IAB Mobile Marketplace Highlights
Mobile must be an integral part of every marketer’s plans because consumers are ahead of marketers in terms of how they use their mobile devices, smartphones and tablets.
These devices provide content, video, social, search and interaction as well as other functionality like location and telephony.
Here are seven actionable mobile marketing tips inspired by the IAB’s Mobile Marketplace in New York.
- Know what you want your mobile prospects or customers to do next. You must determine what your business goals are and how your mobile marketing strategy fits into the plan. This enables you to determine your prospects’ path to, through and from your mobile site as well as the appropriate metrics to track your mobile marketing results. This is important whether you’re creating a mobile website, app, video or advertisement.
- Develop mobile content that enhances your product. To this end, determine what information creates value for your prospects and customers; meets their needs or improves their lives. For example, Zyrtec, an allergy medicine, created an on-going mobile utility that gives consumers information about the pollen count. Think weather report for allergies. To-date, Zyrtec has about 300,000 registrants.
- Focus on the one or two things for which mobile users will use your site. Understand that smartphone activity is often content snacking done in short bursts of available time. Therefore you must streamline your mobile site to fulfill these needs with an easy-to-use experience.
- Tell stories that hook your viewers and set up the action. Like other forms of content, stories pull your audience in. This is particularly important on emerging formats like Twitter’s Vine where the video quality is less than optimal.
- Craft videos to ensure viewers see at least half of your content. Understand that 25% of YouTube video is viewed on a mobile device. Further, 40-60% of mobile viewers abandon the video at some point. These viewers have seen roughly 30-80% the video. While you can entice video viewers to click off of your content at any point, you must consider how much of your video the average viewer sees. This can affect your YouTube search rankings according to Robert John Davis of OgilvyOne Note who pointed out that YouTube changed its metrics to track video engagement in November, 2012. If you want viewers to click out to other content, use a shorter video so that you retain the search benefit from the video.
- Create content that works within bandwidth limitations. You can have the best mobile content, app or video but if your prospective consumers can’t access it due to poor WiFi or expensive, limited data plans, it’s worthless.
- Measure more than the mobile impressions. Mobile often causes marketers a headache when it comes to showing the value of having a mobile presence and related, integrated marketing. By taking a broader, longer view of mobile’s contribution, Tim Reis of Google showed that mobile has transformed direct response marketing. Marketers must track the mobile impact in terms of mobile website (aka m-commerce), apps, in-store activity, cross device use and calls. To help marketers, Google has created a free calculator to help you track the full value of your mobile marketing.
Since we live in a multi-screen, connected world where context and location drive our device choice, marketers must be present when prospects and customers seek them on smartphones and tablets. Mobile has the power is to run when other media options and devices are dark. Further, mobile usage is made for interactivity whether it’s a phone call, text, purchase or game. It’s up to marketers to maximize these opportunities by responding to their customers’ needs.
What has your experience been incorporating mobile into your overall marketing strategy? What challenges have you faced? What has surprised you about using mobile?
Happy Marketing,
Heidi Cohen
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Photo Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/davelawler/8630623522/
