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Harnessing the power of mobile marketing

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20th Oct 2011
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Many marketers within the financial and accountancy markets realise the power that mobile marketing can bring, however a few simple searches reveal that few have taken steps to harness its potential, says 2ergo MD John Stevens.

More than 368,000 Google searches are done daily via mobile devices for ‘loans’, but none of the results on the first page take a user to an mSite or mobile optimised content. A third of UK adults now own a smartphone, and this is set to grow to 50% by June 2012. As well as an important tool for customer acquisition, the proximity and attachment consumers and professionals have to their phone, mobile offers the perfect platform for long-term loyalty schemes, to help accountancy and financial professionals achieve the maximum customer lifetime value. Clearly, the opportunity for financial marketers to gain the upper hand in mobile has never been better.

So if the potential for customer acquisition and loyalty are so huge, why is the profession lagging behind on effective, engaging mobile propositions? It could be a perception that mobile requires major investment, at a time when marketing budgets are tight. Or organisations may feel that they’ve simply missed the boat on mobile.

The fact is, establishing an effective mobile presence can be achieved in just a few simple, low cost steps. The key is to plan well and know exactly what you need for your business, now and in the future. Here are some considerations that will stand you in good stead:

1. Identify your goals

What do you want mobile to do for your business? Inform? Transact? Incentivise? Retain? This will determine the type of mobile activity you need to plan for.

2. mSite or app?

A lot of organisations have the perception that they need one of these two elements to ‘tick the box’ for mobile. Rather than simply select the product you think will be the easiest or cheapest to integrate, consider what your mobile strategy is going to be long term, and work from there. As a very rough measure, apps are best for function and mSites work best for reach, so it’s important to think about what will fit your customers’ and your long term goals.

3. Integration, integration, integration

A mobile presence should fit into an integrated, multichannel marketing strategy. Think about what data is being captured by your mobile activities, and how this information needs to fit in your organisation. Will it help to maintain up to date customer records? Or do you want to help new customers quickly sign up a new service? Ensure you’ve got the right level of security to protect customers’ financial information.

4. Bring it to life

The most important way to engage with customers via mobile is through relevant, interesting, useful content. Think about how you’ll keep customers close and coming back for more.

5. Get the word out

No matter how amazing your new mobile presence is, customers and prospects need to know about it, before they’ll start to engage. Think about how you’ll promote the services available – both within your own marketing literature, through PR or a simple mobile advertising campaign.

John Stevens is group managing director at 2ergo - an international mobile business and mobile marketing solutions company. The company recently published a guide, Establishing a Mobile Presence, which includes further hints and tips to get you up and running.

Replies (6)

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By chris.lilley
21st Oct 2011 14:13

How hard can it be?

A good point which many companies could do with addressing.

It makes you wonder how many marketing executives ever look at their own company's website on thier own smartphones?

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By KB Powers
21st Oct 2011 14:29

Mobile marketing

This article is so full of incomprehensible jargon that I've given up.   Perhaps this is why us technologically challenged accountants are lagging so far behind.

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By chris.lilley
21st Oct 2011 14:46

:-)

A summary might be "It's all well and good having a web page that looks great on your 50 inch plasma screen, but you also need a version that can get your message across on a business card sized screen too."

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By ryedaleman
21st Oct 2011 17:46

Harnessing the power of mobile marketing

Are we to believe that we have potential clients looking at our web sites on their smart phones and from what they see decided who to contact

Get Real

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By taxhelpukcom
30th Oct 2011 14:22

Good points

The mobile market is expanding rapidly, it's one of the reasons I moved the video hosting on our www.taxhelp.uk.com site to YouTube, so that people can watch them on mobiles.

 

As well as that, we have a web app for our site, so it provides an easy to use version when people are accessing it on their mobiles - whether iPhones, BlackBerries or others.

There is also the option to switch to the full web version on mobile should people wish to.

 

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By Alice White
27th Jan 2012 13:54

Mobile marketing is the new tread of any marketing products because of uses of mobile phone. According to recent survey about 90% UK people read sms and this shows how people interested in mobile. Sending sms through shared short code or own brand short code to customer helps to reach your products to customer. Short code is now used by all popular reality shows, programs, games and election campaigns to send or to populate their message to targeted audiences. Good to see people 'getting it' after so long. I remember a time, not so long ago, when the phrase mobile marketing in UK meant sticking a billboard on the back of a truck and driving it around the streets. Also good to see that techniques like 'text to win' which have been around for over a decade still gives a good return. It's easy to forget that SMS is available to nearly 100% of phone owners, and gives the 70%, that don't have smartphones and do not wish apply for payday loan online in order to buy it, a way to engage.

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