Whether you realize it or not, mobile marketing is ingrained into the fabric of our lives and has carved out a niche that will likely never be replaced. 

In fact, mobile has literally become the centerpiece of most customer experiences. The vast majority of web browsing, search engine queries, video consumption, email opens, and social engagement now occurs on mobile devices.

Think about it — when was the last time you checked your mobile device, tapped on a mobile app, or received a marketing message on your phone? You likely get a considerable amount of mobile messages every day, like a package arrival alert, a reminder for your upcoming doctor’s appointment, a deposit in your bank account, a flight delay, and so on. 

These are essential updates that allow us to go about our everyday lives, and receiving them via mobile makes it convenient and streamlined. 

That’s why mobile marketing is such an important aspect of any business’ overall strategy. It’s everywhere, and if you want your business to stay top of mind for your customers, you need to make your brand as accessible as possible for mobile device users.

What Is Mobile Marketing?

Mobile marketing is a multi-channel online marketing technique focused on reaching a specific audience on their smartphones, tablets, or other mobile devices. The channels used to reach them can include websites, email, SMS, social media, or other mobile applications. 

The goal of mobile marketing is to provide consumers with personalized information that promotes goods and services and offers key reminders that enrich the lives of those opted in to receive notifications. 

Why Is Mobile Marketing So Effective?

Mobile marketing has boomed in popularity in recent years for one simple reason: People across the world have become more attached to their mobile devices. 

Mobile Is the Default Way We Go Online

The proof of this can be found everywhere you look. Basically everyone has a smartphone, everyone is interconnected, and everyone uses their mobile devices to research, shop, and engage with the brands they love.

2021 saw nearly 15 billion mobile devices operating worldwide, and that number is only expected to climb. By 2025, the number of devices is projected to exceed 18 billion.

And with mobile phones currently contributing to more than half of all internet traffic, it’s easy to see that mobile marketing is no longer a nice addition to your marketing strategy. It’s an essential element for your business’ future.

Customers Want To Purchase via Mobile

While there were fears a few years ago that consumers would be reluctant to purchase via mobile, mobile retail e-commerce sales have only gone up. They exceeded $430 billion in 2022 and are projected to reach $710 billion by 2025.

That’s 44% of e-commerce sales, all done on a mobile device.

Mobile is on track to facilitate a majority of online purchases in just a few years, which is why brands need to shift their focus to mobile marketing for the future.

Types of Mobile Marketing

In today’s market, customers have evolving preferences for how they want to access your products or services. Your audience isn't just signing onto your website from desktop computers anymore — there are multiple mobile touchpoints that you can use to connect with customers where it counts.

Social Media Marketing

If you’re wondering where to begin with your mobile marketing strategy, social media is a great place to start. It’s one of the most important and popular mobile channels available to businesses. 

Apps like Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok have become synonymous with the mobile experience, and being accessible to your audience on these platforms should be a foundational part of your marketing strategy. 

The strong conversion potential of these apps makes it well worth the effort of maintaining a social media presence. These platforms boast billions of mobile users who are actively engaged, and the average conversion rates from social ad spending yield impressive results. 

Just being present on social apps allows more customers to find your brand, and harnessing social advertising and boosted content can help drive sales. 

Plus, the most valuable aspect of social media is how much information it can offer businesses about their ideal audience. The wealth of data on what your customers like and dislike, along with how they want to engage with your brand, can inform your social strategy and your marketing strategy as a whole. 

All this information can help you build out stronger audience segments, make better product recommendations, and build a comprehensive understanding of each of your customers — which is the key to a winning marketing strategy.

Read This Next: A Single Customer View: Everything You Need To Know

Text Message Marketing

While SMS, MMS, and WhatsApp marketing may seem like a relatively new mobile marketing method, it has quickly become a favorite channel for brands looking to connect with their customers. Texts have consistently performed well and are only getting better.

Most of the success of SMS can be attributed to how easy and simple the service is. A text message is an instant line of communication between the customer and your business — there’s no app to download or login between you and the audience. 

9 out of 10 consumers prefer to communicate with businesses through text message. Whether it’s through sales promotions, alerts, or back-and-forth communication, customers have already adopted texting as a worthwhile way to connect. 

Read This Next: Everything You Need To Create the Best SMS Marketing Campaigns 

And with an average click-through rate (CTR) of 19%, it’s easy to see why text messaging is one of the most rapidly growing marketing channels. 

With so much potential and so many promising use cases, it’s in every business’ best interest to invest in SMS marketing. From cart abandonment messages to personalized deals and discounts, there’s no shortage of rewarding campaigns that can optimize your mobile marketing strategy. 

Mobile Apps and Push Notifications

Mobile apps are the brass tacks of mobile marketing simply because they are the predominant way that mobile users interact with their phones. The average smartphone owner uses 10 apps per day, dedicating over four hours of their time and attention to app use.

