Go Mobile

Mobile is delivering on its promise at the moment. The technology is in place and people are engaging in droves, on smartphones in particular. but many businesses still hasen't started walking the mobile road yet. Most have not yet meaningfully engaged with mobile consumers and adapted their strategies to capitalize on the mobile opportunity. But, not too late. Here are some steps that businesses should take today to build the foundation of their mobile marketing and commerce strategy.

Thinking Local
Mobile searches have more ‘intent’; but what does that mean? It’s a way of saying that when people are looking for information on a mobile device they intend to act on it fast. Mobile users search for information because they want to take action. After looking up a local business on their smart phone, 61% of users have called the business and 59% have visited. Because of this, location is exceptionally relevant to mobile users, and should be especially important to marketers. If people intend to act fast on the information they find on mobile, they’re more likely to take action somewhere near their locations. So,as a business, to try to reach a mobile consumer, understanding geo-targeted advertising campaigns and products is critical.

You need a mobile specific site
That giv's your conumers a great mobile experience when they visit your site on their mobile phone. And what’s a mobile specific site? It’s a website that’s been designed specifically for a smartphone, and it prioritizes what’s important for a user on the go, it features elements that are easy to see and interact with.
A mobile optimized site isn’t a desktop optimized site. In fact, it may be just the opposite: websites that look great on the desktop may be illegible, or require endless zooming-in, or may not work at all on mobile. The mobile web is not a smaller, portable version of the desktop web. When designing a mobile site, think as a customer. Make site navigation easier, put key action-items front and center, and build for the on.the.go user. Think about the mobile behavior of your customers and design for it.

Be more ‘Personal’
200 million videos are viewed every day on Mobile YouTube, an increase of over 3x from last year.65 million minutes (over 125 years!) of Angry Birds games are played every day on mobile. We’re glued to our mobile devices, and engaged like we’ve never been before. There’s an opportunity to connect with consumers in ways that are both special, and only possible, because they’re on mobile.

Track your mobile site
The web looks and feels different on a mobile device and people engage with it differently, at different moments of the day, and often with different objectives. Google sees a 50% spike in usage on weekends for Google Maps for mobile and in general, mobile engagement increases in the evenings and on weekends, when people are away from their desks, or on the go. So, mobile is distinct from desktop; your mobile site tracking should be distinct as well. When you separate your desktop and mobile website data, you’ll better understand the users visiting your site, what phones they have, and what actions they are taking. You can then use this data to optimize your website and improve it, along with your campaigns.

Iterate
We’re in the earliest chapters of mobile’s history. Change is in the air and hopefully will be for a long time. Just remember, before 2007, the iPhone didn’t yet exist, and neither did Android handsets, or any app marketplaces. The rate of change in mobile over the last five years is astounding and you need to have a fast development cycle to stay ahead of that change. The tactics and strategies that work today may be very different from what works months, or even weeks from now.

Marketing in Google+

Local Now Accounts for 40 Percent of Mobile Searches, according to Google, “Distance” Now an AdWords Ranking Variable.

Google announced new mobile ad-units along with some interesting new stats in regards to mobile search.
According to the company, 40% of all mobile searches coming to Google are local in nature at this point, which continues to trend upward.  As such, the search giant also announced that “physical location,” or the proximity of a local business to a user’s location will become a targeting variable when serving ads to mobile users.

The new AdWords ranking variable that takes into account a user’s location is good news for local businesses and retailers as it aims to drive more relevant foot traffic at lower costs.  Local businesses will need to use Location Extensions to take advantage of the new location targeting, and the smartphone user will need to be opted-in to share their location for location proximaty to kick in.

Custom Search Ads for apps: will appear when users search within apps for content. Search ads now can be integrated into apps, which wasn’t available previously.

Click to Download ads: will direct users to download areas in Android Market or iTunes app store.

Mobile App Extensions: these ads can direct people to specific apps or pages within apps already on their phones.

Circulars (not limited to mobile): these are more graphically rich ads that contain product images, pricing and deals/offers. Google says, “When someone clicks on a search or display ad (on desktop, mobile or tablet devices), they may see these engaging ads which contain photos of relevant products and special offers.”

Here’s Google’s example: “If someone searches for sneakers on a mobile device, they might see an ad that takes them directly into a cool shopping app they’ve installed on their phone.” It’s not clear what happens if the app isn’t on the user’s phone already.

Mobile marketing vs Internet Marketing – What happens?

It’s more and more obvous that Mobile will be the next big thing for various platforms. In social networking, gaming or advertising, mobile has definitely been touted as the next device for taking all of the earlier mentioned to the next level by making it available to everyone, no matter what their location. When we think mobile marketing, the first thought that comes to mind is SMS marketing, which most of us do not appreciate. But the advent of 3G will change mobile marketing leaps and bounds. Inevitably, mobile marketing will probabely overtake internet marketing sooner or later.

And Why is this inevitable?
The only two words that should answer the question is; Google, Apple. Google purchased AdMob, one of the leading mobile advertising companies, and Apple, who had initially tried to buy AdMob, bought Quattro, another mobile advertising company, and shortly later after that Google acquisition. Apart from these giants, InMobi, formerly known as MKhoj, and that is also in the race to rule the mobile advertising world.

Why will Mobile be bigger than Internet Marketing?

The answer is, Mobile phones will have higher penetration than computers. Also, the number of users using mobiles to surf the internet has increased immensely and will only continue to increase. This is precisely the reason why big names like Google and Apple are investing in mobile advertising companies. It probabely only a matter of time before mobile marketing overtakes internet marketing. The real question is how far behind will it leave internet marketing?

Mobile Marketing

Mobile is growing all around us. more than 450 million people worldwide used the mobile Web in 2009. Is your business doing anything to take advantage of these mobile opportunities?

It isn't as hard as you might think and the benefits could grow your business to a new level. For starters, you need to mobilize your website. Some companies choose to have separate websites for mobile, but they don’t need to. If you need assistance mobilizing your current site, there are tools available. On the other hand, if you do create a separate mobile site, be sure to include a link to it on your main page in order to give visitors an option.

When your site is mobilized, you need to get your customers involved with your mobile efforts. To do this, you should send text messages letting customers know about special discounts and offers. Make sure to set up a system for customers to "opt-in" to your mobile endeavors. This form of mobile marketing allows businesses to not only expand their business, but also to build stronger relationships with existing customers.

Finally, you need to make sure your customers can take action on your mobile site, that’s the purpose of your mobile campaign. Your website needs to be capable of taking electronic payments via cell phones so that mobile transactions can be made. An additional benefit of doing this is that you can send invoices in the form of email or text messages, which saves costs, paper, time, and perhaps the climate.