Article

Saten Aghajanyan
Saten Aghajanyan 27 February 2020

3 Mobile Marketing Channels Which Should Be Considered in 2020 by Small Business Owners

It is no secret that as the years go by, mobile devices become more and more prevalent in people's lives. There are over 3.3 billion smartphone owners currently, and this number is expected to grow in the following year. Hence, ignoring mobile marketing can be a costly mistake. This article will cover three of the best mobile marketing channels that small business owners can consider in 2020. The selection will be based on the following criteria: affordability, effectiveness, and potential for outreach. With these criteria in mind, let's discuss those channels.

SMS Marketing

SMS marketing is, by all means, an exclusive mobile marketing channel (learn more here). That is what makes it great. With over five billion and a half mobile devices in the world, only one channel can effectively reach all of them at once, and that is SMS.

Its greatest strengths lie in its simplicity, affordability, and staggering efficiency. You might be hesitant because of so many advantages. However, the fact is that SMS marketing lives up to the hype and more.

Part of the reason why SMS marketing is so effective is that text messages are personal for people. In fact, 90% of text messages are read within 3 minutes after being sent. Perhaps this inclination towards text messages comes from the times when it used to be the only channel of communication between people.

Back in the days, when feature-rich communication channels like WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger, and others were not in the market, SMS was the only way to text each other. Although today those apps are more comfortable for chatting, SMS still remains up-to-date. No other communication channel grabs people's attention the way incoming text messages do. 

If you are still not convinced, here are a couple of facts that can help you make up your mind:

  • SMS messages have double the response rate than phone, email, or even social media networks.
  • Text messages have a 98% open rate and a conversion rate in the range of 20-30%.
  • 90% of text messages are read within three minutes of being received.
  • SMS-delivered coupons have ten times the redemption rate than regular ones.
  • 75% of customers prefer to communicate with brands over SMS.
  • SMS marketing campaigns perform seven times better than their email counterparts.

Source

For small business owners, SMS marketing might be the ideal mobile marketing channel to use. It is a low-maintenance, affordable channel that provides a lot of bang for each buck spent. Not to mention, it can significantly improve customer engagement and loyalty.

Most SMS providers offer advanced templates for client segmentation and personalized marketing campaigns. Let's admit it, everyone likes to be treated a little more individually. Hence, customised promotional messages can increase consumer loyalty.

If you do not want to drain your financial resources on marketing channels that you are not entirely sure will succeed, then SMS marketing may be the solution to your problem.

Email Marketing

Email marketing has been in the scene for a long time now and for a good reason. While it may seem archaic to use this marketing channel, given that a lot of other more interactive channels are in trend now, email has proven its worth in being a reliable and effective way of conducting marketing. Especially when you are on a tight budget. Email marketing is very affordable, which is what you may be looking for as a small business owner.

Moreover, various surveys with high profile marketers have shown that email marketing has the highest ROI (return on investment). That should tell you how effective it can potentially be. Indeed, sending an email has always been free. So the only expense that your business needs to take is merely hiring proper specialists to be in charge of email marketing.  

Contrary to SMS, email is not exclusively a mobile marketing channel. However, considering the ever-growing number of mobile users, using email to target the mobile segment of customers is quite reasonable. Every operating system now comes with a built-in email application, which makes it more practical for everyday use. This is why it makes it into our top 3 mobile marketing channels list.

Almost half of all emails are opened and read on mobile devices. The reasons are simple. People are always on the go, and the one thing that most carry with them without exception is mobile devices. So it makes sense that so many people would access their emails from a mobile phone.

Now, this does not mean you should start spamming people with emails. First and foremost, your emails have to be optimised for mobile platforms. That is to say, the content of your email—images, text, and CTA (call-to-action)—all have to be optimised to be mobile-friendly. Keep in mind that the way content appears and performs on desktop platforms is not necessarily similar to how it does on the mobile. 

In order to have perfectly mobile-optimized promotional emails, make sure to check the following three boxes.

1. Visuals - remember that mobile devices are more likely to have a weaker internet connection. Hence, if you need to include visuals, make sure they are as light as possible. This means cutting down videos and compressing pictures to decrease the email load speed.

2. Texts - since mobile devices have considerably smaller screens as compared to computers, reading long texts is not the most comfortable thing on them. Therefore, try to write shorter content with call-to-action phrases. Also, you can break down the texts to make them more readable. 

3. Buttons - I wouldn't be reinventing the wheel to say that buttons are different for mobile and desktop interfaces. So, before each email campaign, conduct a test on a mobile device to make sure every button works accordingly.

If it does not look the part on mobile devices, then people will simply disregard your email, rendering all your efforts useless. Your emails should inherently be easy to read and respond to on mobile devices if you want them to deliver good results.

Social Media Marketing

Chances are high that you have already found use in social media marketing as a small business owner. Because why not—it costs next to nothing to run, provides excellent exposure for your business, is reasonably accessible by all, and whatnot. The question is: is it mobile-friendly?

Similar to email apps, social media today is more convenient with mobile apps. This is why most users on social media access it through their mobile apps. That means that a significant portion of your target audiences are mobile users. So your social media marketing campaign should reflect that.

Making your social media mobile-friendly goes way beyond curating content to meet the needs of mobile users. You have to make use of social media in a way that engages your customers on their mobile devices. For example, if you have a retail store that is running a sales promotion, encourage clients to show up to store with coupons on their mobile devices to get a discount. 

Or, if you have an event, encourage people to share about it on social media using their phones to get into a contest and win a prize. Ultimately, there are a number of ways you can leverage social media to accomplish your objectives and engage clients. It is all up to your imagination.

Mobile marketing channels are a dime a dozen. Some are effective, while others not so much. And the prices are all over the place—your marketing costs can range from minimal to unaffordable pretty quick if you are not careful with your budget. 

These three mobile marketing channels are ideal to use for small business owners because they are effective, affordable, and can help you reach your target market easily and quickly. They have been relevant for a while, and there is no other channel that shows similar results in terms of effectiveness. Hence, do not hesitate to include each of these in your business plan and start with them. At least for the upcoming couple of years, they will undoubtedly benefit your business.

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