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Mobile marketing refers to the marketing of a product or a service to individuals who use mobile communication devices such as smart phones, iPads and similar devices. In just a few short years the use of these devices have grown exponentially due to their convenient and multiple usage possibilities. They are used as a phone, an email device, a texting device, and an Internet device.
If you are out shopping or for lunch, just casually watch people and how they react to their phones and you will discover an interesting phenomenon. Whenever a person gets a phone call, is texting or using the phone for anything else, their attention is 100% riveted on the call or process at the moment.
That is just what an advertiser wants. All a good ad needs is a few seconds to make an impression. The individual may not purchase anything right away, but they might remember an ad that has a catchy jingle, or design. You will also see that every time an individual’s phone rings, jiggles, vibrates, buzzes or coughs, they pay immediate attention to it. It is an advertiser’s dream.
Marketers are focusing on retailers to maximize their exposure in local areas so mobile phone users will find them when they are searching for a specific type of product or service. For example, if an individual is looking for the place that sells swimming pool chemicals in a certain area, they will probably do a search for. “pool chemicals Peoria”, assuming that they are in Peoria. The search engine will come back with local retailers in that immediate area, with a map and a phone number.
Here we have a focused consumer, ready to buy, and now they know exactly where the store is located and how to get there. It really doesn’t get any better than that. If this type of advertising is done with a social media site, the whole conversation can be passed on to friend after friend, until it goes viral.
Text ads can be a way of promoting a product, but it has limited success in that people do not want spam ads coming in over their text. The same thing would be true for pop-up ads. They don’t want ads interrupting them when they are in the middle of doing something else.
Another source of mobile marketing is in the apps area. Apps, or applications are standalone programs that users can download to their mobile phone. An app can be any useful function such as ring tones, expense programs, mapping programs and the like. Applications can be downloaded for free, or for a small charge, depending upon the complexity and use of the app. It is not uncommon to have advertisement s piggybacking on apps.
The most effective way to market to potential customers is proactive where the customer looks you up by searching for a product or service and finds you. We spoke about this earlier and it is now possible to refine the online search to such a degree that will have you in the limelight with more success than in the past.
