The famous business book “Words That Work” by the communication expert Dr. Frank Luntz emphasised the idea that communication is not what you say, it’s what people hear. As a modern marketer surviving in the current digital scenario everyone wants to know how to impress the audience in a multi-screen, multi-faceted environment at a perfect moment. When it comes to mobile, marketing is equivalent to training a dragon.

A research conducted by Praveen Kopalle, a marketing professor at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business, reveals that 54% of people feel annoyed when their mobile experience is interrupted. 42% of the time consumers are not interested in the marketing messages pushed on their mobile. Driving sales via mobile advertising is the new white whale of the marketing world, desired by every brand, business, and marketer. How come the success is rare? The majority of them fail to do it right.

Harnessing mobile

The global mobile ad spend is predicted to increase to 72% of the total digital budget by 2021. For a modern marketer, these crucial questions arise:

  • Is mobile advertising the right option for my business?
  • Are there any specific types of content that actually print money on mobile?
  • How can I drive sales using mobile advertising with appealing content?

“Just as the fact that not everyone is your customer, not every content is suitable for every marketing medium,” said Apoorv Soni, the managing director of mobile advertising platform MobiVisits.

Marketing on mobile is not about drafting an ad copy, it’s a strategic task of structuring your data and offers, and aligning your marketing goals with the power of the mobile media.

Opinion surveys, coupon codes, demonstration videos, subscriptions offers and pin submit/MSISDN [mobile station international subscriber directory number] flow are the types of advertisements that have long worked well on mobile since long.

The secret behind the undisputed success of these offers lies in the concept of contextual marketing. These ads are usually related to mobile-based products that users can choose to subscribe and pay for on a monthly basis. This kind of advertising works for a number of reasons:

The purchase funnel is smooth, it just takes a click or a code submission to get what the user wants.

The offers often satiate the psychological needs of instant gratification. Results are clearly visible in verticals like gaming, dating, music and entertainment.

The advertising campaigns are more precise in terms of targeting, as marketers are aware and specific about their choice of internet service provider (ISP), devices, OS and geographical locations from where the ad will bring conversions.

Capturing leads

Another category of ads that create a buzz on mobile are creatives with appealing landing pages and a message that persuades the audience about the benefits that a product brings in for them. For example, system scan ads work great for anti-virus installation offers.

A landing page is an opportunity to make a great impression on your busy audience. It is a chance to showcase your brand identity. The great getaway sweepstakes used by the Oprah magazine is a beautiful example depicting consistency and correlation between the magazine cover and the landing page. If the user identifies himself with your brand he is likely to take an action.

Innovation matters

Mobile is the first medium chosen for entertainment and communication. If your content is likeable, shareable and holds the possibility of personalisation, it’s perfect to engross your audience. Inspirational quotes, social media posts and links shareable via IM (instant messaging) result in involving audience on an emotional level. A long-term perspective to such emotional engagements results in brand loyalty. One needs to understand that the attention span of a smartphone user is far less than the audience engaged on any other medium. Thus, it is essential to ensure that the advertising message is engaging and clear enough to evoke a response.

For example, some advertisers are using haptic technology, the use of touch sensation in their advertisement to involve their audience. According to a study published in BizReport, the ads that engage the viewer via touch-related response enhanced ad awareness by 75% and influenced purchase intent positively by 41%. Native ads and vertical videos are some other examples to prove that innovation delivers ROI in mobile ads.

While every medium has its own pros and cons, an impactful media such as mobile can influence business very effectively – if we understand its strengths and limitations.

The idea is to identify what works on the small screen for an audience that has a shorter attention span and a low tolerance for nonsense. Once we find out the creativity and content that seem useful and worthy to the customer, we need to implement those findings in our mobile marketing strategies.