Importance of Mobile Marketing Strategy

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At first glance, marketing may look tricky thing. At least, I thought so before started working in a company where without marketing there would not be any results. And in university, the marketing has not been my favorite lecture, but life forced me to learn some things about marketing. It may sound like a cliche, but indeed, life is our best teacher. So, today, I want to talk about the importance of mobile marketing strategy. 

Marketing as a whole and mobile marketing, in particular, develops too fast. In order not to be lagging behind and always be aware of the events, offer only the best modern solutions to your clients, develop the right strategy for doing business and work with sales, invest in profit making, and be ahead of competitors. All this you can achieve with mobile marketing.

People use their mobile phones not only to stay in touch, but also to read product reviews, for getting to know about new products on the market and, of course, online purchases. In this state, the development of a well-designed mobile marketing strategy is important for your business.

2018 Mobile Marketing Statistics to Help You Plan Your Strategy

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Marketing Elements

Every business performs many activities that partly or fully are attributed to the marketing area. Companies develop and improve their goods, regulate their prices, sell them on their own or through partners. In addition, efforts are being made to identify, make, and maintain contact with consumers through advertising or other means.  All these actions can be done randomly or in a planned way.

In the first case, each marketing task can be performed in a sufficiently professional manner but does not necessarily coincide with other aspects of the company's business. In the second case, the marketing functions are combined both with each other and with all activities of the company. Thus, the planning of a company's marketing in the first place allows to link and coordinate various actions into a single whole, thus achieving a better result.

Marketing is about how to create an opinion about a product - how it differs from competitors, why people should buy it from you, not from competitors.

Depending on how you want to reach your customers and strategic goals, business companies can take advantage of various mobile marketing tools and means that affect their business success and increase performance. However, there is no single mobile marketing formula that can be applied to your business strategy.  The suite of different mobile marketing tools and means allows marketing professionals to choose what best suits their short-term and long-term goals for the company.

All tools are good, but you need to use them in time and place. If you do not follow the strategy that has been set before, then no tactic will work properly, and you waste your money without a future result. So, if everything you do will fit your strategy, then the money will be spent wisely. If you follow the strategy, it will only strengthen the product brand and opinion about it.

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Research For Information

The first what you have to do is make a research on the market that is related to your business's niche. Here are some tips on what kind of research you should do:

• Exploring how mobile marketing takes place in your industry, you can join online forums or become a partner;
• Gather data related to your product or services, such as theme studies, analytical research reports, official documents, etc.;
• Conduct a comparative analysis by visiting websites, press releases, online campaigns, etc.

Identify Your Target Audience

Defining the target audience and choosing its solution will help you make the right decisions and develop a successful mobile marketing campaign. Below are three important steps to identify your target audience:

• To compile a detailed list of potential clients and give them real names and certificates;
• Conduct online surveys, reach them by customer emails, etc. to understand what issues they have;
• Create customer personalities by visualizing certain attributes, such as their age, profession, etc.

Determine The Value of Your Offers

One of the most significant steps before creating a mobile campaign is to prepare answers to the following questions:

• How is your product/service beneficial for your customers?
• What are the added benefits that you offer compared to your competitors?
• How will you meet their needs?
• How will this fit their budget?

Understanding the value or unique offer of your product or service helps you better engage your customers from the moment you first communicate with them until their second visit. Once you determine the value of your offer in your marketing strategy, the task to get new customers and to maintain those you already have becomes much easier.

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 Describe Your Goals And Objectives

Before developing a mobile marketing strategy, you need to figure out how it will fit your other marketing plans. This will help you find out what is important for your business. Is the product's branding the current goal? Or is it a priority to attract customers and find potential customers? Perhaps this is nothing more than participation in social networks and viral marketing. Whatever it is, you need to synergize your marketing strategy with the current priorities of your company.

Specifying your goals and objectives is the cornerstone of your marketing strategy.

Mobile is not the future, it is the now. Meet your customers in the environment of their choice, not where it's convenient for you. - Cyndie Shaffstall, Spider Trainers.

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Strategic Planning of Mobile Marketing

 In order to make effective use of the opportunities offered by mobile marketing, it is necessary to plan the mobile marketing strategy carefully. It means, to provide clear goals, general operational guidelines, take decisions on positioning the product, and integrating the elements of the marketing complex with other areas of the company.

