Are you using mobile marketing to drive foot traffic yet? You should be. The global pandemic has changed the way people shop for the foreseeable future. To get customers’ attention, and drive foot traffic, you’ll need to market where your customers are.
Increasingly, that’s on their mobile devices. eMarketer stats show a 20% increase in shopping app downloads between January and April. And App Annie predicts that American consumers will spend 1 billion hours shopping on Android devices, a 50% increase over 2019.
In this in-depth guide, you’ll learn what mobile marketing is, and some of the key mobile marketing tools and strategies you can use to drive foot traffic to your store.
Intro to Mobile Marketing
So, what is mobile marketing? Mobile marketing is marketing and advertising to people using smartphones and tablets. Typically, mobile advertising strategies take advantage of mobile device features such as push notifications and location awareness.
The stats show that mobile device users represent a large and growing segment of online activity. There are more than 5 billion mobile phone users worldwide, and mobile traffic is more than half of all web traffic.
In addition, mobile devices, and smartphones in particular, are now an essential part of the shopping experience. According to Google, the number of smartphone purchases increased 27% between 2018 and 2019, and 61% of online purchases were made via a smartphone.
And it’s not just about purchases. Shoppers are using mobile devices for research before buying. According to Google, 90% of shoppers searched online before visiting a store. This means that if you get your mobile marketing right, you can drive foot traffic to your store.
Mobile marketing is even more important in the Covid-19 era. Though in-store shopping has declined, many shoppers still visit stores. According to Selligent research, 35% of shoppers mix both in-person and online shopping, and 36% still shop more in person than online. So there’s a great opportunity to reach potential customers with time-based, location-based and personalized messages.
Mobile Marketing Strategies
When you’re setting out your mobile marketing strategy, there are a number of options to consider. Some of the most important mobile marketing strategies include SMS marketing, social media marketing, location-based marketing, proximity marketing, and in-app marketing. Here’s how these mobile advertising strategies work.
1. SMS Marketing
SMS marketing is marketing via text messages. It’s also known as text message marketing or text marketing. This is a permission-based mobile marketing strategy where you send promotions, deals, coupons, alerts and more straight to potential customers’ phones via text messages of 160 characters or less.
One of the reasons SMS marketing is such a powerful mobile advertising strategy is because text messages have high deliverability, open and engagement rates. The stats show that:
- People open and read around 98% of text messages
- Most people respond to an SMS message within 90 seconds
- The response rate for SMS marketing is 45%
That’s likely because most people have their phones with them, and because they get push notifications for incoming text messages, making them hard to ignore.
Since text messages are so short, many marketers include a link where recipients can get more information or a code that triggers follow up information. One best practice for SMS marketing is to avoid overusing it; the tactic is most effective for time-sensitive promotions.
2. Social Media
Many smartphone owners use them to access social media. Pew Internet shows that globally, Facebook and WhatsApp are hugely popular, used by 62% and 47% of people respectively. All of the main social media platforms have billions of users, so it makes sense to use social media as one of your main mobile marketing strategies.
Social media makes it easy to create a personal connection with your customers via comments and messages. And you can make your business more appealing with customer referrals and recommendations.
Though some companies choose to focus on organic social media posts, increasingly it’s common to use social media advertising to guarantee that you’ll reach the right customers. Some of the options include:
- Facebook ads, or boosted (promoted) posts
- Promoted tweets on Twitter
- Shoppable or promoted pins on Pinterest
- LinkedIn ads or promoted posts
Typically, this mobile marketing strategy lets you create an audience with demographic information, and set campaign goals, budgets and durations.
3. Location-Based Marketing (GPS)
Location-based marketing uses the GPS function on smartphones to help marketers show promotions and relevant content according to users’ locations. Sometimes location-based marketing is called geotargeting or geolocation marketing.
According to MarTech Series, 83% of marketers experience more success with promotions when they are location-based. This type of marketing results in more engagement and a better response, because it is more relevant to where mobile users are and what they are doing.
For example, you can show a promotion for a restaurant to someone who’s in the area and encourage that person to visit the restaurant. Coach used location targeting to drive thousands of visits to its stores, so this is a proven way to increase foot traffic.