With this kind of attention-grabbing power, apps are an enticing channel for businesses. But with so many apps to compete with, it’s vital to keep customers coming back to your app and consistently engaging with your brand — which is exactly what push notifications can offer.

Push notifications are sent right to your user’s device, cutting through the clutter to reach your audience on their home screen. For e-commerce businesses that have an app for their customers to download and use, this messaging channel provides an easy win for your marketing efforts. It’s a great opportunity to increase your reach, grow your customer engagement, and boost conversions. 

Push notifications really shine when used in timely, hyper-relevant mobile marketing campaigns. Informative messages, location-based marketing campaigns, and personalized recommendations are great ways to use this channel effectively. And these types of focused campaigns are simple to sync with your overall strategy.

Read This Next: The Ultimate Guide to Mobile Push Notifications for E-commerce Businesses

Email Marketing 

You might not immediately think of email as a mobile marketing channel, but the facts say otherwise. 

More than half of all emails are opened on a mobile device, and just seeing your emails on a smartphone or tablet can increase your audience’s click-through rates — people who view emails via mobile are 65% more likely to follow your CTA and view your website. 

If you want your mobile marketing strategy to succeed, you need to make sure your emails are designed and optimized to look just as good on a smartphone or tablet as they do on a desktop. 

To create mobile-friendly emails, you just need to keep the mobile-device viewing experience in mind. Mobile devices display fewer characters than desktop computers for subject lines and preheader text, so keeping these short and sweet is best practice. 

The same goes for your email content — no one wants to read a wall of text on mobile, so short messaging, properly sized images to break up text, and clear calls to action are ideal.

Read This Next: 5 Elements of a Successful E-Commerce Email Marketing Strategy

Mobile Marketing Tips for Success

Because the channel is so unique, it is important to consider that not everything about your mobile marketing strategy will be the same as your other types of marketing. Understanding these differences will be key to your mobile strategy’s success. 

Here are some tips and tricks to help: 

Acknowledge Mobile as Its Own Unique Format

Don’t treat mobile like an extension of your other marketing efforts. It needs to be more than an afterthought for your ad strategy, email campaigns, or site experience.

A phone is arguably the most personal device that each of us owns, and there’s little tolerance for impersonal communications from today’s consumer. They expect your messaging and mobile experience to be personal, guided by data, and highly relevant.

Read This Next: E-Commerce Personalization: Your Complete Guide

Be Bold in Your Mobile Marketing Strategy

Don’t be afraid to mix things up. Since mobile is such a singular medium, there’s room for experimentation and testing to see what works for your brand. 

Don’t assume that what works well for your competitors or a business in a different market will work for you. Try things out and learn from the results. 

Understand Your Audience

Fully knowing your target audience should always influence your mobile advertising. Identifying who your audience is, how you reach them, and what content you serve them is vital for a strong mobile marketing strategy.

Mobile offers a distinct opportunity for your marketing efforts. Our mobile devices are with us everywhere we go, and you can capitalize on how connected your audience is to their phones through focused, purposeful messages. 

Creating campaigns that offer real-time benefits for your audience, like time-sensitive deals, prompt updates on their orders, or helpful reengagement campaigns, is a strong step towards getting the most ROI from your mobile marketing.

Read This Next: How Reengagement Campaigns Boost Revenue

Be Clear and Concise 

Mobile devices are succinct by design. They have small screens and an agile user interface, and mobile users are trained to scroll past or navigate through things at a rapid pace to find what they’re looking for. 

Businesses need to consider this when crafting content to present to a mobile audience — short and sweet is the most productive approach.

Let Bloomreach Engagement and Sinch Power Your Mobile Marketing

With so many channels to keep track of and best practices to remember with mobile marketing, it’s essential to have the right technology that helps your company effectively market on mobile devices. 

Sinch, a key partner for Bloomreach in the mobile marketing realm, is a world leader in mobile customer experiences that brings businesses and people closer together through personalized engagement. 

Sinch’s cloud communications platform is capable of reaching every mobile phone on the planet in seconds or less, offering a broad messaging profile that encompasses conversation messaging in all of its forms. 

That’s why Bloomreach Engagement uses Sinch as a provider for our native SMS, MMS, and WhatsApp channels — our partnership with this market-leading company has helped hundreds of Engagement customers create personalized mobile experiences for the right audience, on the right channel, and at the right time. 

With Bloomreach’s unrivaled data collection, marketing automation capabilities, and built-in Sinch API, companies across the world are able to send data-driven and product-specific automated messages to their customers to help reengage and guide them through the ideal customer journey with their brand.

With Bloomreach Engagement and Sinch, your brand has everything necessary to connect with your customers and build the next-level mobile campaigns that your audience craves.

Want to learn more about the game-changing benefits that Bloomreach Engagement can offer your business? Find out how we can help you drive more impactful results with our mobile app marketing and mobile messaging features.