Mobile marketing is a business promotion tool that is taking the world by storm. By using it, businesses can promote their products from anywhere in the world by simply sending their ads to mobile devices like cell phones. For information on how to use mobile marketing, read these tips.
Keep setting expectations and keeping yourself safe, legally. After a person opts-in, or even during the process, inform them of how often they can get text messages from you. Also, give them an “opt-out” option if the messages are too frequent or if they want to avoid possible message charges. Always include the line, “standard rates may apply.”
Consider starting a short code campaign to increase your mobile marketing database. Asking customers to text a code to enroll in message updates can generate significant increases in your database and also ensures that only those wishing to receive communications do so. Advertise your short code campaign through social media sites, your web site and any print marketing materials.
Shorten your URLs, both in text form and for QR codes. The more difficult and lengthy the URL is, the more complex your message or QR code will become. Make these simpler for people to access by using a URL shortening site, and customers will be happier with the end results.
Use your message recipient’s real name. People like to feel important and recognized, and adding their real name to any messages you send out will give them those feelings. Making your customer feel like you are personalizing messages to them is a great way to make them feel welcome to your business.
If you are making use of mobile marketing – send an occasional reminder message! If you have some sort of event coming up, you should remind your customers a few days ahead of time, as well as the day of the event itself. Customers are busy people, and may forget what they had wanted to do without a reminder from you.
Stay away from flashy design. If you want to add music to your webpage, that is fine, but you should not send messages that have music or flashy images attached to them. People like simple messages, and if yours starts blasting music at them or brightly flashing, they will immediately hit delete and ignore you.
Use mobile marketing as a means of communication not a means for profit. Your business may be very important to you, but you need to remember that customers do not take well to being treated like money bags. Using your mobile campaign to actually talk to them will increase your sales more than promotions.
Understand the regulations for mobile marketing. Mobile marketing campaigns are heavily regulated, just like anything that has to do with mobile phones. Look up your local and federal guidelines, and make sure you stay well within them. If you do not, you can face penalties that range anywhere from fines to jail time.
Get training. Many vendors actually offer training programs on how to safely and properly run a mobile marketing campaign. These people will educate you on everything from how often to send out deals and messages, to the regulations you will need to follow while your program is ongoing. Take advantage of this.
Do not send unreasonable amounts of text messages to personal phones. Mobiles are very personal and many people do not appreciate being overwhelmed with marketing messages. Try to limit the number of messages to as few as possible so as to maintain a high level of satisfaction with your customer.
One great way to see how you can blend mobile marketing with social media is to pay attention to other people who are doing the same thing. This will allow you to see how things are done correctly. You won’t want to copy their formula verbatim, but it will help to emulate their style a bit.
There are a lot of tools available to you as a mobile marketer, so make sure that you’re always willing to utilize them. Today’s modern mobile devices not only have the ability to call and text, but they play and record videos too. This means there are quite a few ways you can interact with your customers.
Make your ads suitable to small screens and slower speeds or they may not be viewed at all! Most mobile devices have tiny screens and data speeds much slower than a regular PC so design your mobile content to be displayed accordingly or else it may never reach its intended target!
Keep in mind that mobile marketing is targeted for keeping your current customers, not acquiring new ones. Current customers know your product, and are much more open to getting texts from you and trust your website. New customers will probably find you using a regular computer, though it won’t take them long to sign up for texts.
Be sure to lay claim to your business in each social network’s location pages. In mobile marketing, it’s all about location, location, location. Smart mobile devices, all have location awareness built into their systems, so users can tell what is around them. Make sure they can find you by claiming your page on sites, like Foursquare, Facebook Places, Gowalla and Google Places.
If you plan on adding SMS to go along with your mobile marketing, be sure that you are honest about how many texts you will be sending out, and that you are set up with an opt-in mechanism. A poor implementation of an SMS campaign can have a drastically negative impact due to the fact that receiving SMS messages triggers alerts on mobile devices. Most people will get tired of receiving messages from you if you intrude too often. This is why it is so important to only target your SMS campaign to customers who have agreed to receive messages. You should also stick to a limited number of messages per month. A policy of honesty is the best way to build trust with your customers.
As stated before, mobile marketing has taken the business world by storm. Businesses can promote products easily by sending them to mobile devices, such as cell phones and net books. By using the useful tips from this article, you can easily use mobile marketing to drive your business to new levels.
