The numbers vary by study, but between 25 to 65% of e-commerce customers make purchases via mobile devices. This set of shoppers has very specific needs. If you aren’t meeting them, chances are you’re losing sales. What do you need to know to target mobile shoppers?
Optimize, Optimize, Optimize
This isn’t the first time you’re hearing this advice, but it bears repeating. Whether you create an app or optimize your website design, you must optimize the shopping experience for mobile. This isn’t a matter of budget or timing. It’s non-negotiable. More and more of your customers are experiencing your brand via mobile devices, sometimes on very small screens. If they cannot view a page properly or the shopping cart is broken in mobile browsers, you will lose a sale.
Customers don’t want to stop their busy lives, put down their smartphone, find a computer, and navigate back to your site. Issues such as being unable to clearly see a product and difficulty entering information via mobile are some of the most popular reasons people don’t make a mobile purchase.
Mobile Segmentation
Targeting the right audience with the right ads always requires data. In addition to basic demographics, such as location, you’ll want some mobile-specific customer data. For example, which devices are your customers using to access your site? Are they coming to your site via social media? If so, which social media networks are bringing you those mobile customers? Which apps are they using? It’s not enough just to know many customers are coming to you via Facebook, thus you should spend more energy on marketing on Facebook. If you know customers are viewing your site in Safari browser mostly between 5:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. on iOS devices from links in the Facebook app for iOS, then you can begin to put together some ideas about your Mobile Buyer Personas. Understanding your audience is the first step in creating campaigns they won’t ignore.
With so much focus on social media marketing, email sometimes gets overlooked. Don’t let your email list grow stale just yet. As many as 68% of emails are opened on mobile devices. While they don’t count for nearly as many conversions, that doesn’t mean it’s impossible to increase your mobile email conversions.
One common problem is emails that aren’t optimized for mobile. They should be readable across devices, mobile browsers, and email apps. Frequently, users get emails that refuse to scale properly or have other display issues rendering them unreadable. In those situations, your customer is much more likely to hit delete than to seek some other device for reading your email. Another hindrance to conversion is when your subscriber clicks through from an email to a page with mobile display issues. Optimize. Test. Repeat often.
Mobile Gaming
This is an area ripe with opportunity for marketing. Whether you create a game for your business or advertise your product or service within games, you should be looking at mobile games as a marketing opportunity. For most businesses, in-app advertising makes the most sense. Depending on your budget, this could mean buying a text ad, a static image, video, or even creating a mini-game that can be played within the app. Most smartphone users play mobile games. Typically they’re playing games to kill time, so you have a captive audience. They’re even more likely to pay attention if they’re receiving an in-game perk for viewing your ads. The initial learning curve to entering the world of “app-vertising” may be well worth your time.
Mobile For You
Your customers aren’t the only important people using smartphones and tablets to do business. Your team is, too. They need access to crucial sales information, customer data, and project calendars on-the-go. Use a CRM with feature-packed apps, such as Insightly, and your team will have all project, pipeline, and customer data at their fingertips. They’ll even be able to scan business cards into your contact database with their mobile device.
It has been said customers may become so saturated with mobile marketing, they’ll eventually ignore it. If they’re constantly bombarded with ads that aren’t relevant to them, then surely they’ll ignore them. However, if you leverage deep customer data, personas, and work to target your marketing — not just to maximize potential conversion but to maximize value to your customers — you’ll build a community of customers who care about your brand and your message. Pair that with excellent, personalized customer service and your community will outlast any downward trend in mobile marketing that may come along.
At Insightly, we offer a CRM used by small and mid-sized businesses from a variety of verticals. Learn about Insightly’s features and plans on our pricing page or sign up for a free trial.
