Mobile Marketing Tips For The Pandemic Stricken Holiday Season

The holiday season this year will not be like anything before. The pandemic has largely taken over every sector and for business owners, it has been particularly harsh. Now, the holidays are set to begin and as a business owner, you might feel uncertain about generating sales due to COVID-19 restrictions. This is where the right marketing tactics can help you gain advantage. Since mobile marketing is becoming more and mainstream, that’s what you should be focused upon. 

Basically, this is a type of digital marketing or promotion strategy where businesses reach out to their target audience through smartphones and other such gadgets. So you can market your product or services via websites, apps, direct messaging and email as well. It can be quite useful in the present scenario where the spread of Coronavirus has affected businesses and sales deeply. Despite the odds, there are businesses who have managed to progress and continue to do so. They have achieved this with the help of attractive and appealing brand identities and effective advertising.

In this time, good marketing is incredibly important and with technology, there are more ways and platforms to plug your products or services. Mobile marketing is the present and future and the earlier you take advantage of it, the better. Here are a few highly useful tips that you can apply to ace it!

1. Create Adaptable Websites For Mobile Devices

E-commerce has taken over the world and is slowly and gradually becoming a critical part of life. In fact, nowadays, you really cannot think of shopping without online orders and deliveries. Since the beginning of the year, it has become clearer that e-commerce is the way forward.

If your design is easily supported and does not become slow or disrupted on various mobile operating systems than marketing through this medium can certainly be more effective. Take Express, a retailer for example. Express is a clothing brand that creates trendy and fashionable clothing for men and women. For the holiday season, they have their discounts highlighted on the homepage and an easy to spot gifting option. You can easily find anything you are looking for on your smartphone.

Mobile Marketing Tip: For your business create a responsive website that is smartphone and user-friendly. Once that is done, proceed to adding features that catch the eye of the customer in mobile ad campaigns. Basically, the idea behind it is to market the web page through social media boosts or even pay-per-click.

2. Make Your Emails And Newsletters Mobile-Friendly

You might think that email marketing does little to engage customers however that is not entirely true. While social media networks might be on the top in terms of advertising, businesses cannot deny the power of email lists. These can be a huge factor in creating a successful mobile marketing campaign. With the holiday season, there are a lot of customers who check their emails for new deals and discounts. Since almost everyone checks their mails on their phones, it is ideal to design them in a way that they can be accessed smoothly on any device.

Expert Karen Talavera from Synchronicity Marketing has stated that this might be the year to step up with holiday-themed email marketing. She says that we may see more of  “creative and design features too, such as animation and video in email becoming near-standard, plus greater attention paid to dark mode and mobile-friendly design, dynamic content, and eye-catching features like side-scrolling, count-down timers, etc. becoming more commonplace.”

Image Source: Pinterest

Mobile Marketing tip: Begin advertising early and create newsletters that highlight offers and sales. Make sure that a few products are also featured so that the customer has an idea of what your business is selling. With top performing subject lines and content, you can certainly generate higher traffic and benefit from conversions as well.

3. Send Promotions Through Text Messages

As a business owner, you could be hesitant about reaching out to the customer directly via messaging. It is understandable given that a lot of people do not look at it positively. However, there are certain times when promotional messages can help you attract a wider audience. Think of it this way. It can be easier for a potential customer to miss out on your product or service on social media due to overcrowding of content or they may just scroll by. When you send out a promotion in a text message, you can be more confident that it would be visible.

Mobile Marketing Tip: According to surveys, customers are likely to check their messages 47 times more than usual during the holidays. This means that they can be easily convinced to subscribe or sign up for offers if you market your product correctly.

4. Create Targeted Videos

This sounds simple enough but a lot of businesses are unable to effectively use this strategy. According to several surveys and reports, consumers are more likely to purchase a product or go for a service after watching the advertisement on a video. It doesn’t have to be something very high-end or professional. All you have to do is showcase your products and put up promotions that appeal to your customers. This way you will be able to target your market without spending a lot on various campaigns.

If you look at these examples of holiday marketing campaigns, you will realize how they manage to appeal to the customer’s emotions and send a positive message. 

Mobile Marketing Tip: In a short video, you can also have customer reviews or any other authentic content that makes your brand stand out. For the holiday season during the pandemic, you can show how your business will be able to help restore the spirit of the time and add to the festivities.

5. Optimize For Search Engine And Voice Command

The idea is to make your website or e-commerce platform as accessible as possible. Usually, there are so many sales happening towards the end of the year that people have a lot of choices. In order to highlight your business, you will have to feature prominently on search pages. This is why you have to optimize the options with keywords and tags that bring the name of your brand up immediately when typed in. It’s actually a huge driving factor in mobile marketing. When they see your advertisement or promotion and want to find more information, they will use certain words to look up their queries.

Google has determined that 85 percent of the conversions or clicks on their page are via organic searches. The remaining 15 percent are on paid advertisements. This is why you need to look into optimization for the success of your mobile marketing. Other than that, being adaptable to voice command or search will also go a long way.

Mobile Marketing Tip:  Basically, people speak questions and sentences into their phones instead of typing them in. When you optimize for this feature, you are able to connect with customers conveniently. As per various reports, almost 50 percent of Americans use voice search weekly and these numbers are rising with time. 

6. Launch The Campaigns Early

While being proactive might be essential to marketing, not every marketer or business owner is able to utilize this quality in the right manner. In mobile marketing, you have to be proactive from the very first day because otherwise you will be left behind while all your competitors take advantage of opportunities. Even during normal times, holidays are quite stressful and there is a lot to do in terms of selling and engaging the customer. Since the current situation is highly unprecedented, it only becomes more necessary for businesses to stay on their feet.

In order to do this, you have to start early so that there is no rush at the peak of the season. Track user preferences, behaviors and responses so you can come up with a mobile marketing campaign that hits the mark. Revamp your graphic and brand identity design to appeal to the customers.

Here’s what these experts have to say on this matter.

Michael Chammas from the Makro Agency has stressed upon the importance of time management for holiday campaigns. According to him, brands should adopt a new approach this year. He says.  “Start early, very early. Come up with existing campaigns and make sure your customers know about it weeks in advance. Due to COVID, customers have a limited spending budget and must plan ahead.”

Jill Rosenberg, a creative strategist, also highlights the importance of planning well. According to her ‘a workback schedule to outline when you will start the creative and media plan should be created.’ She adds, “Make sure to include time for revisions and approvals, and notify the team in advance so resource planning is not last minute.”

Mobile Marketing Tip: Create catchy hashtags that are according to events and a significant holiday like Christmas or Thanksgiving. By doing so, you will also be able to run a social media campaign and trend deals or offers.

Wrapping Up

Mobile marketing can put your business at an advantage in this pandemic stricken time as well. Once you are able to come up with the right strategies and effectively use them to engage your customers, there is no going wrong. With these tips, you might find your way easily and take the next step towards making a breakthrough in the market.