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Mobile Payments Continue to Rise

Having a mobile website, or running an SMS marketing campaign, or just generally running a mobile marketing campaign at all allows you to communicate and build relationships with your fans and customers. One of the biggest benefits of conducting these relationships though mobile devices is the fact that mobile makes payments for the end user much easier and much more convenient. With today’s advanced technology, customers do not need to physically show up in your store or place of business to make a payment anymore. They can simply access your mobile website or mobile app and simply pay using their mobile device. Customers LOVE mobile payments because they are easy and require little to no work on their part. The great news is that not only is this becoming a trend, but it is also increasing each and every year and shows no signs of slowing down in the future.

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According to a recent report by Juniper Research, global mobile payments will reach close to $507 BILLION this year. This equates to a 40% increase year over year. The report also highlighted the fact that there is a huge expectation for growth and expansion relating to the purchasing of tactile goods through mobile devices.

So we know people are increasing the rate in which they are paying for goods through their mobile devices, but which mobile devices are they using? Interestingly enough, smartphones made up about 20% of all online traffic compared to the 12% of online traffic generated by tablets, however, tablets accounted for 12% of online SALES compared to only 6% from smartphones. It is also interesting to note that consumers have indicated that they like to browse more often on their smartphones than tablets, but they are still 4 times more likely to make a purchase on a tablet compared to a smartphone. This could be due to the fact that it is easier to fill out payment forms on the larger screen of tablets, but it has also been a known fact that people are more likely to spend their money inside of their homes rather than on the go. Yet they are still migrating from their PCs to tablets when it comes to making purchases.

So what should you, as a mobile marketer, take from this? Well if you don’t have a mobile website, or at least a mobile app for your customers and fans to access your business via a mobile device on, you will want to think about doing that as soon as possible. Your competition is already optimized for mobile, if you aren’t already you WILL inevitably fail as a business. You also want to make sure, once you DO have a website or app for mobile devices, that it is responsive. You want people to be able to access your business on a smartphone or a tablet and get the same great, convenient experience. If one or the other is lacking as far as functionality and ease of use, you WILL lose out on business, especially to other companies who DO have responsive websites that perform equally well across all devices.

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There is a HUGE untapped market out there for your business. Think about it; there is going to be $507 BILLION dollars sent through mobile devices this year. If your customers and fans can’t find your business on their mobile devices, you are missing out on ALL of that money. Don’t wait! Mobile marketing is no longer just a trend or a fad. It has become a way of life for a majority of people around the world. Take advantage of this!

How Mobile Messaging Benefits Casinos and the Gaming Industry

March 13, 2014/0 Comments/in mobile /by Brett Gordon

You may have noticed that over the past decade mobile phones have quickly become the primary medium of communication for a majority of Americans. All you need to do is take a look around, regardless of where you may be, and you will see people of all ages and backgrounds looking at their phones, checking their phones, and playing with their phones. If you have a marketing mind, you probably already see the benefits of using these devices to market your cause or company. However, besides the obvious marketing benefits of marketing directly to your customers’ hands in real time, SMS messaging, or mobile messaging, can benefit your company on a number of different levels. In fact, if you are a casino, or are in the gaming industry, mobile messaging can provide a multitude of different benefits outside of the marketing aspect of it.

For starters, one way you can leverage the power of SMS in the favor of your casino or gaming establishment is to improve your customer service. For example, instead of people walking out of your casino and waiting for the valet to fetch their car, they can instead use the casino’s text messaging program to text the valet BEFORE they walk out so their car will be waiting for them once they are ready to come get it. SMS messaging is also sent and received in real time, so there are no delays in communication. The valet would receive the message moments after the customer sent it and the vehicle would be ready for the customer when they walk out the door. No delays, no waiting. Everyone wins.

Another great way to use SMS messaging is to text customers who are waiting for a table in the poker room. Traditionally, customers would walk into the poker room, tell the front desk or Floor Manager that they are waiting for an open seat, and the manager would enter their name into the waiting list which would be flashed up on a screen in the room. Then, once a seat opens up, their name would be announced in the room and the customer would take their seat. In the past, if the customer left the room to get a drink or play tables outside of the poker room, they would not know if their name was called for the open seat while they were gone. However, with an SMS program, customers can enter their name into the waiting list, leave the room, and get a text automatically sent to their phone once a seat at a table opens up, thus eliminating the risk of leaving the poker room while their name is on the waiting list.

