Chronicles of an Aspiring Digital Marketing Strategist: Part 1

In a year or so I believe that I will be your Digital Marketing Strategist, if you are planning to have a company or if you have one already. So get acquainted with me already J

Digital marketing involves employing use of electronic devices such as PCs, Tablets, mobile phones and game consoles for marketing while applying technologies such as websites, apps, social networks, text messages and e-mail.I will help you to come up with online marketing campaigns and strategies that will blow you away, get more market share than what you may have settled for, ensure that your company is catching up with the latest web analytic trends and optimizing the powerful web to your business advantage.

That is why I have started a series of posts talking about my ideas in regards to how digital marketing should be strategized and implemented. I welcome any form of constructive critique. 

MOBILE MARKETING

Companies are able to fully maximize mobile in the exact way they optimized the web to radically improve their businesses, know their customers more and make more lasting relationships with them in the process of earning more revenue. Companies like Coca Cola have incorporated mobile marketing strategies to their overall advertisement strategies and it is working miracles for them. It’s all about doing it right, as always. 

For any company, I think it shouldn't be a matter of investing in mobile advertisement, rather how much and how to go about it. Incorporating mobile does not only include awareness, brand promise and engaging customer loyalty, but also having two way communication with your consumers. Unlike bill boards and advertisements running on the radio and on T.V, mobile advertising allows you to have conversation and feedback with your customers. This is extremely important since it forms the major building blocks for longer lasting relationships with consumers. The two way communication allows you to hush, and listen to them talk too.  

With any kind of advertising, company executives will not buy into using mobile to get more fans and capturing as many phone numbers as possible, they want something more solid, for instance, what is their Return on Investment from this kind of market investment, is it measurable and is it of high value?
So why invest in Mobile Advertising? Mobile growth has been tremendous in the past 5 years.  Everyone I know has a mobile phone, it may not be a smart phone but it’s mobile all the same. Consumers are busier than ever, but despite all this, they get time to always engage with their phones or gadgets. The manner in which they always search for goods and services shows the urgency of their need to make purchases or at least get content on various subjects. Through the devices, consumers easily access information that allows them to make decisions on whether to make purchases or not. 

For a company, providing the right mobile experience at the right time, all in the context of a broadly well thought out and integrated mobile campaign equals a win. Being consumer focused for any company, their goal should involve crafting a seamless start to finish experience. With the finish being making sales, of course. 

Basic Principles of Mobile Marketing

 1. Identify the main objective of the business and try to realize how mobile marketing can come in to help with that. Is it to create more sales, create a huger fan base, attract new customers, and strengthen the company brand..?

2. Curve out the niche you specifically want to target. How do they interact with their devices? What kind of phones and gadgets are they most likely to have? In essence, understanding the customer is the most important aspect that will determine whether you make a financial breakthrough with them in the end or not. 

3. How do you plan to reach your targeted audience? What will be their first point of interaction? The thought of first impressions can only be made once are entirely true. Do you plan to do so using a QR Code on a billboard, through banners, mobile websites or through SMS?

4. After they have heeded to your call and are willing to know more about you, the best thing is to engage them. Through engagement, you can be able to create a relationship with your consumer. There are various ways to engage. Examples include 

• posting relevant content on the sight that is useful to the user e.g regular health tips, fashion tips… anything related to what you offer
• Shop alerts for instance, messages, offers, rewards and coupons will always go well with the smart shopper
• Asking for opinions regarding your service once in a while will help you to better your services as well as cater to the ever growing needs of the consumer. 
• Asking people to share their experience with your Company’s goods or services with you or on other social media sites would help boost the image of the brand. 


5. At the end of it all you have to analyze what you are doing and if it’s effective or not. The advantage of working with mobile is that it makes it easy to analyze and measure all your efforts. For instance, it is very easy to know the number of consumers you attract and what percentage of those are actually realized to actual sales. Analyzing helps in making decisions later on in regards to future marketing strategies and will help you know what you should work on to realize more profits.