Over the last few months, I’ve had great experiences working with some forward thinking Realtors. By forward thinking, I’m referring to business operators who are not afraid to stand out, and benefit from trying new things (to see what works, and what not so much).
Let’s face it… We’re living in a world where we’re bombarded with products and services. It’s very easy for any business to become lost in the crowd, especially those that focus only on “traditional” strategies with regards to garnering greater exposure. In this case, Real Estate is no exception, it’s arguably a saturated market, which makes it even harder for Realtors to garner greater exposure and improve the chances of building leads.
So what does this have to do with mobile marketing?
In a nutshell, the majority of web surfing, video watching, and so on is now consumed on mobile platforms (Android, iPhone, and so on). Search engines (such as Google) continue to advise us to make sure our websites are “mobile first” (meaning design a website primarily for mobile device usage, with a great user experience).
In fact, here are some pertinent stats, to show us how important this really is:
58% of US website traffic comes from mobile devices
Source: https://www.perficientdigital.com/insights/our-research/mobile-vs-desktop-usage-study
By 2022 the traffic generated by mobile devices is projected to have increased by 10 times!
Source: https://www.ericsson.com/en/mobility-report/future-mobile-data-usage-and-traffic-growth
Here’s a great video from Ramona Sukhraj at Impact, which sums up some valuable stats:
When I initially liaised with these businesses, one of the first things I noticed: Their websites were not mobile responsive – In fact the experience was terrible. And the discussion of leveraging mobile visibility ensued. That’s why we’re here today! – To get an effective introduction, that most everyone can use, to help better understand – And more importantly… Move forward!
Without question, it’s evident that mobile marketing is an effective venue to target a massive niche for your business. As most visitors use some type of mobile device, and the advent of improved technologies (faster, cheaper, more intelligent, increasingly intuitive, etc.) it only stands to reason, this growth will continue – And in the near future, will become more “the standard” than it is today.
To dive into the meat and potatoes of what we can actually “do”, hands-on – Things we should be considering as “standard practice” with your websites, for example…
The following are some of the touch points I discussed (and don’t forget… This works with any business, and pretty much any target niche).
First off… Be sure to regularly reach out to existing (subscribers, which want your information) and potential clients. Never (ever!) randomly send messages to any audience. When you do send communication (opt-in lists), make sure you’re relaying something of importance and value. There is a reason why mobile visits have among the highest bounce rates!
Often, mobile campaigns have been dismal failures because random texts, and random (cold) email messages were sent out to audiences. This is a very fast way to get your website, and related services blacklisted (and blocked). Also, keep in mind the deportment of your messages… Your audience expects focused, professional, relevant, quality… and useful messages. “Cute” and overly friendly messages, they normally expect from close friends or family will not work.
QR codes should be used on your printed media. This makes it easier for your mobile audience to get quicker access to website pages, or other information. In a nutshell QR codes are an easy way for people to learn more about your products and services – Faster.
What’s a “QR Code”? ==> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QR_code#Uses
This is what a QR code looks like:
Some of the best uses not only for me, but also for several clients are:
1) Including them on a sign (you can track usage and traffic from that QR code, which helps you evaluate the usefulness of a sign – as well as determining if the sign is in a good location).
2) For offices who have visitors, create the QR code for WiFi login (it helps streamline meetings, and demonstrates to potential clients that you are client focused – This is “soft marketing”).
3) Have a discount code in a QR (this helps increase your sales!) – Who hates getting discounts?
4) Have contact information in your QR code (this way mobile users can “snap-and-go” to be able to quickly look up your content details for later).
5) And finally, I also suggest embedding calendar events in a QR code. So for example, you can schedule your next webinar, and mobile user’s only need to snap it, and it’s in their calendar (this helps ensure your events are better attended).
Mobile marketing works best when you take into consideration, not only the physical devices used (which have smaller screens than a desktop), but also the “culture” mindset. Here’s what I mean…
When creating content for your mobile marketing campaigns, ensure your message is easily understood and brief. Also, compose your messages in a manner that can be absorbed quickly, as well as relayed quickly to others (or other devices).
Remember how earlier I mentioned it’s important to make sure your website is mobile responsive?
Side note: Google drives 92.5% of mobile search traffic!