Right now, most casinos use a SMTP system, which is a web to phone based texting platform that is used to text their customers and employees. However, since SMTP is web based, it experiences a 60% delivery failure rate and messages can take up to 4 hours to be delivered. You can already see the problems this poses. Instead, it is recommended that casinos and other gaming establishments use SMPP. SMPP is a short code based messaging system that has a much higher delivery rate and is very easily integrated into your current system using a simple API configuration. It speeds up sending and delivery, increases the efficiency of your customer service, and in turn increases the happiness and satisfaction of your customers.

Then, of course, you have the marketing aspect of SMS messaging. Imagine you are having a slow day and you want to drive more traffic through your casino doors. Simply send out a text message blast to your database alerting your customers that they can get 50% off drinks between 2PM-5PM that day. All they need to do is show the text message at the door. This will increase the amount of traffic going through your doors while also delighting your customers who feel special because they are receiving a special deal or discount from you. Customers LOVE promotions, events, giveaways, special offers, and discounts. So periodically shoot out text messages to them with offers like these and you will see a much higher rate of repeat customers coming through your establishment.

This is just scraping the surface of what SMS messaging can do for your casino. There have already been numerous casinos that have leveraged SMS in their favor and are now reaping the rewards of their text messaging program. Don’t let your casino or gaming establishment fall behind your competitors simply because you did not enact an SMS program. Invest in an SMS program today and start raking in your winnings!

What is Text Message Marketing?

February 26, 2014/0 Comments/in marketing, mobile, sms marketing /by Brett Gordon

If you are looking for something to cut through all the clutter that is marketing these days, then text message marketing, or SMS marketing, is your best bet. Consider this; 3.5 billion text messages are sent and received each day, 97% of all text messages are opened (83% within one hour), and people are almost literally tethered to their phones all day, every day. On top of this, SMS messages are regulated to the point where text messaging is virtually spam-free and is much more well recieved by the end user than traditional, interruptive marketing methods. In a way, text messaging has become the only way you can guarantee that your message will be seen by your customers. But before you get started with your SMS campaign, there are a few things you will want to keep in mind.

Know the Rules

Recent regulatory standards have tightened the rules on text message marketing to better eliminate spam and unwanted ads through SMS, however, there are still some bottom feeders who try to cheat the system. One example is automated dialers. Automated dialers have the ability to hijack entire databases of mobile phone numbers and send out blasts of texts to these numbers randomly. DON’T HIRE A FIRM TO DO THIS FOR YOU! Not only will you annoy and drive away customers, but you will also be in big legal trouble for violating regulations and could possibly drive your company under with legal fees. You have no reason to spam your customers with texts. Know the rules so you don’t have to worry about the law interfering with your SMS marketing campaign.

Know Your Options

You will first have to choose a service provider. The service provider you choose will depend on what exaclty it is you are trying to accomplish and how much money you are willing to spend. One of the cheaper ways to do this is hring a service provider that will automatically send text messages to anyone within the vicinity of your bricks and mortar store or restaurant. This method is very popular with neighborhood boutiques, local stores, and restaurants and costs as little as a few dollars a day.

Another option you have is to actually register for your own distinctive 5 or 6 digit short code. For example, during his Presidential campaigns, President Obama registered for the shortcode 62262, or OBAMA, so he could have free reign over the type of information he could solicit from end users. You get much more freedom with your own shortcode, but it is a bit pricier and you will have to wait for your registration to be processed and approved, which will take at least 8 weeks.

If you’re a small business looking to make a splash with text message marketing, then you will probably want to go with an off-shelf platform which allows you to share a shortcode. A shared shortcode gives you all the options that your own shortcode would give you, except that costs will be much lower and other companies will be operating on the same shortcode. You will also have the option of launching your SMS campaign by yourself, or by bringing on an ad agency that specializes in SMS, or text message marketing.

