A Guide on Mobile & App Marketing

Mobile marketing, the use of the internet through smartphones and other portable devices, has exploded over the past decade, bringing new opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs to connect with their customers in more convenient ways than ever before. 
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A Guide on Mobile & App Marketing 

Mobile marketing, the use of the internet through smartphones and other portable devices, has exploded over the past decade, bringing new opportunities for businesses and entrepreneurs to connect with their customers in more convenient ways than ever before. 

Mobile apps are arguably more important than websites to most people, as more and more people are using their mobile devices to connect to the internet instead of their desktop computers or laptops. As a result, people now spend 90% of their mobile time on different apps.

As companies work harder than ever to stand out from the crowd, they often forget that many of their strategies could hurt their performance instead of helping it if they’re not well-planned and executed correctly.

If you’re thinking about incorporating mobile marketing into your business plan, or if you’re just starting as an entrepreneur and want to keep up with the trends in digital marketing, here are some essential resources on mobile and app marketing that will help you stay ahead of the curve.

Importance of Mobile & App Marketing

Mobile and app marketing is important because it's a new way for businesses to reach customers in the age of digital technology. 

Mobile and app marketing allows you to promote your business across various channels based on customers’ location, time, or interests. With mobile and app marketing campaigns, it is possible to reach more customers for less cost with the help of real-time bidding platforms. 

For example, let’s say that your customer base mostly consists of 25-to 35-year-olds active at night. You can use the advertising placements to target potential customers in this demographic from 10 pm to 4 am. Your campaign will target only those who fit into these parameters while using their phone. 

Furthermore, mobile ads also allow you to re-target users with messaging tailored specifically for them. For example, say someone downloaded your app but stopped using it because they were too busy; after two weeks of being inactive on the app, they might receive an email notification reminding them about how easy the application is to use. 

These reminders could get them back into your user base by reminding them why they downloaded the application in the first place. 

There are various ways to promote your product and company through mobile devices. It all depends on what kind of information you want to share with customers, your target audience, and where they typically go online.

Assessing the Effectiveness of Mobile & App Marketing

The future of marketing lies in how companies reach consumers through mobile channels. No matter your business size, there are plenty of ways to make your marketing effective by integrating different digital channels. 

There are many benefits to implementing mobile marketing strategies, such as increased customer loyalty, improved customer satisfaction rates, and increased conversion rates. 

Other forms of mobile marketing include copywriting, push notifications, text messages, location-based services, animations, static images, creatives, and video ads. To maximize your return, it's important to integrate all these platforms into one cohesive strategy. 

More than ever, consumers want personalized attention, so don't miss out on the opportunity to interact with them via your smartphone. 

Nowadays, almost everyone has a smartphone and uses social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Snapchat to communicate with friends. 

As people become increasingly reliant on their smartphones for communicating, staying in touch with family members, and ordering items online from wherever they happen to be at the moment (at home or in line at Starbucks), marketers need to respond accordingly by tailoring ads specifically for smartphones. 

It’s no longer enough just knowing where someone lives; you also need to know what type of device they’re using and what apps they download onto it if you want high engagement rates.

How Does Mobile & App Marketing Work?

Whether your company is big or small, chances are you have an app or a mobile website. This means it is your responsibility to make sure they are marketing effectively. 

Lucky for you, we’ve compiled a list of 11 best practices to ensure the effectiveness of your mobile and app marketing strategy.

  • Find out where your target demographic spends their time on their mobile device. 
  • Ensure that the content being marketed to them through the app or site is relevant. Conduct keyword research to know their search queries.
  • Use technology to push messages directly to their phones. 
  • Keep track of what works and what doesn't by using analytics tools like Google Analytics and adjust accordingly. 
  • Take advantage of geofencing that allow your customers' location data to be used for location-based marketing campaigns (i.e., offer deals at nearby restaurants). 
  • Use gamification techniques such as leaderboards, points, badges, etc., to encourage engagement with the content offered on the mobile platform. 
  • Remember that apps and sites should complement each other; don't let one be more important than the other. 
  • Consider integrating social media plans to keep up with trends and share information among followers and friends on platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, Tumblr, Instagram, and LinkedIn. 
  • Integrate customer feedback into every decision you make. The last thing you want is a disgruntled customer who will not hesitate to use social media or write reviews about your product if they're unhappy. 
  • Test new ideas against old ones. Sometimes something new will work better than something old.
  • Reach out to influencers within your industry to increase brand awareness.

Mobile Marketing vs. App Marketing 

Mobile marketing and app marketing are two ways to promote your business or product. When deciding which form of marketing is best for you, it's important to understand the differences between the two and how they work. 

Ultimately, understanding the advantages and disadvantages of each type of marketing will help determine which will provide you with a stronger return on investment.

It is also important to consider whether your target market is more likely to use social media than download an app. Each type of marketing success depends on its target audience, so both types should be analyzed before deciding which will better suit your needs. 

Let’s examine a few of these differences:

  • A primary difference between mobile marketing and app marketing is that mobile marketing relies heavily on social media platforms like Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Snapchat, LinkedIn, etc. In contrast, you can download apps onto a smartphone. 
  • If the people in your target market would rather share content via social media than download an app, mobile marketing may be a better choice. However, app marketing may be more effective if people in your target market are more likely to download an app than share content on social media networks. 
  • In addition to creating great content, it is important to measure ROI (return on investment) by analyzing data from analytics tools such as Google Analytics. 

To measure ROI in a mobile campaign, focus on metrics such as traffic sources, conversion rates, and the number of conversions per source. Meanwhile, to measure ROI in an app campaign, analyze how many downloads per day there are per source and how many active users there are per day. 

