Tag Archives: Awareness

7 Reasons You Need to Mobilize Your Business Today

There are a lot of new and exciting marketing strategies formulated every day in an attempt to penetrate into the public’s interests. One of the most effective, cutting-edge marketing methods being used today is mobile marketing. Thanks to the overwhelmingly popular cell phone, businesses can no longer ignore the importance of a mobile-friendly presence if they really want to reach their target audiences.

Mobile marketing encompasses many different types of marketing techniques and strategies that help businesses increase profits and ROI.  The most popular forms of mobile marketing today are: mobile-friendly websites, SMS text message marketing, and QR (Quick Response) codes.

You may be wondering why everyone is hopping on the mobile marketing bandwagon…

This should help clear it up:

  1. Consumers are using their mobile devices to access the Internet more than ever before – and it’s expected to grow at astonishing rates over the next few years. If your business is not using mobile methods to attract customers, you are simply missing out on business.
  2. There are approximately 4.5 BILLION mobile subscribers across the world. This means that you can target pretty much anyone using mobile methods.
  3. Most mobile device users keep their phones within arm’s reach over 90 percent of the time. So if you use SMS Text Message Marketing, most of your messages will be opened and read by your recipients. This leads to higher promotional redemption rates, which leads to more sales, which leads to more profits.
  4. Americans today are spending an average of three hours per day on the Internet from their mobile devices. Your business should have the proper mobile presence if you want to get a piece of this action.
  5. In 2009, approximately half a BILLION people went online using their mobile device. This number is expected to double within the next 5 years. It’s not too late to implement mobile marketing techniques in your business. This technology is still in its infancy and if you jump on board now, your chance of success will be much greater.
  6. By 2014, mobile Internet usage exceeded desktop Internet usage. This means that reaching your audience via mobile methods is even more crucial if you want to beat your competition.
  7. According to Facebook official statistics from their fourth quarter 2015, Facebook revealed it now has 1.59 billion monthly active users (up 14 percent year-over-year), and 1.44 billion are monthly mobile users (up 21 percent year over year). Facebook also shared that it now has 1.04 billion daily active users (a 17 percent bump year over year) and 934 million mobile daily active users (a 25 percent increase year over year). Put another way, 65.41 percent of all Facebook members use the service daily, and 64.86 percent of mobile members use it daily as well.

These facts indicate the serious impact that mobilizing your business will have on your sales, profits, and ROI over the coming months and years.

Mobile Purchase Behavior (Awareness)

In the overview of this series we discussed at a very high level how a mobile marketing strategy can assist a consumer down the path to purchasing your product or service over your competitors. Here is a quick recap:

  • Consumers are increasingly turning to their mobile devices to assist them in the consumer buying process.
  • There are 6 stages in the consumer buying decision flow:
    1. Awareness: The recognition of a need, this is really an analysis of maslow’s hierarchy of needs in combination with marketing efforts.
    2. Consideration: The creation of an evoked set of alternatives. This is a mental short-list that the consumer creates based on internal and external influences.
    3. Preference: Based on the criteria that is most important to the consumer he/she will narrow down the list to a preferred brand.
    4. Purchase: This is where the consumer will actually buy a product or service
    5. Loyalty: After the purchase the buyer will enter into stages of post-purchase evaluation where they will re-evaluate the purchase they just made and file the experience away (in their minds) for future reference
  • A complete mobile marketing strategy can assist in every stage of flow because of the proximity to a mobile device for the consumer and the marketing efforts a brand undertakes.
In this post we will dive a little deeper into the Awareness stage.
The Awareness stage is when a consumer recognizes that they are missing something that they want or need.
There are a lot of factors that influence this realization:
  • Self-expression – Reflection of personal tastes
  • Affiliation – Be a part of a group
  • Independence – Stand out from the crowd
  • Novelty – Be Awesome

How does this tie into a mobile marketing strategy?

When designing your mobile marketing strategy you need to consider QR codes as your first line of communication with your buyers. QR codes or Quick Response codes allow you to engage with a consumer in a specific and measurable manner.
Specific – QR codes can be placed anywhere and can have built-in context or some text around it to give it context. The power of the QR code is that it allows you to understand and track the intention of a buyer. So when they are in the Awareness stage you can grab their attention at the right time and place.

Measurable – If implemented correctly QR codes can help you track a lot of valuable data about your consumers. Things that can be tracked are:

  • Number of QR scans
  • Geo-location
  • Date
  • Type of mobile device (brand)
  • Mobile operating system (iPhone, Android, Blackberry, etc)
  • Other Custom Events that help track campaign performance
By reaching consumers at the Awareness stage through the use of QR codes brands have the unique ability to understand who, what and where they need to engage consumer so they will spend more money and always have that brand on top of mind.