You have a sales team that is driven to increase leads and boost sales for your company. However, you can be doing a lot behind the scenes to help increase their effectiveness and cultivate long term loyal customers for your brand. In order to manage your sales team in a way they can thrive, you will want to back them with great digital content and smart marketing campaigns.
MOBILE MARKETING IS KEY
Over 3 billion people are now on their smartphones and 90 percent of cell phone users report carrying their cell phone “frequently,” according to the Pew Research Center. Between apps, texting, and mobile web searches, people are immersed in their mobile devices like never before. Mobile marketing, then, takes an important role in an overall marketing strategy for most consumers. Mobile marketing assumes the user is a frequent user of his or her cell phone and seeks to advertise accordingly.
Nearly three-fourths (72 percent) of Americans expect websites to be optimized for mobile, according to Google. But, nearly that same number (73 percent) believe mobile sites are usually too slow at loading and 74 percent will leave the site after waiting just a few seconds.
From sites that are ready to adjust for mobile to bulk texting campaigns, there are a number of ways a company can get their message across to the cell phone user of today.
Text Messaging Campaigns — Companies can use text messaging software or third party assistance to connect with their users and give them further content updates. With new laws established for these kinds of campaigns, many companies should take precautions to ensure their users are opting into their contacts list and avoid buying any lists of numbers.
In-App Messaging — For companies that have chosen to really explore their mobile marketing options, apps are a great support aide. In order to keep users active on the apps themselves, brands can use update prompts for the apps themselves
Mobile PPC Ads — Companies can choose to market towards specific segments of their market, setting up parameters on their pay per click (PPC) advertisements accordingly. Ads can be set up to target or retarget users who are using mobile searches on relevant keywords.
Social Content — One of the biggest uses for most cell phone users comes in the form of social media apps. Facebook, Instagram, and Pinterest are among the top apps for mobile users, with Search Engine Journal reporting 91 percent of mobile Internet access is spent on social activities and people spend one out of every seven online minutes on Facebook. Content designed with mobile users in mind should be succinct and include visual aids to increase interest and brand cohesion.
Mobile Optimized Blogs — As users spend a lot of time on social media apps, you will want your content to be easily shared and visited by mobile users. Optimizing your blog, then, is an absolute must.
Mobile Friendly Emails — Another area where many marketers fail to fully capitalize is in the content they are already distributing via email newsletters and updates. Emails should be optimized for mobile, since many mobile users are now checking their emails right from their phones.
MOBILE MARKETING AUTOMATION
While mobile marketing is important for companies to implement, mobile marketing automation is a key to reducing repetitive tasks that need to be done (but shouldn’t be sucking up the time of your marketers or sales team).
Establish guidelines for:
• Sending consumers reminders about abandoned carts.
• Sparking the interest of dormant app users.
• Offering deals for consumers within your service radius.
Set up automatic messages that go out for special events (like a birthday or anniversary) or deals that are achieved for a certain level of customer loyalty. By automating part of your inbound marketing methodology, you can stay in touch in a personalized way without being too bogged down to handle large numbers of contacts.