Despite the fact that there are a number of mobile marketing channels that can be accessed by users (messaging services, mobile internet, mobile video), the marketing company will only be effective once a mobile marketing strategy is integrated into a corporate strategy and a multi-channel marketing campaign, and is used to complement traditional forms of marketing (media, television, radio).

Consumer markets are very fragmented, and consumers can be divided into many criteria (demographic, geographic, psychological, and behavioral). It is becoming increasingly difficult to identify customers that need to be targeted. However, with the help of customer relationship's management systems, including database technology and interactive media, the company can create and implement a mobile marketing strategy that can individualize the specific needs of target customers. 

 Generally speaking, a company should have human, physical (including technological), and organizational capabilities (such as financial resources) that allow companies to run mobile marketing campaigns.

There are three main processes in the mobile marketing system: the development, the implementation and use of mobile marketing system, and the impact.

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Creating a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Creating a mobile marketing strategy involves designing and developing mobile marketing campaigns using mobile technologies. The deployment and use of mobile marketing is the stage in which we want to find out how the consumers are using and accepting the services offered by the mobile marketing system.  The impact of mobile marketing must bring benefits to interested parties.

Introducing mobile solutions can be risky, but success can lead to good business results. Success comes to those companies that adopt a strategic approach to technology deployment. It helps to find new ways to increase the efficiency and stimulate further innovations of business growth.

Therefore, in order to create an effective marketing strategy, all forms of communication, tools, all means of delivery of messages must be included, and the information about the company, its products and services must be clearly and continuously transmitted to existing and potential clients.

The organization in mobile marketing plays a key role, and the process of customer search has professional features. Competition in the virtual space is growing, so it's important to outline a course that you will follow by offering your products to consumers.

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The Impact of Mobile Marketing on Marketing Complex Elements

4P Marketing MIX

Have you ever heard about the most widely used marketing mix or 4Ps model? It was developed by Jerome McCarthy, and it means a product, price, place, promotion. Emerging mobile technologies and new marketing tools have a major impact on all of these elements.

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• PRODUCT

Mobile marketing is mainly used to increase brand awareness, changing the image of the company, and enhancing brand loyalty. By using SMS marketing, marketing specialists can make brand awareness more effective.  Sending text messages ensures a significant impact of the brand on consumers. It is likely that the message will reach the user every time. In addition, all messages are stored in the phone memory and can be read at a convenient time for the customer.  Unlike e-mail, the SMS does not have a subject line. So, it's very likely that the user will read it before deleting the message.

• PRICE

It is a very important element of the marketing mix, which is related to price setting and its change. The competition in the price market is very high. If you are gonna buy any product or service, it is enough to open the websites of the companies, and the buyer will immediately have the opportunity to evaluate the prices of the respective goods and services. This marketing element needs to be given a great deal of attention because a well-thought-out pricing strategy provides significant benefits and is a great way to stay in a modern competitive market.

Through mobile channels, the user may be given a unique price for a product or service. This allows retailers to make a first-rate price differentiation that can be tailored to a particular buyer. However, this pricing strategy is rarely used, as buyers can find out what the price is in the market.

In order to effectively apply such a pricing strategy, companies should have a lot of information about customers and advanced programs. Mobile Internet users can compare prices and choose stores where they can shop cheaper.

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•  PLACE

Mobile technologies help companies deliver their services and products more efficiently. Some mobile apps are used to check the locations where goods are shipped; they can help to trace the goods. Changing the delivery way, the goods are delivered to the customer more quickly. Thanks to 3G technology and smartphones, data is obtained in a variety of formats, such as high-quality video.

• PROMOTION

The promotion includes all communication methods used by companies to showcase the good qualities of their products and convince consumers to buy it from them. Mobile devices and the internet provide new ways for businesses to interact and collaborate with their customers. Instead of concentrating on simple mass marketing means, companies should focus on targeted activities. Most of the effects of mobile devices on marketing communications are manifested in three areas: advertising, sales promotion, and direct marketing.

Mobile advertising helps to distribute products and services to individual users in an interactive way. Proposals can be personalized based on a variety of parameters, such as demographic descriptions, customer behavior patterns, situations or locations. Mobile advertising can also be used to attract customers to mobile business sites.

When the 4Ps marketing mix was created, the "push" strategy dominated in the marketing strategy. The 4Ps marketing mix was criticized for being focused solely on the product, but little attention was paid to the needs of customers that are essential for the modern business market.