Integrate Your SMS Campaign Into Your Overall Marketing Campaign

The most effective way to implement a text message marketing campaign is to integrate it into the marketing campaign you are already running. Jed Alpert, Founder of Mobile Commons, states, “If you’re a restaurant, you have tabletops. If you have a highly trafficked website, or are running billboards or radio spots, those are all good places to let people know about your texting campaign.”

Think about it this way, the more places that your shortcode and text messaging campaign is visible, the more people will opt into your campaign and grow your database, therefore increasing the number of sales you generate. Don’t let your SMS campaign just stand by itself, multiply its effect by integrating it with other forms of marketing!

Know How to Get People to Opt-In to Your SMS Campaign and Maintain Those Relationships

In order to be given permission to text people, you will first have to get them to opt-in to your campaign. If you text people without their consent, you are violating laws and you will quickly get caught up in legal trouble. You can get people to opt-in to your campaign a number of different ways. Keep in mind that the best way to get people to opt-in is let them know how it will be benefitting them. They won’t opt-in if they think it is just a marketing ploy. The best way to start is by giving them something or by letting them know that by opting-in they will be receiving special deals and discounts. This can be done by simply offering them something along the lines of “Opt-In to Shortcode 55555 and get a FREE hat from X company” or it could be something like “To receive great deals and discounts at X restaurant, opt-in to shortcode 55555”. Regardless of what you do, make sure you are offering the customer something, not just asking them to opt-in. That will seem spammy to them and your opt-in rates will suffer.

Text message marketing is, simply put, the most effective way to market to your audience in real-time, right where they are. It does not matter where your customers are, if they are opted-in to your SMS program, they are always accessible to you. Don’t fail to take advantage of such a powerful marketing medium simply because you think you do not have enough money or because you do not feel educated enough to launch one. The SMS ship is sailing, and if you don’t jump on, you and your company will drown.

How Can Mobile Marketing Help Your Company?

January 10, 2014/0 Comments/in marketing, mobile, mobile marketing /by Becky Lewis

There are many ways mobile marketing can help your company. One way is that it will help you reach more of your customers. For instance, if you own a restaurant, you can schedule text messages to go out to your customers about promotions that you have going on. If you are running a special for a normally slow night, you could send out a message letting them know that you are doing a promotion on buy one entree, get a second entree at half price. Almost all text messages are read within minutes of receiving them. By sending a text message to your clientele, you are reaching a higher percentage of customers than sending them an email or snail mail. Keep in mind that 97% of all text message are open and read, while only 5% of emails are opened and read. See the opportunity here?

If you know your customers and know you haven’t seen some of them in quite some time, you can send them a message offering them a particular special, such as, “We haven’t seen you in awhile, please show this message to receive 15% off your purchase today!”

Be where your customers are. The majority of your customers always have their mobile phones with them and look at them frequently. Make sure that you are using keywords that pertain to your business for your customers to opt-in to the campaigns.

Your company may be old school as far as marketing is concerned, but it should also looking for ways to attract new customers and make more sales from your current customers. You need to look at the marketing that has been working for years and as well as new marketing plans. Mobile marketing doesn’t have to stand alone, it can also be used in addition to your current marketing plan. In fact, it usually works better when your mobile marketing campaign is integrated into your overall marketing campaign.

Mobile Marketing works! Look at all of the “name brand” companies that run mobile marketing campaigns and are successful with it; i.e. Coca-Cola, Papa John’s, Jack in the Box, DirecTV, Dunkin Donuts, and McDonald’s for example. Now relax for a minute, I do hear and feel the hesitation here. Yes, these big companies have a lot of money to spend towards their marketing campaigns. I also understand that small companies and mom and pop stores do not have the large amounts of money to spend on marketing like the large companies. But if you were and are willing to try it, it will bring you more customers and more revenue to spend towards your marketing budget. In fact, mobile marketing campaigns cost pennies to the dollar when compared to larger, outbound marketing efforts that are continually becoming less and less effective over the years. Why is this? People are becoming inundated with advertisements, commercials, and marketing EVERYWHERE they go.

Mobile campaigns do not take up a lot of your time. If you know that you are going to run certain specials throughout the month, you can go in and schedule the messages to go out on a specific day and time. You can also always go back and edit your message before they go out. Let’s say you notice some items in your store that used to be big sellers and now they are not selling anywhere near what they used to. You can send a message out to your database letting them know that you are running a one day or two day special on these particular items. Once you get them in your store, you have the ability to upsell them.

