Mobile advertising is trending and marketers are starting to include it in their mix.
According to the recent research done by BI Intelligence, mobile is growing faster than all other digital advertising formats.
Mobile display and mobile video ad revenues will grow at an astonishing compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 96% and 73%, respectively, between 2013 and 2018.
Here, we will look as to why mobile advertising is so effective. One of the most obvious reasons why it is effective is that we can reach the right consumer with the right message at the right time.
We gain a far richer understanding of the consumer because mobile provides more data.
Mobile offers more data points than a desktop media
Traditional data points would be information such as age, gender, income, ethnicity, education, and interests. Mobile provides us with additional data such as operating system data, precise location data, connection speed data (is the person connecting via WiFi, 3G, or LTE), and much more.
Mobile apps provide useful data for specific targeting
Consumers spend huge amount of time on mobile devices using apps, accessing games, music, photos, subscriptions, etc. Consumers often allow apps to collect and use their location in order to enhance the app experience. Apps collect location data that can be leveraged for different marketing objectives depending on the granularity of the location data.
Mobile provide geo-contextual data
For example, geo-contextual data can tell you that a consumer recently spent time in the gym, is currently shopping at a supermarket, and is within walking distance of two department stores.
Well this level of location data is interesting for advertisers to use to target those consumers that are in proximity of their premises and serve them ads or send them incentives and coupons to visit their stores.
Mobile users access their smartphones many times per day, at work, during travel as well as at home while consuming other channels.
Mobile offers strong opportunities in video. This is particularly useful because TV viewers often turn to their mobile devices during commercial breaks.
Brands can also boost consumer engagement with creative Rich Media such as short videos, 360 degree product tours, social sharing, and other brand experiences.
Mobile advertising can be used to reach people at all levels of the consumer experience. With it, you can:
- Connect it with Social and raise brand awareness among key consumers of a new product, brand, or product category. Include social sharing buttons to enable your campaigns to go viral.
- Increase favorability toward existing products or brands. For example, many auto manufacturers need to reach end users to visit their branches, sign up for test drives and more. Mobile can be a big help.
- Drive direct response campaigns. The three most effective calls to action are discount coupons (e.g., 15 percent-off coupons for nearby mobile users), buy-one-get-one promotions and free items.
- Drive conversions. This is best done by placing a phone number as call to action (CTA). All users need to do is to click on call and your phone will be ringing with a lead.
- Drive mobile actions including app downloads, coupon downloads, check-ins, or any other direct response metric. With mobile apps, you have knowledge of your customers, who they are, how often they use your app and this insights should be used for better targeting.
- Drive real world actions including in store visits and purchases. Incentives could include a complimentary discounts, virtual coupons or points when in store.
A way to go about mobile advertising is to set up two or three objectives that are important for your marketing campaigns and try it out to achieve those objectives.
You might end up being positively surprised once you add mobile to your mix and your mobile campaigns start running, so why not give it a go.
If you would like to share your experiences with mobile advertising, please send your comments @SlavicaJD or in comments below. We welcome your feedback!
This is a guest post article by Slavica Dummer.
Slavica is an enthusiastic marketing strategist with a wealth of experience across the full marketing mix. Services include blogging, content curation and syndication, social media management and SEO. You can find her on Twitter, LinkedIn, Google+ (+Slavica JD), as well as on marketingkik.
