Although marketing to mobile phones IS the hottest marketing concept to come down the pike since the invention of the home computer; it still takes some research to understand the differences between web and mobile marketing to ensure success.
Recently one of my clients called me for coaching on mobile marketing-we’ll call him Mike for the sake of anonymity. Mike spent over $400 to run mobile ads on ad servers and got skunked. I can’t remember the last time I got skunked. Actually once I understood the need for research and testing-and retesting I was able to navigate any environment I was about to advertise in.
Unfortunately Mike didn’t check out the mobile environment he entered. He believed in the ‘pie in the sky’ emails he received daily that promised a boat-load of cash if he just dipped his marketing fish-pole in the mobile water. And so he did. He began promoting Click Bank products. What Mike didn’t know was that he ignored the barriers that exist between mobile phones and the many mobile unfriendly Click Bank products.
He also didn’t realize that the buying process using credit cards is different on mobile phones. He also didn’t think of the physical barrier either. Typing on many mobile phones is a daunting task-thus a huge barrier. Normal size fingers typing in credit card numbers and other required information on the small window mobile phone usually results in a lost sale. It’s easy to understand why buying abandonment statistics are 80% for such products. (Android X by Motorola now has a huge 3×4 screen which makes typing easier).
He would also have learned that Europe, especially Germany and the UK, is an excellent geo-target for mobile phone products. Europeans are far ahead of the United States. They have been using mobile phones for many years due to the lack of land line availability. As a matter of fact mobile phones in Germany are nicknamed “throw aways.”
Mike should have done his homework. He should have researched the product to remove all of these and other barriers. If he would have, he would have recognized the difference between web and mobile-ready products. If he did he would have tailored his campaign differently. After our lengthy conversation Mike realized what he needed to do.
Here are the 5 steps he took for his very successful second try at mobile marketing
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1. Put together a goal
This simply means to define your target audience. Mobile marketing requires it and it’s easy to do.
2. Define your target
Target demographics, age, platform, brand and country and finally define your run time, including dates and times.
3. Find the appropriate product.
Once the first two points have been identified, next move to choose the right electronic
down loadable product
4. Choose the ad serving platform
Ad serving platforms are a dime a dozen. Not all are all good and not all are all bad, they vary in offerings and of course if you’ve chosen one that won’t fit your needs your results will suffer. Choosing an ad server is easy once you recognize the portals where your ad will be served up. Learn this before you run any campaign.
5. Run the ad and track the results
Running and setting up the ad is easy, the hard part is in the tracking. Mike didn’t believe in tracking and that’s bad. If you don’t know the history of your run how would you know what to tweak the second time around?
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