Source: https://tinyurl.com/search-engine-share
It’s very critical, if you do absolutely nothing else, to ensure a mobile responsive website. Invest in a mobile website to have a better ROI (not doing this alienates the majority of your audience – and they’ll go elsewhere). This is commonly referred to as “responsive design” (that’s the key phrase to use). Responsive in essence means the website will be optimized across different mobile platforms (as well as desktop). For the majority, this means outsourcing to the best qualified freelancer. Without question, a mobile responsive website ensures your marketing branding (and message) is consistent (and you’ll provide a much more professional experience to your visitors).
Mobile marketing can arguably be the most volatile marketing type. Why? Because your (client) base often changes, as it is greatly subordinate to external conditions. In order to maintain a successful (competitive) marketing foundation, ensure you’re changing as well, to support the changing trends, expectations, and technologies.
For anyone preparing an in-depth mobile campaign, one of the best points of advice (and yes I’d argue the hardest) – Make sure the first campaign you engage is a success (and do so BEFORE starting any other mobile campaign).
Your first campaign… Take extra time to do the most in-depth research you can (if you’re going to spend money on this, then this is the time; and obtain the best quality).
But what’s a measure of success in mobile marketing?
Traditionally, we run campaigns, then measure the immediate returns we get. We read the results in our reports. Fast, and simple, right? Well, no… Not so much where mobile is concerned. You see, in mobile marketing, the primary aspect (and focus) is on the long-term effectiveness of our campaigns.
That initial campaign you run, the one you’ll work smart (who was it that coined the phrase “work smart, not hard”?), to ensure success – That set’s the foundation for the next phase, and so on. When building (and contributing to) a long-term marketing crusade, always measure the long-term effectiveness.
I think it’s fairly common sense, but do want to touch on this… To help solidify long-term success in your mobile marketing plan, keep yourself FULLY aware of the devices your visitors (any clients) are using. This is something you can monitor in your website traffic analytics. Why is this important? It helps you to improve (and create) websites (that are relevant) and also provide the best user experience. This is critical, a bad user experience again alienates visitors, and again, they’ll simply go elsewhere. Further, have your website, application, etc. developer (or even you and your team) use as many mobile devices as is realistically possible.
Side note: I can’t begin to count the times where something worked well on one device, and one single element was totally rotten, or broken, on another (testing will often catch this) – You don’t want to get frustrated by that, nor does your target audience! These are “bugs” that should be smoothed out before launching a mobile campaign. You don’t want your marketing to get derailed by such things.
Speaking of applications…
Apps are not hard to make, and there are lots of freelancers who can work with you. Suffice to say, in the mobile arena, you can really amp up your marketing by providing a useful app. Your visitors and clients would probably like to get a useful app – that’s free. One caveat: The app MUST be useful. I’ll say it again, in another way… When your business offers a useful mobile app, then your mobile marketing initiatives have the potential to sky rocket! At some stage, this is very important to consider (and ensure you roll it out whenever possible).
In terms of mobile marketing – Here’s a no-brainer (that some people don’t do). Your website can benefit from social networking content that’s linked with it. If a visitor (or client) sees a Twitter or Telegram icon anywhere, for example, related to you (or your business), they’re far more likely to click that icon, than they are to go searching for more information about your business and offerings (or you). Take advantage of this, as it further lends itself to long-term (deeper) exposure over time.
One thing that often comes up in discussion with my existing clients…
Keep a degree of separation from mobile marketing (and non-mobile initiatives). Don’t misunderstand, you can (of course) be promoting the same initiatives, but in mobile the execution is different than, say, desktop (PC) environments.
For mobile: The visuals, messages, interaction is designed specifically for mobile devices – only… For a good user experience, a more lightweight deployment (the content will load much faster), and so on. This ensures not only better statistics tracking, but also ensures the expectations of your target audience are met (and exceeded wherever possible).
Before I forget to nudge more on this (since we’re talking about things like visuals, user experience, messages, etc.), regarding your website – Again, make sure it’s “mobile first” responsive (which I already touched on). Importantly, is to be sure that your mobile website addresses mobile related search engine optimization (SEO) strategies as well (Google publishes a lot of material about this – Free for the reading). Again, don’t forget, as of this post Google search provides a whopping 92.5% of mobile search traffic – Get the gist? Given most mobile search is via Google, you’ll understand why you’d want to optimize your mobile marketing content, adopting Google’s preferences.
