Mobile marketing made easy

First steps forward

When considering what mobile direction will best suit your business, there are few things to keep in mind. If you’re developing a specific campaign, the effectiveness of any mobile element is often determined by where it sits in the design process, and the earlier the better.

It’s also important to realise that mobile is still a specialist space. Of all marketing channels, mobile remains the most technically complex. The need to develop content and applications across a range of devices combined with the constant technological change that’s part and parcel of a developing area, means that your business will be best served by a specialist mobile agency. There’s a lot of room for error, and it’s important (from the point of view of both technology and strategy) to team up with people who know the terrain. Thankfully, in Australia, there’s no shortage of mobile agencies to help out.

Advertising in the mobile space

When it comes to advertising, the mobile space has a definite edge.

Studies show that ‘click-through’ rates for banner and text ads are higher on mobile platforms than in the general web space. One reason for this is that mobile displays are far less cluttered. Ads are fewer and more prominently integrated into the content, increasing their chance of being noticed.

A second reason is that mobile platforms are much more targetable. With the right intelligence, ads can be served to specific categories of users; those with specific devices or those on specific networks, for example.

Through specialist agencies such as the Admob, businesses can also promote their wares on popular mobile sites, and through ad-supported mobile applications as well. This can a powerful way to reach your audience. If you’re selling sporting equipment, for example, you can advertise through fitness and training programs.

A common misperception in the mobile space is that the audience is restricted to the Gen Y demographic. In fact, the mobile audience is made up of primarily ‘early adopters’ across all age groups; an audience that has added value because it sets the trends.

Another benefit of the online space is that it’s also more measurable. A plethora of tools and stats packages are available to track mobile campaign performance, often delivering metrics over and above what’s available for regular online campaigns.

Riding on the wave of the iPhone’s success, mobile technologies are offering an increasing number of opportunities for businesses to reach out to existing and potential customers wherever they are.

While mobile is best considered as ‘just another channel’, it’s also one that presents unique possibilities for brands and businesses to set themselves apart, creating new dynamics for customer engagement in increasingly competitive markets.

—Simon Goodrich is MD of Portable Content (www.portablecontent.com) a Melbourne-based digital technology company.

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