Listed out below are a set of trends that mobile marketers should look out for, in 2012, so as to be able to understand and serve their customers better, while also making more profit for themselves.
1. Smartphones and Tablets Rule the Market
Gone are the days when consumers were happy with the basic types of mobile phones. Consumerism is in now and the majority of the mobile user population goes around with smartphones and other smart mobile devices, which help them connect to the Internet while on the go and multitask to save them the added time and effort. In response to this increase in user demand, there are newer types of smartphones and tablets emerging in the market, each offering a host of user-friendly features.
As a mobile marketer, you should keep abreast of these changes and constantly find new ways to engage your existing customers, while also trying to attract more customers, especially those of the current generation, who are in the know about all the latest mobile devices in the market.
2. Mobile Pull and Push Marketing
This is a fairly new mobile marketing technique, which is emerging as a growing trend in the present day. Mobile pull marketing enables the marketer to interact with consumers via their mobile devices. It involves ways and means to attract or “pull” the potential customer toward purchasing their product or service.
Mobile pull marketing uses mobvertising, asking consumers to take action. Offering deals, rewards and coupons to consumers is the best way to attract them to your product. Once they purchase your product, you can ask them to retrieve the coupon by texting in their keyword. This makes it interactive, fun and engaging for the user, also bringing in more business for you.
Mobile push marketing, as the terms implies, tries to “push” customers into purchasing products by sending them text messages about the same. This, however, may not catch on that fast, as email marketing is still the preferred method for marketers.
3. Local and Proximity Marketing
You can make use of smartphones’ built-in capabilities to offer location-based services. Using location has always proved to be very beneficial for the mobile marketer. You can start by offering customers locally relevant information and advertisements. This will help build your reputation as a fine service provider, thereby helping you build your clientele from there. This is a common method used by marketers to attract more customers.
Proiximity marketing, on the other hand, is only picking up right now. It involves brands trying to get users to opt in for receiving promotional deals from their vendors, while they are close to that particular location. This process involves location detection, which not many users are open to, right now. Mobile privacy issues are the major obstacle in the path of proximity marketing. However, if this evolves and grows, this just might emerge as a trend in 2012.
4. Mobile Social Media Comes of Age
Mobile social media is the best channel through which you can interact with both current and potential customers. You can use a mobile social CRM database to monitor user behavior. For instance, if people are raving about a certain movie or restaurant on a popular social network, you could probably think of offering promotional deals for the same. Of course, this raises issues of privacy, as mobile social users also share other personal information about each other.
You could also create a Facebook Page about your business and go about promoting the same. Once you have enough visitors, you could post polls and discussions in order to find out what they think about your business. You could even personally interact with these visitors, so as to earn a good reputation from them.
5. Customers Prefer Mobile Payment
Mobile commerce is in and mobile users the world over, now prefer to make payments from their mobile devices, instead of using their credit cards. Make sure to offer them payment options through Google Wallet, Paypal or your proprietary mobile payment portal. This will make things easier for customers, encouraging them to visit you yet again.
Via: About.com
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