As you can see, the benefits of mobile marketing are vast and numerous. There are already hundreds upon hundreds of companies who are already reaping the rewards of a mobile marketing campaign, and they’re doing this while spending considerably less money than if they were using traditional outbound methods. Jump on the mobile marketing revolution today before it’s too late and you are left in the wasteland of all the other companies who refused to integrate a mobile marketing campaign into their marketing efforts.

3 Reasons Businesses and Consumers LOVE Mobile Marketing

October 4, 2013/0 Comments/in Facebook, in-app marketing, location-based text messaging, marketing, mobile, mobile marketing, sms marketing, sms mobile coupons, social media /by Nada Abuhamdeh

Lets start off by clarifying exactly what mobile marketing entails. Mobile marketing is a way businesses can directly communicate with consumers via handheld devices. These devices, usually smartphones and tablets, can provide information to customers by promoting goods, services, and ideas. There are several different approaches to mobile marketing. Today, we’re going to show you 3 ways mobile marketing is LOVED by businesses and consumers alike!

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Convenience

When it comes to reaching customers quickly, efficiently, and in a way that is convenient for them, there is no method that compares to mobile marketing. Consumers today have higher expectations for their devices and expect to find the information they need on their mobile devices instantly, without hassle. Consumers shopping for products and services often want to access the information in a mobile-friendly format while on the go. For example, an in-store shopper spots the latest laptop and is very interested. So the shopper pulls up the company’s website on a smartphone to get more details on the device. To help capture the sale, the retailer’s site should be optimized for mobile browsing, otherwise the sale could be lost. Businesses that are not accessible on mobile phones are losing to their competitors who DO have a strong mobile presence. Along with this, many companies are also using mobile apps to boost brand awareness. Mobile apps can be downloaded right to the home screen of mobile devices. People tend to download apps for things they do regularly or for things that tie into their lifestyle. For example, many smartphone users download the Facebook app instead of using the mobile version of the website because the experience is better. Convenience matters! Retailers who have an app available for their customers make it much easier to search for products and their customers appreciate them for this. Mobile apps and mobile website are both equally important because, based on reports, consumers are split on what they prefer with 58% preferring mobile optimized sites to mobile apps. Consumers have indicated that downloading and regularly upgrading applications is not convenient. However, mobile apps are still a great way to engage customers and create a loyal following. If you lack either a mobile app or a mobile optimized website, you are essentially cutting your audience in half.

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Location, Location, Location

Location-Based Services (LBS) are informational services that utilize the geographical position of a consumer’s mobile device. Rarely will a consumer have their phone not within arms reach, so LBS applications can reach virtually anybody, at any time, regardless of where they are located. In mobile marketing, LBS applications are used as an advertising or marketing service that uses specific location information of customers to deliver the right message to the right person at the right place AND the right time. Consumers are happy to receive mobile marketing messages if they are relevant, personalized, and offer some kind of benefit or reward. SMS marketing is great way for businesses to make consumers feel special. Especially when they think they’re part of an exclusive group of people who receive deals and discounts via text message.

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Social Media

Some of us can’t go a single day let alone a few hours without using our smartphones or tablets. Now if that isn’t enough, social media has also established a grip on our daily lives. Social media has played a huge role in how people interact with each other in today’s day in age and has actually revolutionized the entire social landscape. From a business perspective, social media, paired with a mobile marketing campaign, creates multiple new channels for your business to bring in new leads and customers. Social media is an important marketing strategy for businesses that provides a way for consumers to connect with businesses and brands via mobile. Companies can create social media fan pages that consumers can access and engage with to get information about upcoming events and specials. Businesses can also use this opportunity to convey the company’s voice and become a trusted source of information for consumers. Once you’ve established a trust with your consumers, you start creating relationships that can last a lifetime.

Mobile marketing can work so well for so many different businesses on so many different levels. On top of this, mobile marketing is much cheaper than any other form of marketing and has been proven to be equally, or even more effective than outbound marketing methods. Several companies have already seen the benefits of mobile marketing for themselves and have already implemented extremely successful mobile marketing campaigns. Don’t be one of the companies who fall by the wayside simply because you were too stubborn to adapt to modern marketing methods. Adapt and survive! Adapt and THRIVE!

