Editor's Note: Josh R Jackson is a contributing editor at BestMarketingDegrees.org. To compliment the brand new classes in our updated catalog, he joins us to discuss three mobile marketing strategies that your business can use to build conversion right away.
With over 8 billion mobile connections to the web in 2017, there are now more mobile devices than people on the planet.
Compound that fact with the following statistics:
- For mobile searches, the first position on Google nets a 31.35% clickthrough rate.
- One in every three (34%) of online retail purchases now occur on mobile devices.
- More Google searches are made from mobile devices than computers in 10 countries, including the U.S. and Japan.
- Mobile is the fastest growing media channel by digital media consumption.
You get the idea—mobile has reached heights of global availability, marketability, and saleability that TV, Radio, and Print media could only dream of.
This is why most online marketers will ask themselves this question between now and 2020: Right now, aside from the lengthy and expensive process of developing new mobile applications, what can my business do with mobile marketing strategies to increase conversions?
Here are three cost-effective ways to do exactly that.
3 Mobile Marketing Strategies to Increase Conversions
1. Optimize Your Site for Mobile Users
This should be an easy check off the list for most people who know that in 2015, Google decreed that mobile optimized sites would get an extra boost in their rankings.
But the main reason to optimize sites for mobile users has changed slightly, from a directive of following Google’s guidelines to an industry imperative to follow mobile wherever it goes, especially when it signals higher conversion rates.
The the most basic reason to go mobile-friendly is to get a seat at the table, or have a shot of ranking anywhere near the top of the Internet’s most popular search engines. But currently the best reason to optimize your site for mobile is that users engage more intimately with mobile interfaces than they do with desktop interfaces.
In other words, people prefer mobile for finding specific pieces of information rather than for general research, which they reserve for desktop/laptop searches.
That means if a user is looking up “best mobile streaming service” on their phone, they will very likely click on the first search result they see, and either convert if they find a definitive answer, or bounce if they can’t.
This is why it’s imperative, when optimizing your site for mobile devices, to place the most informative and interactive components of your interface at the top of your landing page.
Example: If your goal is getting users to sign up for your email list and you already know your audience comes to your site looking for information about mobile streaming services, place an email sign-up at the top of your page with the header: Get Our Definitive Ranking of the 10 Best Mobile Streaming Services.
That way, mobile users who come to you looking for that nugget of information will see it right away. Otherwise, they’ll bounce, and bounce fast.
Unique clicks on ads: 15% higher on mobile-optimized sites.
Conversion Rate Optimization (CRO) among mobile users: 64% higher than conversion rate optimization among desktop users (socPub)
2. Research Audiences and Target Demographics By Operating System
This strategy traces its roots way back to the timeless debate between Mac, PC and the demographic data that distinguishes those sets of users.
That demographic data includes distinctions between more affluent users (who tend to use Mac) and less affluent users (who tend to use PCs), as well as a smaller global sample of users (who tend to use Mac) and a larger global sample of users (who tend to use PCs).
For mobile operating systems, this debate centers around the difference between iOS and Android, the two software systems that respectively run iPhone and Android devices.
For mobile marketers, the distinction between user demographics holds true on mobile platforms, where a smaller but more affluent sample of iOS users tends to convert more often than the larger but less affluent global sample of Android users.
The most likely explanation for higher conversion rates among iOS users has to do with affluence: i.e., that iOS users likely have more expendable income than Android users. This doesn’t mean that Android users don’t buy or sign up for things on mobile platforms, but it does mean that there is a smaller subset of products and services that Android users will buy or sign up for on mobile.
The key takeaway here is that mobile marketers can and should research, target, and segment their audiences according to the demographic data most readily available to them about their users’ mobile devices.
Avg. Conversion Rate for mobile users of iOS: 2.09% (Smart Insights)
Avg. Conversion Rate for mobile users of Android: 1.47% (Smart Insights)
3. Offer Direct and Seamless Checkout
One of the biggest barriers to mobile conversions is any friction that gets in the way of completing a sign-up or purchase, either on-website or in-app.
Such friction usually comes from page redirects that take mobile users outside of your app or website and onto another forum that asks for information, money, and in some cases, new member sign-up. PayPal and some email services have become slightly notorious for doing this by asking users to log in and create new accounts to complete checkout if users are not already members.
Creating such friction often comes at the expense of a sale or sign-up, because it breaks the bond between the user and the service provider, who is expected to create and offer a uniform user experience.
As such, it’s imperative that mobile marketers work tirelessly to make sign-ups and purchases as direct and seamless as possible for mobile users.
There are a currently a number of ways to offer your services as directly and seamlessly as possible, including the use of mobile media for native advertisements that take users directly to your email sign-up, or in-app purchase landing pages.
Avg. Conversion Rate for mobile device that minimizes friction (e.g., tablet): 2.42%
To learn more about how you can implement mobile marketing strategies that will optimize your site for mobile users, join OMI's newest classes on the Mobile Channel, Mobile Consumer Insights, and Mobile Media Ad Formats.