4. Proximity Marketing
Proximity marketing is another form of location-based marketing. This lets you use Bluetooth to figure out where potential customers are, and target them with appropriate promotions.
One example of this is beacon marketing, which relies on physical Bluetooth-enabled devices in or near stores. These send short-range signals to mobile devices, which people see when they are near your location. This is another proven way to drive foot traffic. Toyota used proximity marketing to attract more customers likely to buy to local car dealerships.
5. In-app Marketing
Smart marketers can’t ignore the app market. The top five mobile apps, according to Visual Capitalist, are WhatsApp, TikTok, Messenger, Facebook, and Instagram. But there are hundreds of thousands of other apps, which is why in-app advertising has become a key mobile marketing strategy.
Types of in-app advertising include:
- Display advertising like banners which appear at the top or bottom of a mobile screen
- Native advertising, which are promotions styled to look like the app they’re in
- Video ads
- Interstitial ads, which appear in between app actions. For example, sometimes these ads appear when moving from one game level to another
Mobile Marketer says in-app marketing can increase foot traffic anywhere from 19% to 49% because they are more effective at targeting customers.
Mobile Marketing Tools
The five mobile marketing strategies above will get you started with targeting mobile device users. Next, you’ll learn about the mobile marketing tools you need to use these strategies effectively. The tools you’ll need include GroundTruth Ads Manager, geofencing advertising, weather targeting, audience targeting and brand insights.
GroundTruth Ads Manager
GroundTruth Ads Manager is a single platform that allows you to reach up to 120 million monthly visitors with mobile marketing. The technology is third-party verified and allows you to target potential customers based on the places they visit and the stores they shop in.
Customization options include distance, direction and click-to-call and you can use GroundTruth’s cost–per-visit model to ensure you only pay when someone actually visits your store. GroundTruth Ads Manager makes it easy to track progress with in-depth location analytics.
Geofencing Advertising
Geofencing advertising is another important form of mobile advertising which creates a virtual boundary around a location. For example, you can use this to identify a building or shopping area. GroundTruth uses its proprietary Blueprints technology to ensure that your geofence is accurate.
Once you create your geofence, you can show mobile ads to people who fall within the area and who meet your criteria. This approach combines GPS with audience insights to help you improve the efficacy of your mobile ad promotions. This is an accurate and highly scalable form of mobile advertising.
Weather Targeting
The weather affects consumer behavior. Sometimes people may choose to stay in or go out, and at other times it affects what they buy. Either way, you can use weather targeting to make your mobile marketing even more effective.
GroundTruth’s network of weather sensors is highly accurate, allowing you to target mobile advertising according to prevailing or expected weather conditions. You can serve ads depending on UV index, wind, temperature, and weather alerts. You can also combine weather targeting with other forms of location data to make your ads even more relevant and actionable.
Audience Targeting
Ever wondered how to leverage offline behavior to increase foot traffic? You can do this with audience targeting. This mobile marketing tool lets you reach customers based on factors like:
- Demographics
- Online and offline behavior
- Past and current behavior
- Interests
- Location
The result is that you can reach customers with mobile marketing at the time when they’re most likely to buy. For example, if a customer has visited your brick and mortar store, you can send them an offer based on their behavior in-store. Or you can send a message to someone who’s out and about based on how they interacted with your website.
And you can combine audience targeting with location marketing and geo-fencing to make your mobile marketing even more targeted and relevant to your potential customers.
Brand Insights
One of the best ways to increase foot traffic to your store is to understand what’s really happening with your visitors. GroundTruth’s brand insights tool provides location analytics and other insights including market share, foot traffic, brand affinity and more. This can help you really hone in on the right mobile marketing campaigns to attract your perfect audience.
Our Takeaway
Despite the pandemic, the stats show that customers are still responsive to relevant targeted promotions. The mobile marketing strategies and tools listed above will help you deliver what customers expect to drive foot traffic to your store.
Nicole Genchur
Director of Marketing Research & Insights, GroundTruth