Why Mobile? Take A Look…

June 27, 2013/0 Comments/in mobile, mobile marketing, text messaging, why mobile /by Kiefer Kness

Why would ANYONE pursue a mobile marketing strategy? Well, let’s take a look…

A couple of good old friends that just got back from college and sharing stories of their promiscuous youth.

Baby’s first selfie.

If only he had a better resolution tablet he could see it in real HD.

Girls and their sleepovers

They really know how to do a 21st birthday party

Art brings out such vivid emotions.

Everyone bow their head for prayer.

Summer Vacation!

This pizza looks great! No, no, no you just take pictures.

I remember my days in college.

I remember my state ID picture

Watching kids is so much easier than it used to be.

Lets see how uncomfortable we can make someone.

Mobile Marketing History | A Brief Rundown

June 21, 2013/0 Comments/in history, marketing, mobile /by Kiefer Kness

Mobile marketing’s history has taken a long and interesting course. In the bginning, mobile marketing was considered any form of advertising that was mobile. This included bilboards on the back of trucks, advertising on buses, etc. Today, mobile marketing is generally considered to be any advertising that is on mobile electronic devices such as mobile phones and tablets.

Listed here are some important dates that have impacted the course of mobile marketing over the years.

1993: The first mobile phone is mass produced and can send and recieve texts.

1994: QR codes are first invented and used for tracking Toyota production throughout its production process

1999: It is now possible to send SMS texts to users across different mobile networks

2005: The first major SMS campaign by Nike and Pontiac is launched.

2007: Apple Releases its landmark iPhone in the United States which marks the first major touch screen phone with internet capabilities.

2010: QR codes begin to be used widely used for mobile marketing to bring users to a specific mobile website.

2011: Mobile platforms reach an unprecedented $14 billion worth of consumed media on mobile devices.

Mobile marketing today is made up of QR codes, SMS texts, mobile apps, native apps, and mobile websites among others. Modern mobile marketing as we know it began with the iphone when it was released in the U.S. 2007. This is when apps and moblie websites started to take off. In 2011, mobile platform consumers spent about $14 billion on digital media that was available through mobile devices.

QR codes (or Quick Response codes) allow a user to access a URL by scanning a 2D picture, similar to a bar code, that automatically enters in the URL instead of the user having to manually do it. These QR codes were invented by Denso Wave for tracking automobile parts in Japan. QR codes are have been catching on in Europe and Asia but are still slow to catch on in the United States. However, there have been several large scale campaigns based around the QR code by major companies and celebrities in the U.S.

In-game mobile marketing has also been catching on lately. With the growing number of apps being sold that are games, it is only fitting that people start to see marketing within the video game realm. Games are being sposored and and advertisements are being placed by companies to drum up more buisness through these games and apps. This is how apps that gain alot of support from users become so valuable. If an app has 1 million users, then the advertisment that is on that app will been seen by every single one of those users.

Push notifications came along with the invention of the iPhone in 2007. Then they were further popularized by the Android system when it came along. Push notifications allow application owners to more directly communicate with the users in a more efficient and effective manner. Push notificaitons are also relatively cheap in the long run compared to SMS marketing. In the short run, it can be expensive due to application development. However, once the application is developed, it is essentailly free because the only thing it will require is internet bandwith.

Proximity systems, or proximity marketing, relies on SMS-CB to allow messages to be broadcast to all the users of a specific network in a geographic location. This is gaining alot of support, especially in the Philippines. It is used by select government agencies for data gathering and processing for community based programs. It is also used for a commercial service called Proxima, which is a GSM based system that allows users’ mobile devices to be tracked through a shopping center. They can also send out advertisements through a users’ mobile device based on what stores customers stop in and how much time they spend there.

To this day, mobile marketing continues to evolve and grow with the continued refinement of mobile websites and apps being able to produce marketable content and selling this content within the app. This means that this is a growing market and there is alot of money to be made in this evolving $14 billion dollar market per year!

