5 Mobile Marketing Tips That Drive Sales 

In many ways 2015 was the year of mobile marketing and the trend towards mobile-optimized content isn’t going anywhere anytime soon. With 6 billion mobile devices in use already and more being activated every day, mobile marketing has never been more important or more integral to a company’s future success. No matter where you are, this is a global trend, our web design partners in Cuba feel the same. Here are 5 smart mobile marketing tips that will help drive sales and convert casual surfers into loyal consumers:

1. Embrace the Power of SMS

Short Message Service, or SMS, is just a fancy term for texting. Businesses are finding success using SMS as a delivery system for information, particular when the messages are customer-oriented and include coupons, sale details, or other discounts. The advantage of SMS is in its immediacy. Not only can deals be sent out on a spur-of-the-moment basis, allowing marketing departments to advertise last-minute promotions, customers are also more likely to respond to text messages in a speedy fashion: while it takes consumers an average of 90 minutes to respond to an email, they respond to SMS messages in an average of just 90 seconds.

2. Make Your Social Media Mobile-Friendly

Everyone talks about the necessity of making your business website mobile-ready, but it’s equally important – if not more so – to ensure that your social media pages are compatible with a wide range of mobile devices. To do so:

• Resize your graphics. Pics should be no larger than 620w x 412h pixels.
• Pin important posts to the top of your Twitter or Facebook profile to make sure your key content is seen regardless of the smaller displays
• Incorporate visual content. Image-driven posts are twice as likely to garner a “like” than text-based updates.
• Review your links. Your own website may be mobile-friendly, but what about the sites you’re directing your readers to?

3. Optimize Your Apps

When asked whether they would rather give up drinking water or delete all their apps, 85 percent of consumers said they’d prefer being thirsty. People are serious about their apps, and businesses should be taking advantage. Make sure your app is responsive, meaning it automatically senses and adjusts to the size of the user’s screen, incorporate personalized features such as location-based marketing, and encourage subscribers to opt-in for deals customized to the preferences and personal details they provided.

4. Reward Interaction

As consumers jump on the mobile bandwagon and interact with your business via their mobile device, reward them accordingly. Offer deals and discounts in exchange for reviews or check-ins, run contests with multiple entries based of sharing and liking posts, or run polls or surveys that award prizes based on participation. Giving your subscribers something they like in return for their attention, assistance, and patronage builds loyalty, and the more loyal your readers are the more likely they are to purchase something.

5. Integrate Your Channels

Mobile marketing is ridiculously powerful, but it’s still just one part in a large, multi-faceted puzzle. A successful marketing plan takes place across all your active channels – social media, SMS, email, mobile apps, QR codes, banner ads, etc. – by strategically designing print and digital collateral for each channel that fits in with the rest of the campaign without being repetitive or redundant. The proof is in the conversion rates: 43 percent of those polled were more likely to purchase a mobile deal that was part of a larger, multiple-channel campaign.

Author Biography

Sophorn Chhay

Sophorn is an inbound marketer specializing in attracting targeted visitors and generating sales qualified leads. Through Trumpia’s SMS marketing automation solution he helps businesses and organizations communicate effectively with their customers or members. Watch Trumpia’s 5-Minute Demo on how to execute an effective mobile marketing strategy.

What is HTTPS/SSL?

HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure is the communication between the browser and web server. HTTPS encrypts the communication between your browser and the webserver so that the data you transmit remains secure from external sources (ie your neighbour or the government). HTTPS indicates the websites authenticity and can be recognised by the green lock icon in the address bar. HTTPS uses the protocol Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) to achieve this. HTTPS and SSL have different meanings but most people in the SEO industry will use the words interchangeably as they effectively mean the same thing. If you don’t have a domain name yet or thinking about changing your domain, please read this guide on how to choose a domain name.

Why use HTTPS?

Because Google says so! Google has officially declared that https is one of the 200+ ranking signals used for determining a site’s Search Engine Ranking Position. How much of a factor it is as a ranking signal is the big question. It certainly doesn’t weigh as much as quality backlinks or good on-site optimisation but every little helps, according to Moz.com search engine ranking factors for 2015, there is a correlation between higher website ranking and https. Another important reason to use https aside from the SEO benefits is because it is due to be the industry standard in the future, and browsers are looking to display website address lacking https with a red X so that it appears broken and unsecure to users. This of course affects user experience, bounce rate and indirectly SEO.

HTTPS Setup and the Cost

I guess the biggest reason why people aren’t jumping at the chance of using https if it has additional benefits is because of cost and expertise required to set it up. The cost will typically set you back $100 a year and over $1000 for the more expensive certificates. Setting up https/SSL does require some server and webmaster knowledge. Many hosting providers offer the service to set it up for free or with additional cost if you purchase the SSL certificate from them. I hear Hostingstep has some awesome coupon deals you could try out. If you are looking to set it up yourself, then make sure you do it correctly and have the following:

• Make sure the url is working – so https://via.vision works and the website can be viewed. This is obvious but many people set up their https whilst unable to visit their https address!
• Redirect all address to the canonical address which is the https version, for example http://graftene.co.uk should redirect to https://via.vision.
• Use 301 permanent redirect, not 302 temporary redirect.

The above tips will make sure you don’t lose any SEO points for attempting to use https on your website poorly.

Conclusion

The conclusion is that switching to HTTPS will have additional immediate benefits in the form of better security and hitting one of Googles ranking signals for SEO, as well as long term benefits as Google intends for all websites in the future to use https. So why not get in there sooner rather than later? The obvious drawback is the cost and the sheer hassle of setting it up. You would first need to purchase a certificate from $0-$1000, and then configure your website and server to set it up. After that you would need SEO knowledge to make sure your new website address with the https does not affect your site ranking negatively. You can do this by following the best practices for setup mentioned above. If you’ve recently switched to HTTPS or are thinking about it, let us know about your experience or if you have any questions post in the comments below. If you’re still confused then our good friends at Blank are great technical seo consultants that may be able to help!