Since the dawn of the smartphone, it’s been possible to do just about anything — shop, take photos, share ideas on social media, manage work, and so much more. Today, there are approximately 5.22 billion unique mobile users online, accounting for around half of all web traffic worldwide.
As a marketer or business owner, if you’re not targeting this audience, you’re missing out on a BIG piece of the pie.
While developing your mobile marketing engagement strategy, there are few things as important as mobile customer engagement. That is why you must explore various channels.
What Is Mobile Marketing Engagement?
Mobile engagement is when you engage a user through various mobile-based channels. This engagement relates back to the level of interaction between your brand and your customer via a mobile device. The more valuable and frequent the interactions are, the more engaged your customers will be.
While you don’t need to create an app to earn mobile engagement, it helps. This strategy allows customers to engage directly with your brand. Whether you want your customers to set appointments, make a purchase, or initiate a call, apps can help you achieve your goals.
Considering the average smartphone user picks up their device 85 times a day, leading to a total of five hours of daily use, there are many opportunities for mobile engagement. From mobile ads to text messaging, this connectivity will allow you to create more targeted, located-based offers and notifications.
Early and Consistent Mobile Engagement Is Critical to Your Success
Mobile engagement can occur both inside and outside of apps. Whether your goal is to deliver an optimal customer experience or build long-term customer relationships, this is the way to do so.
Research shows that when you achieve a 5% increase in customer retention, this can lead to increasing profitability by up to 95%.
The issue is, only 55% of customers who download an app will use it again over the next three months. Therefore, you must encourage your customers to not only return to your app but also your website, store, or wherever else they can interact with your brand. The sooner, the better.
As reported by Appboy, early and consistent engagement during the first month can lead to a 90% retention rate, which could make all the difference for your bottom line.
In the world of mobile marketing, you have many options to consider. Regardless of what you choose, always remember to:
- Build everything with mobile-friendliness in mind. From coupons to emails, you must be able to access the content you create on mobile devices.
- Encourage customers to enable push notifications when building an app. Again, these notifications can support higher retention rates.
- Also, add contextual value to your app. If a customer hasn’t purchased something in a while, send them a mobile coupon.
- Make communication easy.
- If you have a physical storefront, get customers to opt-in to whatever it is you offer. Perhaps you have created a loyalty program or are trying to grow your social media following. The goal is to gain the attention of your customer after they leave so that they become a repeat customer.
Mobile Engagement Channels to Consider This Upcoming Year
There was a lot of change in 2020 in response to COVID. From changes in consumer behavior to the rise of QR codes, businesses across all industries are altering their marketing strategies. This includes the most optimal mobile engagement channels.
Of course, what works best for one brand won’t be ideal for the next. That is why you need to consider your options in order to hand-pick the best solutions for you and your unique business goals.
Push Notifications
If you have developed an app, you need to focus your attention on push notifications. This will allow you to send a message to your customers’ phones. Banner alerts will show up on the user’s lock screen, increasing the odds that they will engage and interact with your brand. Although 50% of users find push notifications useful, to leave a true impact, your push notifications should be segmented. When building your push notifications strategy, consider targeting each notification to make messages more relevant, crafting them with the end-user in mind. This can boost response rates by 4-7x.
Recommended reading: A Quick Guide to In-App & Push Notifications
Push notifications are used whenever you want to send a reminder about something. These notifications can be both creative and informative. However, when you use them needs to be considered. For example, no one wants to be woken up at midnight, which is why these notifications should be sent at a reasonable hour. The “best” time to send notifications and the frequency at which you send them will vary depending on what day of the week it is, your persona profiles, as well as your industry.
If you’re wondering how often you should send push notifications, there is no black and white answer. Some apps will send 1-2 notifications a week while others will send 7-10. The number you send will depend on the type of app you’ve created and its features. For example, a gaming app will likely send one notification a day, compared to a fitness app, which can send 3-4 notifications a day depending on the user’s goals.
Beacons and Geofence
Location-based marketing is extremely powerful. This ties back into push notifications, as beacons and geofencing promote products and services that are more personalized. So, how do beacons and geofencing differ? And when should you use them?
A geofence is a virtual “fence” that encloses a specific area. In many cases, this space will be a store or venue. A beacon (Bluetooth Low Energy) is a hardware device that sends a signal that allows users to opt-in via their smartphone. Both geofences and beacons aim to achieve similar goals and are complementary to one another. When you use these technologies will depend on when you want to interact with a user.
For example, if you want to engage a user when they are near a specific store, you’d use a geofence. In contrast, a beacon would be used to determine if a user is at that store’s checkout. This means that geofencing is more effective when implementing a broader marketing campaign, targeting customers on a larger scale. Beacons are best when you want to offer location-based services indoors, as this approach offers greater precision.
SMS
Short message service (SMS) is a text messaging service that can be used from peer-to-peer, as well as from business to customer.
Since text messaging is universal, this option allows you to communicate with your customers without them needing to install an app or granting notification permission. This approach also leads to a high response rate. That’s because 94% of text messages are read, making this mobile marketing method highly effective. Whether you text customers to inform them of your “deal of the day” or are informing customers of a new product, SMS marketing is an excellent way to drive engagement.
Read more: Why You Should Consider Adding A2P Messaging to Your Marketing Strategy
Get Started with Mobile Marketing Today
As Rich Miner, Co-Founder of Android, said, “Smartphones are reinventing the connection between companies and their customers.”
There are so many opportunities for you to reach your customers and encourage continued engagement. In addition to the channels discussed above, mobile marketing will allow you to leverage the power of QR codes, mobile coupons, and more.