Partner Article

Developing a sustainable mobile marketing strategy

It’s online marketing focus week on Bdaily. Here, Dr KF Lai, CEO of BuzzCity, explains how small businesses can develop a mobile marketing strategy.

We are all aware that consumers spend a lot of time on the phone, not just talking, but surfing the web, updating social status, chatting with friends, watching videos, buying movie tickets, checking out travel sites and more. In fact, recent research found that an average user now spends two hours a day using their mobile phone.

Therefore, businesses know that having a mobile presence is vital. If you don’t have a mobile strategy, you’re missing out and may actually lose customers to your competitors.

So where do you start?

There are two things to realise from the very beginning:

1. Your mobile strategy needs to be in line with your business goals

2. Take a step-by-step approach to contain costs and be more effective.

Keeping this in mind, let’s take a look at issues to think about as you develop a plan to market your business and sell products or services via mobile:

1. Mobile and your business plan.

Start by revisiting your business goals. Then ask how mobile can help you reach them.

Developing a strategy that includes mobile starts with questions that sound a lot like those asked in a business plan:

• How big is the market?
• Who are your target customers?
• What are your objectives?
• How do you measure success?

Think about what your clients want and need, so that you can use mobile to better communicate with them.

2. Choosing the right mobile media

A website isn’t just an online brochure and a mobile site isn’t just a mini-website. Each is crafted to suit the way a customer might behave and is built to inspire specific reactions.

Mobile sites work on any internet-enabled handset and are perhaps better for reaching the masses. Apps, on the other hand, leverage a handset’s capabilities to provide enhanced functionality and are best when a specific service offered.

3. Create the right content

Then think about who you want to interact with and what you want to achieve. Are you building brand awareness, promoting online commerce or driving people to your store?

Now, consider different ways to communicate your message. You could have frequent updates in a blog or social media. Or perhaps videos, games or discount coupons are the best way to interact with your target audience. Either way, you need to provide content that your consumers want and can act upon.

4. A roadmap

As a small business, chances are you won’t have the resources to build your entire mobile programme up front or in-house. Instead, you’ll want to see quick results to get more funding support.

We strongly recommend phasing-in your mobile strategy. Start with a small mobi-site before venturing into apps, which can be more expensive and time-consuming to develop. Keep in mind, that while technology keeps evolving, you don’t need to use the latest thing, just the most appropriate. Continually evaluate your mobile programme, check out user stats and revisit your roadmap, perhaps on a quarterly basis.

For the best chance of success, base your strategy on appropriate technology aligned with your mobile goals, the usage patterns of your target audience, and your budget. Success also requires that customers are delivered useful and actionable information which also needs to be reviewed within the phases of development.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by BuzzCity .