According to a recent mobile commerce report, globally more than 250 million smartphones shipped to customers who purchased them in Q3 of 2013. This number is at an all-time high and has increased exponentially over the past few years, from a mere 37 million in Q1 of 2009. Ninety-four percent of people in the United States are mobile, and 53 percent have smartphones. (1)
Thirty percent of U.S. mobile phone owners are currently using their phones to make online purchases. Additionally, about 62 percent use phones for social networking and mobile applications, and a whopping 82 percent surf the web on their phones. (1)
These numbers should tell you something: mobile marketing is an important way to reach an increasingly large audience online.
Mobile marketing options are many and diverse, because people are now using these devices to do so many different things. Efforts should include social media, applications, localized promotions, responsive design websites, and the technology to sell online using mobile, just to name a few.
Are you less than confident in your ability to effectively market your mobile business? You don’t have to go it alone! An increasing number of marketing and advertising firms are offering these services at affordable rates.
The EXTEND GROUP, for example, offers mobile-friendly website design, social media management, content marketing, e-commerce, and more, which will drive business to your website and increase your brand recognition. To learn more about the EXTEND GROUP’s service offerings, click here.
Still not convinced that mobile marketing is important? Do you still think the desktop PC is king? Let us throw a few more numbers at you.
Airtex Fuel Delivery Systems, a leading designer and manufacturer of fuel delivery system products for the automotive aftermarket, came to the EXTEND GROUP with increasing brand recognition as one of its objectives. Airtex handed over the reins of their website and their social media accounts. We optimized their website for mobile by creating a responsive design, which is engineering to fit any screen size, and we used social media strategies to drive users to their website.
We combined social strategies with content initiatives including twice-weekly blogs and twice-monthly newsletters; a robust YouTube channel, Airtex TV; and an online knowledge base, Fuel Pump U – all easily accessible from a mobile device.
Over the course of a year, Airtex went from 182 Facebook followers to 12,000, with almost 1 million YouTube views. Additionally, unique monthly visitors to their website increased by 66 percent, from 6,000 to 10,000.
To top it all off, we made buying their fuel pumps on a mobile device possible by creating a VIN scan application, which uses the smartphone’s barcode reader to drive users directly to Airtex’s online parts catalog. It’s now easier than ever for mechanics, retail workers, and do-it-yourselfers to purchase Airtex’s products online – on any device.
Need more evidence? Click here to read more of the EXTEND GROUP’s case studies.
As you can see, the combination of mobile e-commerce and marketing strategies has the potential to impact both your brand recognition and the size and loyalty of your customer base. Ignoring this increasingly prevalent platform is a sure way to fall behind the competition!
Sources:
(1) Econsultancy (2013). Mobile Statstics Compendium: December 2013. Econsultancy.
