The uncharted waters of mobile marketing, like mobile threats and technological intricacies, have made some small businesses hesitant to participate. But, as consumers do more and more mobile surfing—rather than the desk-bound browsing they used to prefer—mobile marketing becomes all the more crucial for capturing potential customers’ attention.
In 2017, mobile traffic began to account for more than half of all traffic globally. The latest statistics from 2018 indicate that 52.2% of all global traffic is mobile. This number is only expected to increase.
If your small business isn’t harnessing the power of mobile marketing, then it’s behind the times. As more and more consumers opt for smart devices over desktops, sidestepping mobile marketing will become less and less sustainable for your small business.
Here are four crucial ways to put mobile marketing to use for your brand:
In-store mobile efficiencies
If you’re running a brick-and-mortar store without an ecommerce presence, you might assume that mobile marketing isn’t for you. That mobile marketing is only effective for internet- or app-based businesses is a common misconception.
It’s a fair assumption—mobile marketing is often employed to drive people to purchase something on their phones or tablets, and these kinds of transactions aren’t possible for brick-and-mortars.
However, there’s much more to mobile marketing than mobile conversions, and you’d be surprised how many mobile marketing strategies can be especially effective for in-person retail. For instance, you can accept in-person mobile payments systems, like Apple Pay and Google Pay, to make the checkout process easier for customers.
You can also weave a customer rewards program into your mobile marketing strategy by using a loyalty program app that will allow you to create a custom mobile rewards program for your business. which will make your customers more likely to come back.
Through mobile marketing techniques for in-store transactions, you can streamline your checkout processes and set up a loyalty program that doesn’t involve hole punches or flimsy rewards cards.
SMS campaigns
SMS campaigns are effective ways to reach potential customers. In fact, 19% of links sent in text messages are opened, compared to the all but 2% of links sent in emails that go untouched. Put simply, if you want customers to actually look at the landing pages you send in your marketing campaigns, then integrating SMS mobile marketing into your outreach strategy is a must.
If you run on online business, have customers enter their phone numbers during checkout. If your business is primarily brick-and-mortar, provide an SMS receipt option at checkout as a number-capture strategy. Of course, allow customers to opt out easily if they’d prefer not to receive your promotional messages.
Mobile-friendly email campaigns
All that said, small business marketing statistics show that focusing on email marketing is well worth your time. For example, the average ROI for email marketing is a staggering 122%, which means a savvy email campaign could earn your business more than double the amount you invested into it.
Crucial to email marketing success in 2019, though, will be making a mobile-friendly email campaign. You probably don’t need a reminder—consumers are increasingly tending to their online obligations, including email, through their mobile devices. So, if you’re sending your customers emails, they’re more likely to open them on their phones and tablets than their computers.
As such, you need to ensure your email marketing campaigns are mobile-friendly. Make the body of your marketing emails highly visual, and avoid large chunks of text. Any video you include in your email should have subtitles, and every landing page you link to should have a mobile-friendly design.
Mobile SEO
You’ve probably heard of SEO, or search engine optimization. Improving your rankings for relevant, high-traffic keywords is a low-cost, high-reward way to acquire new customers. But did you know that your Google rankings rely heavily on how well your site works for mobile devices?
Through user research, Google found that searchers care a lot about their mobile experience. In fact, their mobile playbook shares that 57% of wouldn’t recommend a business that has a poorly designed mobile site. As a result of these findings, Google made mobile site design and load time particularly important for their search algorithms.
Create your business’s site with a mobile-first design to ensure that you’re ranking well for searches that potential customers make on mobile devices and computers. Be sure to also make your mobile load time as quick as possible—a delay of even a second could make mobile users bounce from your site, a behavior that Google often penalizes pages for.
A meaningful Instagram presence
Social media marketing comprises a huge slice of the mobile marketing pie for small businesses. For the most return for your social media marketing efforts, create a meaningingful Instagram presence for your business.
Instagram has the highest user engagement of any social media platform, so whatever posts you create or ads you place through the app will render more engagement for your business. Create a business account so that you can access valuable features like analytics and linkable Instagram stories.
To build your following, be sure to interact with accounts that post with location tags in your area and ask happy customers to follow and tag your account. You can also invest in an ad to reach users across the nation. In no time, you’ll be sharing your business’s content with countless Instagram followers and creating meaningful touchpoints with customers online.
The bottom line on mobile marketing for small businesses
Mobile marketing isn’t just for tech startups and trendy direct-to-consumer brands. In fact, it’s actually uniquely useful for local businesses. Features like location tags and local search results are making mobile marketing a small business goldmines. So, are you going to seize the opportunity to reach the ever-growing population of consumers who are making purchasing decisions on-the-go? This is where you start.
Eric Goldschein is an editor and writer at Fundera, a marketplace for small business financial solutions such as business loans. He has nearly a decade of experience in digital media and has written for a number of outlets including Volusion, Marketo, BigCommerce, and RetailNext on digital marketing. You can find Eric on Twitter here.