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4 C Marketing Mix

Robert Lauterborn redefined the 4Ps elements and named this marketing model 4Cs, which consists of the following elements: customer,  cost, convenience, and communication.

• CUSTOMER

Offers of goods or services tailored to customers' needs and wishes are one of the most important parts of the marketing strategy. In order to find out the needs of customers, each company should create and constantly update its customer database. Interactive mobile technologies allow you to create a customer database, which allows customers themselves to sign up and provide information about themselves. The key value of this collected information is that after analyzing it, it is possible to find out what products and services should be offered and to which customers. Companies, in response to customers' wishes, are able to send very personalized offers to individual customers. Users usually respond positively to these personal offers.

A mobile phone is an ideal customers service tool. For example, tracking orders, responding to customer requests or for after-sales service.

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• COST

The price of a product or service is no longer the sole concern of customers. Total costs for purchasing, using and throwing out a product are more important factors. These costs depend on many factors, such as time, activity or opportunity. Mobile devices have the advantage of reducing these costs.

Actual is the use of cash bonus as prizes. To transfer bonus funds, you do not need a lot of effort, it happens instantly. The positive that gives such an action to the consumer exceeds all expectations.

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• CONVENIENCE

This is another advantage for customers who use their mobile device and can perform various tasks in their convenient time and in a convenient place. For example, if a mobile phone has an electronic banking system installed, consumers can pay for car parking, car cleaning services, metro services, etc. Consumers do not need to look for where coins are exchanged, which saves them time. In the future, mobile applications will be further developed on the widespread use of iPhone and Android phones, which is likely to give users even more convenience.

Buyers may also reduce the costs by looking for a product or service with a mobile phone. With the help of the mobile Internet, information about goods and services is available anywhere and at any time, which helps to make a decision at a specific time of purchase. It's worth mentioning, however, that for the sake of convenience, smart mobile apps can cost more to customers. 

• COMMUNICATION

The mobile device is definitely the most effective communication tool. By using mobile phones that have Internet access, users can access important information sources, communicate and entertain in the same way that they do with a computer, but more quickly. In other words, the mobile phone enhances the user interface and allows two-way communication. 

With regard to value added for business, this feature helps to improve customer relationships, build a customer database and instantly measure the results of a mobile marketing campaign. Therefore, marketing professionals should incorporate two-way communication tools such as lotteries, contests, votes, and surveys into marketing strategies.

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Talking about communication, the literature identifies two strategies used in marketing: "push" and "pull". The push strategy sends information directly to users without any prior notice. Conversely, in the pull strategy, messages are sent only when requested by the client.

Over the last year, SMS advertising has dominated in the push mobile marketing. However, when looking at the development of mobile applications (such as short QR codes and image recognition codes), which are specifically designed for the pull strategy of marketing, there is a strong likelihood that mobile pull campaigns will be used more often. 

7 Simple Mobile Marketing Strategies Ideas

• Use mobile advertising;
• Take advantage of text messages when communicating with clients;
• Launch thematic mobile apps (which relate to your industry) to gain an edge over your competitors;
• Interact with customers using the registration and distribution of coupon codes;
• Combine mobile marketing and marketing in social networks;
• Create the compatibility of your website for the mobile environment;
• Add that complete product information on the site.

5 Top Mobile Marketing Strategies - Video credit: iBrandBoost via Youtube.com

Mobile marketing strategies are a promising investment, but mobile marketing is like any other type of marketing: some cash investments and time are needed in order for the effort to bear fruit. Make sure that you have all the data to measure the success of your mobile projects, and carefully study the statistics. This is the marketing area you need to master.

On the Final Note

First, companies should only sell products that customers really want, and not produced by chance. Second, consumers are more concerned about their costs, not just the cost of the product. Third, companies should give consumers the opportunity to shop in the most convenient way. And finally, companies should facilitate communication with customers.

4P elements are useful in assessing the impact of mobile marketing on business. The 4C customer-oriented model is also important because it supports two-way communication.

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A modern value society demands consumer-oriented proposals and more specialized marketing. Marketers are 100% sure that the battle for consumer interest in the goods on the modern market wins not the television or a computer monitor, but the mobile phone screen. The fight for the promotion of goods in the mobile virtual space has already begun.

Therefore, all marketing complex elements mentioned above must be taken into account when designing a marketing strategy. Most importantly, the companies should choose marketing elements that fit each other. 

Next time we will talk about mobile marketing tools and means.