Mobile marketing is on the up and up, which is to be expected as people spend more and more time with their phones and less time paying attention to the world around them. Marketeers with plenty of resources jumped on this form of marketing as soon as it became available but not everyone could. It's never too late though, with apps becoming easier and less costly to produce and social media giving you access to potential customer's phone screens, it's now even easier to get involved with mobile marketing.
In fact, if you are clever about it, it's possible to use other organisation's apps to get in on the mobile marketing game. One recent story involved the latest mobile phenomenon that is Pokemon Go, an app created that allows children and adults alike to run around in the real world catching augmented reality Pokemon on their phones. One very savvy coffee shop took a feature from the game and used it to attract customers right into their shop. The game features something called a 'PokeStop', essentially a place to collect items and then use said items to attract and catch rare Pokemon. This coffee shop recognised that if invested a small amount of money in purchasing these items to attract more Pokemon, they would, in turn, attract more people wanting to catch them and thus attract more potential customers. Genius really!
Unfortunately opportunities like that don't come around for everyone, usually, you cannot piggyback on someone else's app, you may need to create your own or more likely have someone else make it for you. There are many businesses that just do not lend themselves to apps and it's important to only pursue this path if you really think you can provide value for your customers. Apps are no longer restricted to larger companies so as long as you are confident you can provide something of value to your customers, you can have them made at a relatively low cost.
One great example of apps for small businesses is a barbershop. While it may not be immediately obvious how barbers could benefit from an app at first glance, with some thought and effort a really useful app can be created. For example, a calendar that allows customers to see when the barber will be away on holiday to avoid turning up and being unable to get a haircut. A notification system is another great feature, keeping customers up to date on when you will be taking lunch, be late or off sick. A loyalty system is another great addition to an app like this, purchase eight haircuts and receive your ninth free for example. Understanding what will be valuable to your customers is key to mobile app marketing.
An alternative to creating an app is to use social media as a route on to people's phone screens. I don't need to tell you about the value of social media, it's something most businesses are already doing but there is one aspect that is set to become one of the biggest reasons to use social media as a route to mobile marketing and getting ahead of the curve will give you a significant advantage. Auto-play video.
Video is already a huge part of marketing and it is only going to continue to grow. Facebook has already said outright that video is more likely to be shown than any other type of post. Video gets more impressions, more engagement and more shares. One of the reasons for this is the autoplay feature that Facebook currently employs. Whenever a user scrolls past a video it begins playing, if you spend some time creating a particularly engaging video then you stand to get a lot of engagement. The only downside to the auto-play feature is that videos will not play audio when they begin auto-playing while annoying this is something that can be worked around with the use of on-screen text or even subtitles if need be!
There is one other surefire way to get your brand on to other people's phone and that is by furnishing them with a phone case sporting your logo! We have a whole range of promotional phone cases and covers that we can print your logo on to in full colour!