Mobile Marketing to Increase Spending Among 12 Vertical Markets

March 12, 2013/0 Comments/in mobile, mobile advertising, mobile marketing /by Brett Gordon

According to a recent report from Millenial Media, spending on mobile marketing among 12 major vertical markets has risen steadily over the past few years. Actually, the money hasn’t necessarily risen as much as it has been pouring in to mobile marketing efforts. These verticals range from government services, retailers, and restaurants.

In Millennial Media’s Smart Report, they took a look at how today’s marketers are steadily transferring their money into mobile marketing while also categorizing the top goals of marketers when they use mobile marketing strategies. “We saw 12 different verticals grow their spend in mobile by more than 100 percent year-over-year,” said Marcus Startzel, General Manager of North America at Millennial Media. “With four verticals growing spend by more than 450 percent.”

Looking at the report, the top industry to increase their spending on mobile marketing was government services. Year-over-year, government services increased their mobile marketing spending by a monstrous 860 percent! Spending from employment marketers exploded over 523 percent, travel marketers raised their spending up to 495 percent, while personal and home services and fitness and wellness health campaigns rounded out the top 5 on on the list.

Along with the top 5, the telecommunications, retail, restaurant, real estate, energy and power, entertainment, automotive, and consumer-packaged-goods businesses raised their mobile marketing budgets over 100 percent. To be more particular, retail and restaurant companies were the top verticals in the report in 2012 and accounted for over 16 percent of all total brand marketing efforts. At the same time, spending on these efforts were raised over 106 percent year-over-year. The number 2 vertical was entertainment with 12 percent of all spending going towards their mobile marketing budget.

The reasons these 12 verticals are upping their mobile marketing budgets are numerous. An example would be video. Video was incorporated into 64 percent of all mobile marketing campaigns used for either product launches or releases. On top of this, 46 percent of campaigns centered on entertainment focused on social media, 40 percent of consumer-packaged-goods businesses used social media, and 21 percent of all campaigns in the report used either a store locator or map feature. Not enough? 37 percent of campaigns implemented an app download, 29 percent of marketers took advantage of site search as a post-click action, and gaming, music, entertainment, social media, and communication apps were the top 4 categories in 2012. These apps maintained their popularity year-over-year.

19 percent of advertisers leveraged mobile marketing to promote mobile subscriptions and 16 percent of advertisers combined ecommerce with their mobile marketing campaigns.

The marketers were grouped into 3 separate groups when it came to marketing. They were IT decision makers, gadget geeks, and in-market auto buyers. The top goals of the advertisers using mobile consisted of keeping a presence within their respective industries, building brand awareness, and driving site traffic. “Advertisers are using our mobile audience solutions to reach specific groups of consumers,” concluded Startzel. “And whether they are targeting IT decision makers, moms, or in-market auto intenders, mobile is a channel that can work for basically any vertical.”

So as you can see, mobile marketers are starting to not only notice the benefits and advantages of mobile marketing for their businesses, but they are also beginning to learn how to properly leverage it to their advantage. Make sure you are one of these businesses! If you are not you are only asking to fall behind and lose out to the competition that IS using mobile marketing to their advantage.

The How Tos of Mobile Keyword Research in 2013

February 12, 2013/0 Comments/in Keyword Research, keywords, mobile, Mobile Keyword Search, Mobile Keywords /by Kayla E. Blankenship

Starting out in the communications industry can be kind of bizarre. It’s fast paced, exciting, crazy and a whirl wind industry. As the old saying goes “you learn something new every day” can definitely be applied here. The way people, companies, even the web communicate is very diverse and complex. No two people can communicate the same.

Like many of you, when I first started in this industry I took all my knowledge I learned in college and tried to apply it to my current work. It was hard, heck it is still hard. The thing is the communications industry changes every day. Today we no longer use computers the way we used to. We use our iPhone’s, iPad’s, and even Blackberry’s to do a quick search online now. It’s easier and faster.

Have you ever realized how differently you search on your mobile phone than searching on your desktop or laptop? It’s a great difference isn’t it? So what exactly is “keyword research?” Well, keyword research is a practice used by SEO professionals who find and research actual and specific terms people enter in to their search engines such as Bing! and Google. These professionals complete research on these keywords to achieve better and higher rankings for the intended keywords.

