Mobile marketing is one of those buzz terms that floats around the internet marketing world. But what does mobile marketing really mean and has mobile marketing really caused any changes that are worth worrying about for online marketers? In this post, I want to give you a quick primer to help you to understand the technology.
In a nutshell, internet marketing is about making money. When I think about how internet marketers should approach the mobile marketing opportunity, this should be about them making money too This means that mobile marketing is about making money using mobile devices such as cell phones, tablet computers or even portable electronic organisers. This is all about getting your business to the consumers who own these mobile devices.
Most people carry an expensive phone around with them 24 hours a day. This is known as a mobile phone or a cell phone depending where in the world you are, so be familiar with and ready to use both of these terms in your marketing. Some people even carry around multiple cell phones. These customers can be highly lucrative people for you to market at. You need to make sure that your information and products are available to these large customer bases.
One good way to market to these customers is through specialised applications, which can be given away or sold. The main way that most people get new products on their phone is through an app store. For instance, an iPhone user can go to the iPhone store and immediately download many thousands of applications directly to that iPhone device. There are similar stores in existence for other operating systems such as Android. In fact, app stores are now hitting devices that aren’t so mobile, with them appearing on electronic devices that integrate with the home, or on standard PCs running Windows.
You should also think about how people are accessing standard websites through their mobile devices. You may have a brilliant website but this may not be so appropriate for a mobile device. After all, the screen on the mobile device will display nowhere near as much information as a standard screen attached to a laptop or a home computer. You need to develop sites so they work well across all kinds of devices if you don’t want to lose a portion of your audience.
It’s a vital time to be getting involved in the mobile marketplace and capturing the magic you need to take your internet marketing business forward. We’re moving into a mobile first generation and many marketers still aren’t prepared. Avoid being caught out in the same way that they are.