Change Has Become Necessary
In today’s world, it’s borderline impossible to find someone who has zero mobile devices. This certainly wasn't the case 30 years ago, 20 years ago, or maybe even 10 years ago. What does this mean? It means marketing strategies have undergone an incredible shift in just the last decade or so regarding how and when they reach potential customers with information about their product or service.
A big part of that movement has been mobile marketing. Today, an even bigger part is the automation of mobile marketing.
What is Mobile Marketing?
Mobile marketing is the practice of promoting a product or service through mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This can include techniques like SMS (text messaging) and MMS (picture, video) messaging, mobile apps, location-based services, and mobile web ads.
Does This Work?
The next time you go to the beach, the mall, a restaurant, Disney World, or anywhere else you can think of, take note of how many people are using a mobile device. Spoiler: it’s basically everyone, and the 3% of people who you don't see using one likely have it close by in their pocket.
That’s why mobile marketing works. When you employ it, you don't have to rely on someone turning on a TV, looking up at a billboard, or reading a certain magazine to hear about your product.
TL;DR: Mobile marketing works because it reaches and engages with customers through the device that they use most frequently, which is often their mobile phone.
The Automation of Mobile Marketing
Automation. For some, the word itself conjures up job security anxieties and nightmares, but when it comes to efficiency, effectiveness, and saving time and resources, it’s tough to beat. Mobile marketing automation refers to the use of technology to automate various tasks and processes related to mobile advertising and promotions. Here are a few automation tools:
Sending Push Notifications
It’s great when a customer downloads your business’s app, but what about when they’re not actively using it? That's where push notifications come in. Push notifications can reach and engage users, even if the app is closed, to provide updates or alerts, such as new content or special offers. When this is automated, it will send personalized, timely messages directly to a user's mobile device.
Geofencing
To some, this might sound like an event they’ll have at the 2044 Olympics, but geofencing is actually a technology that allows businesses to define a virtual boundary around a physical location. Some of the benefits for mobile marketing automation include:
Increased Foot Traffic
By targeting mobile ads or notifications to users within the geofenced boundary, businesses can encourage foot traffic by promoting deals or special offers to nearby consumers. This can increase the likelihood of retention rates and positive word-of-mouth recommendations.
Measurable Results
A campaign may “feel” like it’s working, but the only way to be sure is through data. Geofencing allows marketers to track how many people entered or exited the geofenced area, how long they stayed, and if they engaged with the ads. This can provide valuable insights into the performance of the campaign and help optimize future efforts.
Cost-Effective
If there’s one thing marketers can all agree on, it’s that saving money is important. Geofencing is a cost-effective mobile marketing strategy because it allows businesses to target their advertising efforts to a specific geographic location. This means that they can reach potential customers who are most likely to be interested in their products or services, rather than wasting resources on a broad, untargeted audience.
Mobile Wallet Marketing
Mobile wallet marketing refers to the use of mobile wallet apps, such as Apple Wallet or Google Pay, to deliver targeted marketing messages and offers to consumers. This can include things like loyalty card information, coupons, event tickets, and other types of digital content. The goal of mobile wallet marketing is to increase engagement and sales by making it easy for consumers to access and redeem offers directly from their mobile devices.
Mobile A/B Testing
Mobile A/B testing involves creating two or more versions of a mobile marketing campaign, such as an email or app push notification, and sending them to a randomly selected group of users. By comparing the engagement and conversion rates of the different versions, you can determine which is the most effective and make adjustments to improve the overall performance of the campaign.
Additionally, it is important to test different elements of the campaign such as subject lines, headlines, images, and call-to-action buttons to see which variations perform the best.
App Retargeting
Today, people download all sorts of apps (especially if they're free), and then just forget about them. However, the company you downloaded it from often doesn’t forget that at some point you were, at least on some level, interested in their product or service. When those customers are re-engaged, it’s called app retargeting.
Mobile marketing automation can help with app retargeting by using data and machine learning algorithms to target users who have previously shown interest in the app. This can include tracking users who have downloaded the app, but have not yet made a purchase or completed a specific action within the app, as well as users who have abandoned their shopping carts or left the app without completing a desired action.
By using this data, automated mobile marketing can send personalized push notifications, in-app messages, and other marketing messages to users who are more likely to re-engage with the app and complete a desired action. This can help to increase app retention and revenue.
Are There Downsides to Automating Mobile Marketing?
Lack of Personalization
Although automated mobile marketing is great at targeting segments of customers with specific messages, it may lack the human touch and creativity of a manually run campaign.
Flexibility Concerns
Automated campaigns may not be able to adapt to changes in the market or target audience behavior as easily as a manually run campaign. Sometimes, this can result in too many messages being sent to consumers, which can lead to a decrease in open rates and increased opt-outs.
Possible Tech Issues
Since no one has ever experienced a tech issue in their life, I guess we can just go ahead and skip this section. Oh wait…
Automated mobile marketing relies heavily on technology, which can be subject to bugs, system failures, and glitches, such as sending the wrong message to the wrong group of customers.
Privacy
Some people may be uncomfortable with the idea of their mobile data being collected and used for marketing purposes, which can lead to negative perceptions of the brand.
Automation is the Present (and Future)
In the early 2000s, mobile marketing was starting to become a thing, but it wasn't absolutely necessary. However, some businesses felt it was the future and put in the hard work to get ahead of the curve. Then, when mobile marketing became essential for survival, those businesses were already thriving while others were struggling just to catch up.
Now there’s a new curve. Automated mobile marketing is not yet an absolute necessity. But some businesses, like the ones 20 years ago, are putting in the hard work today so they can thrive tomorrow.
Why?
Because automation can help improve the user experience by optimizing mobile marketing tasks, such as sending messages, creating targeted campaigns by tracking customer behaviors such as app usage and in-app purchases, scheduling social media posts, and tracking and analyzing data to better understand and target specific segments of users.
This can save time and resources while also increasing conversion rates and revenue growth (doing RevOps well is always a bonus!). Additionally, automated mobile marketing can also provide valuable data and insights on customer behavior and preferences, which can inform future marketing strategies and optimize overall revenue performance.