So, how do we specifically do mobile keyword research? First, we must define our goals. To have a successful keyword search you must know what you want to find. If you don’t know what you want, then it’s not worth your time or the search engines time to help you discover these keywords. Subsequently how are you going to use the research? Is the site you’re researching designed specifically for mobile URLs? If so then you have the chance to use different keywords and content on mobile pages. Your content needs to be reusable and compatible across other mobile systems.

If your content is modified and you want to account for mobile searches, then you can sort a keyword list by total search volume. From there you can select your target keywords based on their volume and how closely they match your business goal. If your content is for mobile use only then you can sort by mobile volume or total mobile volume to find specific keywords that are popular for that platform. In the end once they reach your site you need to decided what you want your traffic to do.

Next is keyword discovery. How do mobile searches find your site? How do they find your competitors? To find this out use the following list of tools: Google Webmaster Tools, Google Keyword Tool, Bing Search Suggest, Google Analytics, Bing Ads Intelligence, and App Keyword Research Tools. Compile a list of keywords and save them for step three. Now, I’m going to explain a little more what each tool is and how it can help you.

1. Google Webmaster Tools: is used to find how people are currently finding your site on their mobile devices. here you can see where you are ranking for search terms from mobile searches. The reports used include information on feature phone and Smartphone keywords. The reports are very useful because they show you rankings, impressions, clicks and so forth for mobile keywords. When at the search queries report, filter search by mobile. This gives you keywords that have come specifically just from mobile devices.

2. Google Keyword Tool: is the ONLY mobile-only keyword tool that gives you specific keywords that you are not already optimized for. How can you find your site? Do not just use desktop context either. Remember we access the web in all different ways. When in the Google Keyword tool, highlight and select all mobile devices. This will be in the Advanced Options and filters section. Here you will get keywords from tablets, feature and Smartphone’s. You will also have the option to select only feature phones, Smartphone’s or tablets.

3. Bing Search Suggest: using Bing’s auto complete feature in mobile you can discover mobile keywords. This one may be the simplest of all of them, you simply just type your word that you are researching in the search box and mobile specific keywords will begin to appear.

4. Google Analytics: another simple one to figure out is the Google Analytics application. Here you go to the right hand navigation select audience, mobile, overview. Then you filter and include only your mobile keywords. You will receive only keywords that were used by mobile and tablet users.

5. Bing Ads Intelligence: is the only known tool that can estimate tablet search volume. Compile a list of mobile keywords from one of your past list and run a “customized traffic report” in Bing Intelligence. Select both Smartphone’s, non-Smartphone’s and tablets. You will then see a list of keywords that have monthly impression shares using Bing’s various platforms. This application allows you to get demographic information on all your mobile users. This information will also be helpful in the future when building personas you want to compare with mobile and desktop.

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6. App Keyword Research Tools: Google nor Apple have a keyword tool for apps. The best place to get information regarding app keyword popularity is the engine itself. It offers specific keywords in the autosuggest box for their search engine. Now this only gives a proximity of search volume because its “unofficial.”

Lastly, qualify those keywords. By now, you should have a nice long list of compiled keywords. Now to decided which ones are the best ones to use. Volume is the key here. High volume can estimate your traffic and competitors. Compare your mobile and desktop queries, what are their differences and similarities when accessing sites from different devices. This helps you when deciding what kind of site will work best for search behavior to get to your site. To do this, you will download your Mobile and Web CSV’s using filter in the search query report. Then download the tablets that appear. Use Excel to label these queries that apply for desktop, mobile and both.

Has anyone ever used TagCrowd? This is a tag cloud generator that lets you get a quick look at keywords your audience is interested in. This shows you a brief glance of what keywords people are currently searching. Including both mobile and desktop users. Use the Google Keyword tool again to estimate EXACT match search volume. You will see a better volume given for a specific keyword. This lets us know what people are interested in when searching from a mobile device or desktop.

As you see there are many ways to do a mobile keyword search, it’s up to you to find which one works best for you and your site. Do they complete your company’s goals? Are you establishing what you want or need to? Are you in the top tier of research results? If not, how can you move up? In today’s communication realm you must become a pro at keyword research. Remember it’s always evolving and practice makes perfect.

Good luck and good searching.