These measures will allow you to see if your marketing strategies are working or not and allow you to make adjustments accordingly.

Both forms of marketing have their strengths and weaknesses, but whichever form you pursue will require time and resources. Whether you choose to invest in a mobile campaign or app campaign, successful campaigns need a strategy as well as quality content. 

How to Determine the Type of Mobile Ads You Can Produce

The first step in this process is determining the type of mobile ads that your company will want to use. The main types are in-app and banner ads. Which one is best depends largely on what you are trying to advertise. 

Banners are mostly static, while an app can give more information and have a stronger impact because it forces the user to interact with it. 

Other types of ads include video ads, which can be animated or live; full page takeovers, which cover up all content so that only your ad is visible; and interactive, which have the user control some part of them. 

All these options have strengths and weaknesses depending on who you're targeting and what kind of message you want to send them. 

For example, if you're targeting people playing games on their phones, then in-game ads might be the way to go. But videos would work better if you target millennials interested in cars. 

You should also consider cost per click (CPC) and cost per impression (CPM). CPC rates are determined by advertisers bidding against each other in real time, while CPM rates involve buying blocks of time from advertising networks. 

Finally, decide whether or not you want your ads to rotate throughout users' screens or stay on one screen at a time. Again, these decisions depend on how much money you want to spend and how frequently you need your message seen. 

It's worth noting that rotating ads will help avoid banner blindness, where users ignore the banners because they've seen them too many times before. 

Also, Google Ads offers tools for creating native ads. If you don't know what those are, think about the apps you download when you start using a new phone. They're usually created by companies other than Google and could range from general utilities to streaming music apps or even social media sites. 

The idea behind native ads is that they blend into the platform seamlessly so that users won't feel bombarded with promotions. 

Key Ways Mobile & App Marketing Can Help a Business

Smartphones have become one of the most popular ways to communicate and stay in touch with family, friends, colleagues, and customers. 

The average person spends 4 hours and 10 minutes a day using their phone. In turn, this has caused an exponential increase in the use of mobile apps. 

Companies had to adapt to catch potential consumers browsing through their content or engaging with other ads on their devices as opposed to before, when they were just limited to using social media networks such as Facebook or Twitter. 

Mobile & App Marketing is important for companies because it allows them to build their brand image, establish new customer relationships, track market trends and feedback, provide customer service, and help drive sales. 

With well-designed call-to-action, landing pages, businesses will boost engagement on their mobile apps.

With marketing being so hyper-competitive nowadays, it's no wonder that 97% of marketers are currently using some form of mobile marketing (including text messages). 

The good news is that several different platforms are available to create effective campaigns with minimal investment. 

Examples of Mobile & App Marketing

Mobile marketing has proven to be an extremely effective method of reaching consumers – and while some marketers have been quicker to catch on than others, many successful campaigns can serve as inspiration.

We’ll look at examples of successful mobile and app marketing strategies so that you can bring these tactics into your campaign.

Starbucks

Starbucks started an app that allows customers to find nearby stores, earn reward points, and even purchase food and drinks using their phones or devices. 

The coffee chain achieved 100% engagement, over 50% in-app purchases, and a 5x lift in average order value. 

Starbucks' Social Gift Card lets customers send their friends or family a digital Starbucks Card eGift. It was a huge success that resulted in hundreds of thousands of dollars in revenue within the first day.

Uber Eats

Uber Eats is a food delivery service that was founded in 2014. It uses the Uber platform, which is well-known for its other products, to provide its customers with options for meal ordering. 

When users sign up to use Uber Eats, they must have an account with Uber to place an order. It has grown rapidly in recent years due to its reliance on the Uber name and reviews that report prompt deliveries, fresh ingredients, and reasonable prices.

Nike+ Run Club

The Nike+ Run Club app is one of the best running apps today, with over 8 million downloads to date. As a free download, it provides users with running programs, trackers, and mentors from their social networks to create an immersive experience that keeps them motivated throughout their run. 

This app targets a younger demographic more interested in trying new things and sharing their progress with others to make a name for themselves in the running community.

Top Mobile & App Marketing Tools

With more apps being downloaded than ever, it’s more important to know the best ways to promote your mobile app or product. Luckily, there are plenty of tools out there that can help you market and advertise your product and get it in the eyes of potential customers. 

To succeed in mobile and app marketing, you need to understand which tools will help your business succeed and which aren’t worth your time or money.

Here are 10 of the top mobile and app marketing tools you need to know about:

  • Branch.io
  • App Annie
  • Google AdMob
  • Inapptics
  • Tapstream
  • AppFigures
  • AppsFlyer
  • Localytics
  • Apptentive
  • Mixpanel

Mobile & App Marketing Goals and KPIs

When setting goals for your mobile and app marketing campaign, consider your industry and the resources available to you. 

Start by defining your KPIs and how you plan to measure your success. For example, do you want more downloads, user engagement, and more people signing up for your newsletter? 

With these goals, you can better tailor marketing tactics to suit those KPIs. 

As a general rule of thumb, content drives traffic that converts into installs or registrations. If you have an established audience and brand awareness but need help with installs or registrations, consider taking advantage of advertising platforms like Facebook Ads or Google Display Network. 

Key Takeaway

These are the three main takeaways from today's post:

  • First, knowing what you want is a good place to start before you invest in developing an app. This will help shape both how and why you develop the app.
  • Set goals for your target market, including specific demographics, where they spend their time, which device they're using, etc. With all that information, it'll be easier to determine which platform will work best for reaching those goals.
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