Today we all consume content on our mobiles, this new medium has made it imperative for all businesses to reach their target audience and optimize their websites to respond to this trend. Accessing the internet on the go, needs Marketers to be more agile.
TRENDS in mobile Marketing in India
1. Consumer Data has redefined mobile marketing
Big data, which is a collection of marketing and customer insights, as well as predictive analytics based on previous customer behavior to build meaningful interactions with your customers
One way you can use the information from big data is to ensure that you've targeted your audience properly.
For example, if you sell a prepaid Card targeting 18 to 25 year-olds as your sweet spot, big data may tell you that your audience has gotten younger, and that Generation Z is trending as the fastest-growing consumer group that has a heavy interest in your industry.
That information helps you shift your mobile marketing strategy (videos, social media campaigns, mobile coupons, mobile display advertising) to better appeal to the tastes and needs of this younger group.
Big data also impacts mobile marketing because it provides location data that is essential for small businesses that are trying to maximize their local presence.
Location data can help you create more effective mobile ads to reach the right local prospects, and targeted advertising is always better than general advertising that misses the mark because it's being put in front of people who wouldn't have any reason to want to engage with your business.
2. Search Engines Won't Just Display Pages
Facebook and Twitter, already leverage video content - but at the moment Google is still testing the waters to determine how audiences respond to video-based ads.
UI and UX specialists are still learning how we gesture, point, flick and tap on our devices, and with a search interface that's designed for typing and scrolling, you can see how trying to wrangle a process built for computers into a small screen with taps and flicks just becomes an exercise in frustration.
With so much data available, and so many past browsing habits to draw from, coming up with a page full of results is no longer going to cut it.
It's very likely we'll see fully optimized, fine-tuned mobile search that enlists the help of third party apps to not just recommend a particular product, but find it in the customer's preferred color, size, location, price range and much more.
3. Greater Integration Between Apps, E-Commerce and Social Platforms
There will be more seamless integration between apps and their corresponding e-commerce and social outlets. Websites get ranked and indexed as per the ranking of the mobile versions of the website and not the desktop version.
Instagram, one of the fastest-growing social media platforms in the world and an innovation like shoppableInstagram took flight in 2017 and shows no signs of stopping.
ShoppableInstagram is a convenient way for customers to discover the products they like, and make a purchase with little to no hassle. Currently, Instagram Shopping is limited to apparel, jewelry and beauty brands. That makes sense because Instagram is a platform that heavily relies on visual imagery.
Mobile users are drawn by the appeal of seeing a company's post on a social media channel like Instagram, and making a quick decision to buy something from that company.
Instagram allows mobile marketers to create posts with tags that mobile users can click to learn more information about the product, then click directly to the company's website to make the purchase.
The key, however, is that your social media posts have to be personalized to appeal to your target audience.
That can only happen when you thoroughly understand your audience's wants and needs, and post mobile content on the social media platform that is most appropriate to the group you are targeting.
4. Mobile apps will become irreplaceablein the future
According to Statista, mobile Android users could download 2.8 million apps in 2017, and iOS users could download 2.2 million apps.
The most popular Apple App Store categories as of January 2018 were as follows:
Games - 25%
Business - 9.8%
Education - 8.49%
Lifestyle - 8.32%
Entertainment - 6.05%
Utilities - 4.95%
Travel - 3.9%
Health & Fitness - 3%
Book - 2.99%
Mobile payments is also expected to reach 503 Bn by 2020
Mobile apps will remain a dominant aspect of mobile use for the foreseeable future, but the problem so far with consistent app adoption has been nailed down to one singular issue bandwidth. Loading speed matters as 53% of the people leave the page if the loading speed is more than 3 seconds.
There is a marked shift being seen in how mobile apps are created and marketed. Mobile users are not interested in just one feature or function, they want an app to do more than one thing, and to do it well.
Expect apps in 2018 to continue the trend toward multiple features.
Apps are going to be more about what mobile users find valuable as a daily part of their life as opposed to something that they use every now and then.
As long as there are forced restrictions on how much you can download, apps themselves play a pivotal role and position themselves as more of a lifestyle attachment than a usable "thing" that can quickly be uninstalled in favor of the next big thing.
5. Change will always be a constant
It's always interesting to forecast where mobile marketing is headed based on analyzing what the future has in store
This yearhas potential in the area of mobile marketing, there is lots more to look forward to in things like wearable technology, the Internet of things (IoT), and mobile automation systems like Alexa, Cortana and Siri.
What's for sure is that you can't afford to sit on the sidelines when it comes to mobile marketing, because one certainty is that mobile use as compared to desktop use will continue to grow.
What are your marketing strategies in 2018?