What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing is a type of digital marketing that focuses on brand communications via mobile devices such as smartphones. In mobile marketing, everything from messaging, to visuals, to user experience is optimized for mobile functionality and usability. Mobile marketing includes mobile advertising such as social media and Google Ads, as well as SMS-based campaigns and push notifications. 

How mobile marketing works

Mobile marketing works by taking advantage of the fact that many people with smartphones are constantly interacting with their devices offering both a highly engaged audience opportunity, and generous amounts of data on user properties and behaviors. Most mobile marketing uses a combination of behavioral segmentation and demographics to capture mobile user attention and deliver right-place-right-time messaging. 

Why is mobile marketing important?

Mobile marketing is important because the percentage of users who navigate the internet primarily or even exclusively through smartphones is increasing every year. Additionally, mobile marketing is often less expensive and more effective than traditional marketing efforts since it can incorporate user data into message targeting for more relevant communications. 

What is mobile marketing strategy?

The main strategy behind mobile marketing is to reach mobile users in a state where they are already primed to receive a brand’s message and present them with a frictionless path to conversion. By utilizing user data and behavior, marketers can create hyper-targeted campaigns with relevant messaging that generate micromoments of desire, and drive conversions by compressing the user journey into just a few minutes. 

Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Marketing

There are more advantages than disadvantages to mobile marketing, but it still comes with its challenges. 

Some advantages of mobile marketing include:

• Large and Growing Audience: More people use smartphones to navigate digital communications every year, and those who are already mobile users often increase usage year over year. 

• Cost Effective: Mobile marketing is almost always less expensive than traditional marketing methods such as television, print, and radio ads. Especially for ad purchases, one can often get desktop and mobile optimized presentations bundled into one campaign

• Targeted: With user data, mobile marketing can engage in right-place-right-time campaigns such as push notifications with deals for local restaurants, or advertising sleep-focused apps to late-night social media scrollers.

• App Defined Audiences: For companies that produce an app, a major advantage of mobile marketing is the ability to communicate with a dedicated in-app audience. 

• Effective: All of these factors combine to make mobile marketing one of the most effective methods of modern marketing. 

Some of the disadvantages of mobile marketing include:

• Data Privacy: Concerns over the privacy of user data can complicate the practice of employing user behaviors and qualities to inform marketing campaigns. Privacy laws change often and marketers must keep up to date with current legislation. 

• Maintenance: Internet culture changes quickly so mobile marketing strategies that work to capitalize on trends must be incredibly agile to take advantage. Less trendy campaigns also need to be carefully maintained as ads for sold out products can generate frustration for potential customers. 

Examples of Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing can take many forms including:

• Mobile optimized email campaigns
• SMS campaigns for text subscribers such as early access to sales
• Push notifications that offer deals or encourage reviews
• Ads on social media designed as sponsored content
• Google Ads for mobile browsers and searchers
• Branded apps
• In-app communications
• QR codes to direct mobile traffic