Mobile Marketing Is the Future. Accept It. Understand It. Use It.

Back around 2007 in my past lifetime, I remember trying to introduce social media into our campaign tactics. At the time, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube and Blogger were the big players in the social game. I remember trying to sell sampling social tactics in our own marketing material, testing it and ultimately pass our findings onto our clients.

Unfortunatly, the decision makers suggested that social media could/should not be used for marketing. It had not really been done yet. Most often in brainstorming sessions, statements about using social media were “Not everyone uses social media.” Or, “Not everyone has a mobile device.” Knowing the upward trend in this segment, it drove me crazy! If all new ideas got shot down like this without deeper exploration or testing, we would all still be living in caves and cooking our meals on an open fire. To be fair, this was over 8 years ago and you had to be really innovative to throw a plan like this into action.

Flash forward to 2014. I am now happily running my own agency were I can make these recommendations to my own clients - unfiltered. Today a mobile plan is not as “brilliant” as it seemed 8 years ago because we have all seen how social media and mobile marketing has expanded from personal usage to corporate usage. Today, a mobile strategy is not only a suggestion, but it is imparative.

If you are not convinced you should be putting some resources into a mobile marketing strategy, here are some stats I gathered from eMarketer that might change your mind.

- There are 788 million mobile internet only users. By 2015, mobile web surfing is expected to surpass desktop web surfing. All the more importance for a mobile-friendly website and support tactics like social media, mobile advertising and app development.

- By 2015, mobile users will spend $119 billion per year world wide on commerce.

- Mobile search has gone beyond Google. 14 million mobile users scanned a QR Code last year and the figures look to double for this year.

- Smart phone coupon usage world wide doubled last year and is expected to do the same again this year.

- Text campaigns had a 95% open rate on mobile devices compared to just 11% for email campaigns.

- Social media on mobile devices grew by 37% and is expected to double this year.

- Moms are the largest mobile user group as two thirds of them are users. 20% of these users actually used their mobile devices to shop online.

- Companies are under utilizing mobile marketing. Just 1% of worldwide spending has been designated to this tactic.

Mobile marketing is here to stay. I’d advise jumping on the tactical train before it leaves your company stranded in the middle of nowhere. If you can’t wrap your head around how a mobile strategy would, that’s OK, we can and it’s what we do! In 5 years from you will be glad you did. Contact us today and we will get you set up!

Author

This article was created by founder and creative director, Steven Bradley.