Not using email as part of your mobile marketing initiatives? Think twice, you’re losing out:
- 73% of millennial’s prefer email communications from businesses.
- 59% of marketers say email is their biggest source of ROI.
- 99% of consumers check their email every day.
- More than 50% of U.S. respondents check their personal email account more than 10 times a day, and it is by far their preferred way to receive updates from brands.
- 59% of respondents say marketing emails influence their purchase decisions.
- Marketers who use segmented campaigns note as much as a 760% increase in revenue.
Source: https://blog.hubspot.com/marketing/email-marketing-stats
Adding email to your mobile campaigns makes them much more effective (with additional analytics available).
Also, because people have opted-in, they are more receptive to future marketing (as long as good value is provided to them). On another related element, for those of us using voice communication, ensure any phone numbers provided in your materials are tap-able, so the person can simply tap the number to call you.
As to the statistic about the 760% revenue increase when using email segmentation: I provide an online course for “Email Marketing Segmentation“. It provides you a strong foundation, with what you need to succeed in email marketing. Put simply, I step you through the process of putting up a modern email list – one that is engineered to succeed from the ground up. You’ll get clear, easy-to-understand concepts that you need to wrap your mind around for you to be successful. It’s a course the works very well with your mobile marketing campaign.
On the subject of phones/voice; just for interest…
While mobile usage is accelerating in growth. Landline phones are continuing to die, they now account for 41.7% of U.S households. Source
Also VC Star ran a story, last year, describing how more than half (53.9%) of U.S. households have ditched landline phones.
Circling back to QR codes (since we’re looking to get information across, quickly and effectively) they, uniquely help you make your marketing content more appealing, as well as more accessible to visitors – How simple (and super-fast) it is to snap and watch the video, snap and get a discount, snap and see the product details, snap to receive a personal message, and so on. QR codes are easy to implement for you and easy for your niche audience to capture with their mobile devices. QR codes pave a simple way to reach out to visitors (and clients) in and efficient manner, providing them your relevant, usable (valuable) message – Simply!
Consider this…
“…It takes about 50 milliseconds (that’s 0.05 seconds) for users to form an opinion about your website that determines whether they like your site or not, whether they’ll stay or leave…” Source
And now the flipside of the coin!
Don’t waste your visitor’s limited attention. Do not remain so excessively boxed in, with the excitement of leveraging mobile marketing, that you forget to focus on ensuring one salient purpose in each mobile campaign. Be 100% certain the information you provide is relevant, in-demand, and current for your niche market audience. Making sure of this – and focusing on one objective in a campaign, helps you generate more sales, while providing your clients with the value they expect.
Also, continue to leverage the advantages of your non-mobile website. For example, that website can be used to funnel potential clients to your mobile applications as well as mobile sites. Encourage (and show) visitors (and customers) to your website, how best they can connect with you and your business, during the times they are away from a desktop PC. Doing so retains visibility and interest. Keep in mind, websites that are “responsive” often display extra features and elements on-screen, that desktop users will not see displayed (and visa versa).
Remember how earlier I was taking about testing your marketing campaigns across several mobile devices, as well as smoothing out bugs?
We also call this “Usability testing“. This is something you must do prior to launching a campaign into live mode. Failing to test, can skid your marketing campaign right off the road, by either sending ineffective messages, or worse being blind-sided by an avoidable technical glitch. When testing, gather a group of trusted people, and send your campaign messages to them, doing this is better than sending the wrong message to several thousand people, then trying to back-peddle with a correction afterwards!
Never create a mobile marketing campaign without a clear objective. You should always know what singular objective you intend to accomplish, then ensure your campaign (in its entirety) is focused on that singular goal – nothing else. Have another goal – That’s another campaign! Prior to launch, have in mind the measureables… An increase in sales from existing clients, an engagement in a new market, an increased visibility or exposure in your niche?
The great thing about mobile marketing is it’s always growing (just look at the statistics). Most of your niche audience is likely already mobile connected, and it offers one of the best – most direct – way of reaching out to specific individuals (with personalized messages).
Working towards applying the information in my post, will help you run ahead of your competition. You’ll also be able to communicate and market more effectively with your mobile customers.
How do you work with mobile marketing? What different things do you do? Any insights? Feel free to give me a shout, I’m all ears. Looking forward…
Here’s to your success!
Roger
