HOW TO DEVELOP A MOBILE STRATEGY

FOR YOUR BUSINESS

For most modern businesses, developing a mobile strategy is a good way to reach your customer base and keep pace with your competitors. It’s no secret that more and more people are using handheld devices to access the internet and perform many other everyday computing tasks.

It’s also no secret that businesses that fail to change with the times might end up being left behind. The first part of jumping into the mobile world is to develop your strategy but following some crucial steps.

Set Your Goals Before you decide on actual strategies and methods

for your mobile marketing, it’s wise to determine what your goals are. It’s easy to say the goals are to ‘increase sales’ or ‘build brand awareness’ but you’d probably be better off by digging a little deeper.

Increasing sales is almost always the end result, but by being more specific with your mobile goals you can tailor your methods to meet that final sales objective. If you haven’t already, take the time to figure out precisely who your core customers are. Things like age, gender, income status and mobile usage will help you set relevant goals.

It’s also important to know your own business inside and out, and more importantly where the inherent strengths and weaknesses lie. Once you know this information, base your goals around the areas where your business is weakest, with all of the needs of your target market in mind.

Some examples of specific mobile goals might be to drive more traffic to the company website, to improve customer relations, to draw attention to a particular promotion or to increase sign-ups to the company newsletter.

Set Your Budget Now that you have a goal, you’ll also

have to set a budget. The price tag for implementing a mobile marketing strategy can vary quite a lot, so setting your budget is important to help point you in the right direction.

If your mobile budget is substantial, spend as much as is necessary to reach your goals that you set. If you are limited as to how much you can spend, then you may have to get a little more creative with your strategies and techniques to incorporate your goals and stay within budget.

Keep It Simple If this is your first foray into the world of

mobile marketing, the ‘keep it simple’ concept is your probably your best bet. It’s fine to be a trendsetter and develop new and exciting mobile strategies that your customers will love, but simple, tried and tested also works, and you don’t have to worry about it falling flat.

As your experience and budget grow in the mobile arena, you may want to try and do something different, but in the beginning play it safe and follow the path that others have laid down for you. The point is to have a mobile strategy and meet your mobile goals, and keeping it simple will accomplish just that.

Effective Strategies There are several different mobile strategies that are both simple and effective for

accomplishing most mobile goals. The one you use will depend on your specific goals and budget, but some of the more popular ones include:

Mobile Apps – Everyone is familiar with mobile apps. You can find a mobile app for almost anything, and one thing they all seem to have in common is that they provide a useful service. Things like recipes, weather updates, games and even love letter templates are available as apps. Try to think of a concept that your customers would find useful or enjoyable before you develop an app for your business.

Mobile Websites – Many businesses will set up a subdomain of their regular site that is just for mobile devices. That way, when someone enters your company url into a mobile device, it’s recognized as such and gives the user a slightly different experience than visiting the regular website. Fast and easy are two of the more important elements of a mobile website.

Mobile Coupons – The days of searching through newspapers and flyers for coupons may be gone for many people, but mobile coupons are becoming quite popular. If you have a retail business, you can send coupons with a link to a barcode to user’s mobile devices. Including the coupons as part of a strategy to collect email addresses will help you create excitement and gather contact information.

Spread It Around Even though online and

mobile marketing is surging, try not to make the mistake of allowing it to push other forms of advertising out of the picture.

In time, you may notice mobile marketing taking up more and more of your marketing budget, but be sure to spread it around in the beginning, so you’re covered on all sides.

Regular Evaluation While mobile marketing can result in a surge

in sales and a new way for you to connect with customers, it isn’t magic. It does take a good deal of commitment and effort to create a winning strategy. That’s why it is important to evaluate your efforts every step of the way, so you know what’s working and what isn’t working. If you test and then make adjustments where necessary, your mobile strategy should bring you all the results you wanted.