Change happens so rapidly in marketing that it’s already becoming old news, but the truth is beginning to dawn on every business: the Internet has officially become a mobile-first environment. In this new world, it’s critical to know how to use mobile marketing to generate leads. These four mobile lead generation tips will ensure you’ve got a winning strategy:
1. Don’t Make Assumptions; Use Google’s Mobile–Friendly Test
You’ve finally got your website set up for mobile. Your next step: move on to the next project, right? Not so fast. Double-check that everything is perfectly optimized for mobile by running your site through the free service of Google’s Mobile Friendly Test. You simple paste your url into the box, and Google does the rest. It comes back with a general response — i.e. “Awesome! This Page is Mobile-Friendly,” for example, and then it lists resource (if any) that Googles robots had to block in the mobile version of the site.
2. Make a Lead Generation Form That’s Mobile-Friendly
When you build your form:
- Feature drop-down lists
- Use simple-select buttons
- Don’t require a great deal of typing. Typing is the enemy of the mobile experience. Our thumbs already get enough work with all the texting we do.
- Don’t overload your form with too much visual activity or fields. The goal is to avoid overwhelming their eyes. If you put too much on the form, it will take them longer to absorb it, which increases the odds that they’ll leave the form. Use Minimalistic design (i.e. plenty of negative space) and get them through the form as quickly as possible.
- Make the height of the field high enough for those with larger fingers
3. Make Your Emails Mobile-Friendly
Fortunately, it’s not difficult to get your email campaigns souped-up for mobile devices. Lynn Ruby’s tips are superb, and I’ll sum them up for you in four quick bullet points:
- 40 characters or less for the email subject line: Any more than 40 characters and you risk making your articulate (but too wordy) subject line unreadable on a mobile device.
- Single column only: multiple columns get squished into chaos on a mobile screen sometimes, and you lose control of how your site looks to visitors.
- 11 point font at the very minimum: go bigger for headings, and don’t be shy to use big, easy-to-read fonts across the board. Be kind to the eyes of your visitors.
- Use the correct phone number format: take out the parenthesis, in other words. Only use dashes or periods in between number groups. Otherwise, your visitor’s smart phone will not be able to auto-dial you by just clicking on the number.
4. Try a Text Messaging Campaign
Mobile devices also open the opportunity to start text message campaigns. Even though marketers have grown accustomed to traditional channels, like email, there is still room for growth in the SMS channel. Text message marketing is great because it’s permission-based. You’re only communicating to a highly targeted group of people who really care about your business and what it has to say! It’s also the fastest way to put special offers or promotions into the hands of your customers.
Within a text messaging platform, like mzCONNECT, you’ll also have access to an analytics dashboard with valuable insights into your text marketing efforts. Within this dashboard, you’ll be able to see when people are opting in and out, how your text messaging campaigns are performing and where your subscribers are located. This information will help you provide more personalized content to subscribers, assisting you in the mobile lead generation process.
Your lead generation strategy should always accommodate the mobile user but it doesn’t mean you need to create an entirely new strategy — you just have to tweak what you already have for desktop, for mobile experiences. Applying these simple tips will make your mobile experience enjoyable for your users, and help bring in more leads.