5 Mobile Marketing Tips for the Small Business Entrepreneur
About the time you got used to the wide world of online marketing, mobile marketing hit the scene. Now you have to take all the things you learned about marketing to a mass audience with short attention spans, and make the messages smaller, faster and easier still.
What do you need to know to ensure mobile marketing success?
Get to the Point
You’ve likely heard about the “8-second rule”, which states you have eight seconds to get to the point before your reader gets bored and moves on. With mobile marketing, you may not get an eight full seconds. Make your messages clear, concise and easy to view on a small screen. If heavy graphics or slow loading fonts are stalling the user experience, this is a killer. Your users are waiting for trains, distracted by coworkers, and keeping one eye on a boss or a toddler. If you can’t grab their attention fast and hold it long enough to deliver your message, it’s a lost cause.
robot using a blackberry by Cryptonaut, on Flickr. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.
Double-check Your Site on Different Devices
Even more than PCs, mobile screens vary greatly in size. If you’re developing for mobile, be sure to take into account the screen real estate and resolution for all mobile devices. Develop your site and marketing messages to look good and deliver a full user experience for all shapes and sizes. Each time you add to the site or change the message, re-test it on a variety of screen sizes to make sure all your users are getting the ideal effect. So whether you’re catering to businesses who utilize BYOD with BlackBerry, the tablet crowd or other mobile niches, you’ll be prepared with a site that looks great on virtually anything.
Make it Easy to Check In on Social Media
Check ins are a great way to get free advertising by your guests and users. For example, Facebook offers recommendations and check ins based on the customer’s friends who have also used your product or visited you. Encourage this so that newcomers will see their friends who already like or use your stuff. People are more likely to check you out if they know their friends already enjoy doing business with you.
Use SMS Messages Wisely
SMS messages are a double-edged sword. On one hand, they’re a quick and cheap way to contact all your leads about a new product, service, or a great price. On the other hand, it’s too easy to overwhelm your users and cause them to become angry and accuse you of spamming them. Walk a fine line between keeping in touch and sending spam by limiting your SMS messages to once per week or less. Daily messages will likely be considered spam.
Encourage Users to Add You on Their RSS Feeds
Adding a button on your blog, so users can easily follow you on their favorite RSS feed, is a great way to stay in touch without fearing your messages will be perceived as spam. When users choose to receive your messages, it means they’re welcome to reading what you’ve got. The key is to consistently offer high quality information so they stick around to continue receiving your messages.
When done right, mobile marketing reaches more users in less time than even high-speed online marketing. Just realize how the medium is different, and consider your user experience every step of the way. Useful, interesting messages are always welcome delights in the user’s day.
