Mobile Marketers Can Focus the Budget. According to the Pew Research Center on American Life, more than 90% of American adults now own a mobile phone and over half of all adults own a smart phone. This is no surprise, considering that more than half the entire world currently uses mobile technology. As the mobile economy explodes, marketers are finding it increasingly difficult to compete for consumers attention. Creative, engaging content and innovative uses of mobile technology are at the forefront when developing mobile marketing strategies. Now more than ever, it is important for companies not only to transition a large portion of the overall ad spend toward mobile marketing trends, but also to optimize their mobile marketing campaigns based on response analysis and focus their budgets accordingly. Unlike traditional media channels, mobile marketing strategies allow for detailed analytics and tracking, which becomes highly effective in deciding how and where to concentrate the marketing budget.
When considering the efficacy of mobile advertising compared to traditional mediums, and thus deciding how much ad spend to transition into mobile, here are some statistics to keep in mind:
A recent study by app advertising and analytics firm Flurry reports that smartphone users now spend more time on mobile apps than the average internet user spends online. But smartphone users are not only spending more time on apps, they are also extremely attractive to advertisers, as they are on average more highly educated and affluent than the typical American. And according to Pew Research, more than 50% of cell phone users download apps on their phones. These facts make it imperative for brands to start engaging the growing mobile market with evocative mobile apps, transitioning some of their overall marketing strategy from traditional to app development.
Mobile advertising is also growing exponentially, as marketers are now figuring out the best formats in which to serve mobile ads. Based on a new forecast by JP Morgan analyst Doug Anmuth, for instance, over 50% of Facebook’s total ad revenue in Q4 2013 will be earned via mobile advertising, with projections to reach 60% of total ad revenue by 2014. Similarly, Twitter announced that roughly 70% of its Q3 revenue was from mobile advertising. With such top tech brands now seeing huge growth in mobile-driven revenue, it’s no wonder other companies are falling in line as well.
According to a 2010 report by the Direct Marketing Association, SMS text marketing far exceeds the conversion rates of traditional mediums. Mass text campaigns convert at an average of 8.2%, while both email and direct mail conversion rates have traditionally leveled off at about 1.7%. Additionally, over 95% of texts are actually opened, which by far outperforms email open rates at around 10-20%, depending on the industry. These numbers aren’t so surprising, considering more than 80% of cell phone owners use their mobile phone to send and receive texts, per the Pew Research report on mobile use.
Taking a look at the above reports, with mobile apps, mobile advertising, and text message marketing growing at such impressive rates, it’s obvious that what matters most is the ability to improve the user experiences and the general lives of customers—and mobile does just this. Companies that focus marketing budgets into areas that make consumers’ lives more convenient, fun, and interesting will lead to greater brand awareness, loyalty, ands trust. Mobile marketing has become one of the most intimate ways of engaging with customers, and based on the growing mobile economy, it’s clear that consumers find it most convenient to engage, purchase, and search all through their phones. Hence, ask not what customers can do for you; ask what you can do for your customers…and in the end, they’ll reward you for it.