract more customers.
7. Location marketing
This is a type of mobile marketing technique that markets relevant services and even products based on the user’s geolocation. How does this exactly work, you ask? Well, it uses the mobile GPS to ping the user’s exact location and then sends an alert message to the phone on a nearby business offer through what is known as geofencing. A good example is those location-based Ads and is usually very effective, especially when one is undecided on what to purchase.
8. Mobile ads
We have been throwing ads right and left this term, so what is it? It is through mobile phones and stands for advertising; therefore, mobile advertising is the mode of advertising through mobile devices. Today you must come across one of these to scroll anywhere on your mobile phone. They can be in different forms, be they text, pictures, or videos, and can be linked to a variety of various platforms. This makes them very effective as it reaches a large pool of audience.
Advantages of mobile marketing
1. Cost-effective
Logistics show that an average person spends about three and a quarter hours on their smartphones daily. This increases the odds of the mobile user seeing your advertisement or promotion if you use the correct mobile marketing strategy and the right channels. This thus makes mobile marketing more effective than other advertising methods such as billboards and also quite cheap, enabling you to promote your business without breaking the bank.
2. Wide audience
Another advantage of mobile marketing is that it reaches a wide audience pool. A single mobile marketing strategy such as social media marketing has been recorded to have a staggering seventy-seven percent success rate. These astronomical numbers are due to a large number of people it can reach through these micro-influencers and their social media platforms. Therefore, mobile marketing is a preferable strategy because it not only reaches a wide variety of people but can becustomized to a specific target group through very specific blogs and websites.
3. Location-specific
Speaking of specific groups, mobile marketing is the future of e-commerce because it not only can be tailored to meet the needs of a specific target group but also a certain specific geographic location. This is possible through the concept of location marketing we discussed earlier. The geo-fencing technology innovation has been particularly advantageous to hotels and restaurants. This favors businesses that offer quick and necessary commodities such as foods and wholesale services such as supermarkets.
4. Accessible
Today there is no closer companion than one and his mobile phone, and the logistics tell it all. Therefore between the number of mobile phone users and the amount of time they spend on their cell phones, it is logical to use this to your advantage and draw their attention to your business. You can do this through easily accessible apps, by use of Ads on their favorite youtube channels, and by use of micro-influencers.
Disadvantages of mobile marketing
1. Security
The internet is a wide pool of information and full of different software and websites; sadly, only some of these tools available are secured as they should be, making them liable to viruses and hacks. If there is one thing that the customers value more than their money is privacy. Therefore, you must ensure that your brand uses appropriate firewalls and uses credible VPNs to reduce the risk of leaking customers and building brand loyalty.
2. Stiff competition
Although the record of its success is undisputed, many businesses have already ventured into mobile marketing, making the once lucrative uncharted waters a pool of competition. This makes it very difficult for newbies and small businesses to compete with the big guns due to a need for more resources. Therefore, this has led to mobile marketing taking a hit on its place in e-commerce.
3. Time-consuming
We have proven the effectiveness of mobile marketing and its wide-reaching capacities. However, this only happens by planning and knowing the right platforms for your business. Only a minuscule percentage of businesses get it right at the first or second trial. Still, it takes a long time to get the right platform to several audiences and retain the newly found customers. Brand building takes a lot of time and effort, although once it pays handsomely afterward.
Conclusion
At this point, the answer to the query we have been trying to decipher is quite open to all. It is a brainer that mobile marketing is currently dominating the eCommerce market. Today you can only watch a video on YouTube or move an inch on these websites if you meet an Ad sensitizing you to a business product or service. Additionally, the most famous people of today are all micro-influencers, either directly or indirectly, making it clear mobile marketing is here to stay and will shape the future of e-commerce.
Most marketing techniques, such as billboards, coupons, and offers, have all been either outdated or sucked and integrated as part of mobile marketing. In the meantime, mobile marketing is a fairly new concept with constant innovations such as drop shipping and Vlog. What also makes this strategy more popular is the ease of its accessibility. This is because it is not rocket science, and you need only a phone to market your products online. This makes it not only cheaper but more effective.
Although we have seen that mobile marketing faces some technicalities, such as stiff competition and security, it is still the current trend and the future hope of further development of eCommerce. Moreover, marketing strategy does not have its ups and downs from time to time.
