How To Use Mobile Marketing Effectively In Your Inbound Strategy
In the old days of Mad Men Marketing and three Martini lunches, Television, the first screen, was king and it still remains a very powerful method of marketing today. Then Al Gore invented the internet (Lol JK) and a major shift began, the second screen was born. Just like that a new era of marketing was ushered in. The Martini’s got mixed with Red Bull and the ad world never looked back. From that second screen a new kind of marketing was conceived including SEO, Social Media, Online PR, Reputation management, Search Engine Marketing, Display Advertising and so on. Unfortunately, the rate of change, aka change velocity didn’t let us get comfortable too quickly as we suddenly found ourselves walking wire free with our heads down and our thumbs vigorously typing away on the next screen.
The era of mobile had begun. With this third screen came new incredibly personal opportunities and equally new marketing challenges. Most importantly, the third screen was the missing link we needed to really change consumer behavior and change the way we market
The Convergence
Today we have a major convergence at hand. The convergence of three incredible technologies which is driving a complete paradigm shift in the world of marketing.
First you have Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Next you have social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Then you have the 3rd Screen, a powerful, portable, wireless device that allows you to access the aforementioned technologies from just about anywhere.
This convergence set off a nuclear bomb in the ad world. The power shifted away from the marketer and to the buyer. The power was given to them by the ability of almost every man, woman and child to conduct voice activated research projects right from the palm of their hand. The kind of research projects that in the Mad Men era would have only been attainable through a research company and cost thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.
So now consumers, or in the case of B2B, the buyers are researching every single product or service before they make a decision to purchase. They are not just researching what product or service to buy, they are also researching which vendor to select to provide the product or service. They are SEARCHING for information, answers and solutions. They are then making Data Driven Decisions based on the results of their mini research projects. This is the very foundation of what we now know as INBOUND MARKETING. Inbound is all about providing quality content through multiple channels to position your company or brand as a thought leader, subject matter expert or just a hip company that loves to help people find quality answers and solutions without the intrusiveness of traditional outbound methods.
What is Inbound Marketing?
Inbound summed up is creating quality, unique and actionable content that will drive more traffic to your site, more leads from your traffic and more sales from your leads. The only problem with Inbound Marketing is that most agencies seem to be forgetting that the vast majority of research is being done via mobile phones and tablets. That means that a large and rapidly growing amount of your “inbound” traffic is originating from a mobile device. For this reason you MUST consider the following:
Is your web site mobile friendly?
This should be your number one priority! Decide first to create a mobile strategy. Ask yourself: What do my prospects, leads, customers, vendors or employees NEED or WANT from my company when mobile delivers just that as simply as you can. Your mission is to create efficiency that make their lives better or their job at hand faster. Then decide how you want to proceed. Weigh the options of HTML5 and jQuery Mobile Web Apps which look and function like native apps but live on the web in place of your site. Or consider adaptive, reactive or responsive CSS which could be easily done using something as simple as a word press plug-in. You could opt to go hybrid and do a version of your site using both which is my preference. In other words have a mobile web app for a home page and key features with all your content navigable as responsive CSS.
Are you detecting mobile devices and redirecting them to a better mobile experience?
Checkout our recent blog about Mobile Browser Detection and Redirects:http://marketing.anchormobile.net/blog/bid/170765/Mobile-Browser-Detection-How-Does-It-Work
Is your landing page “thumb friendly”?
Whether you are driving traffic from Facebook or Google, an easy to use mobile landing page with a super easy form is a must!
Most marketing automation platforms are really lagging the change velocity here. I recommend using a mobile marketing automation platform that specializes in mobile friendly landing pages like ours, or, coding them yourself.
Are your email blasts easily read on mobile?
Again, most platforms are really lagging here. What most are calling mobile friendly are not as robust and cross platform capable as they should be. Test, Test Test! Make sure to test your emails before being sent on iPhone, Android and various Tablets.
Are you including SMS Keywords
SMS keywords and SMS web widgets as a web born conversion tool just like your email signup? We have seen SMS Keyword Calls to Action increase conversion up to 10%!
Are you using SMS auto responders and SMS nurturing
SMS nurturing automation should be used with your mobile prospects. If they came in via mobile, why not nurture them via mobile? On average it takes 90 minutes for an email to be opened while a text message only 90 seconds. Plus 91% of Americans are within 3 feet of their mobile device 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Make sure to use a trusted partner for your SMS marketing service and stay up to date on Federal TCPA Laws and Carrier Regulations.
Are you optimizing for mobile search?
Google is dominant here with a 95% market share. Google has a separate set of requirements for Mobile SEO. Read more at our 3 part Mobile SEO series here
Summary
In summary, if you are doing Inbound Marketing, you are doing the right thing and will reap the rewards of market share from it. However, if you are not focused on how mobile fits into your Inbound strategy, you could be sending the wrong signals with bad mobile experience that could harm your brand in the long run or you may just be leaving leads on the table by not using mobile conversion tools to their fullest potential. Either way, your action item should be this: Go to your analytics account. Click on Traffic Sources. Click on Mobile. Click on Devices. This will tell you what percentage of your overall inbound traffic is mobile originated and would be a great place to begin creating your mobile marketing strategy!
Fantastic piece Tj!!!