What Every Content Marketer Needs to Know about Mobile Marketing

Creating epic content and continually teaching your audience — if done well — can eventually earn you raving fans and paying customers.

The problem is your audience now chooses how they learn, where they learn, and when they learn.

If your business only connects with customers on the desktop, you’re not only missing a huge opportunity to grow your business, but you’re pushing business away … possibly to your competitor.

Think about your daily routine for a second … checking your email from bed, first thing in the morning is pretty common.

It’s been reported that 91% of mobile users keep their phone within 3 feet, 24/7 — even while sleeping. This is your customer’s behavior as well.

You probably already know that StudioPress gives content marketers a variety of responsive website solutions, allowing you to connect with your audience on any device they choose, wherever they are, and whenever they want to connect.

But having a mobile-friendly website is just the first step towards mobilizing your business.

Having interviewed mobile strategists from CNN, Jetblue, 1-800 Flowers, and more, it’s clear that the businesses that integrate a variety of mobile strategies generate the most leads, engagement, and sales.

Here are 4 mobile strategies you can incorporate into your business:

1. Connect immediately with a text message

When’s the last time you missed a text message?

98% of text messages (also known as SMS for Short Messaging Service) sent are opened, and 83% are opened within 3 minutes, according to a study by Techipedia.

Text messages even have 8 times the response rate of email, as seen in a recent study.

With that level of immediacy and visibility, text messaging is a great way to actively engage your audience, mobilize your content, and develop rapport with your customer.

Did you know that in 2011, Americans alone sent over 2.3 trillion text messages? That’s 6.3 billion a day. Some researchers have even stated consumers often feel “phantom texts.” I know I have!

Brands like Google, The New York Times, Starbucks, and CNN actively use SMS to engage their customers.

But with great power comes great responsibility.

Just because you can connect with your customer within minutes doesn’t mean you can abuse this privilege. SMS marketing — like good email marketing — is absolutely not about spamming your customers with dumb, irrelevant offers.

In fact, SMS campaigns require your customers to opt-in before ever receiving any message. That means your customers want your messages and become extremely receptive.

SMS only allows for 160 characters, so communication must be short, sweet, and to the point. In the age of Twitter, it turns out to be the right amount to entice your audience to engage in more depth.

Here are a few ways you could use SMS in your business:

• Build your email list. Have customers opt-in to your email list via text message. (Great for converting people at live events).
• Send links to videos with exclusive content or to download your app (see next section).
• Generate webinar sign-ups.
• Connect with conference attendees, announcing speaking times and locations.
• Poll your audience. Get feedback on products or services.
• Update fans on new posts, eBooks, and products.
• Create contests to engage your audience and give away cool prizes.

Practically any business can tap into the power of SMS. For example:

• Health Coaches — send tips for healthy living
• Finance Consultant — Send money-saving tips
• Life Coach — Send reminders or inspirational quotes
• Copywriter — Send content marketing strategies

My friend Alara Castell sends weekly motivational quotes to inspire her students. Alara grew her mobile list by promoting through email and social media.

SMS is the most intimate marketing channel available to you. Use it correctly and you’ll see results.

2. There’s an app for that

Are you as tired of that saying as I am? There actually isn’t an app for that but there could be!

I’ll be the first to tell you that having a mobile responsive website is a must … but an app can extend your relationship with your customers in new and innovative ways. Just make sure the app actually meets the needs of your audience — make it useful.

Some benefits to creating an app for your content business:

• Your brand icon is on your customers screen. Yes, there is value to that.
• Offline availability. Apps can extend access to your content to customers while they are offline. Yup, your online content, available offline, in their pocket, at any moment.
• Device enhancements. Take advantage of device features like location to deliver more relevant experiences.

Here are some great people connecting with their audience using an app:

• Pat Flynn of Smart Passive Income — His free app offers another way for his audience to read his blog posts and listen to his podcast.
• Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich — Ramit created an app called Negotiate It which helps people save money by using scripts to lower your cable bill, car insurance, and more. He charges $6.99, creating an additional revenue stream for his business.
• Grant Cardone — Grant is an author and sales expert whose app, CloseTheSale, provides scripts for various sales closing techniques. It can help make anyone a better closer.

Whether you just extend your free content or create niche apps that help your audience accomplish a specific goal like Ramit does, an app becomes an effective way to build new engagement with your audience.

3. Mobile landing pages can sell too

We’ve learned techniques for creating landing pages that work and copy that sticks, so why not take that knowledge to the mobile environment?

Landing pages are critical in your marketing funnel. That means they need to work well in a mobile environment.

If your customers can get to your landing page from an email, your mobile responsive website, or an SMS (as mentioned earlier), you’ll want to take a few steps to make your mobile landing pages a success.

• Create a clear call to action. You thought a clear call to action was critical on a normal landing page? It’s a must on a mobile device. Screen real estate is limited, and people navigate with one eye and one thumb. Make it clear and un-missable.
• Be thumb-friendly. For most devices, the ideal clickable area is 44×44 pixels. You’ll want to add padding to your links, and make sure you have some negative space between those links to avoid mis-clicks. (All the more reason to follow the best practice of having no irrelevant links on landing pages.)
• Use simple forms. Keep your forms to as few fields as possible. Simple is sexy. Long forms equal lower conversion, and that’s even more true on mobile devices.
• Test, test, test. What works on desktop won’t always work on mobile, so be sure to test your landing pages with your end goal always in mind.

4. Make email mobile

A content marketer’s email list is her most important asset. She crafts her communications meticulously and uses the words that get her emails opened.

The next question is “Where are they being opened?”

Email is one of the primary activities of smartphone users. A recent report released by Knotice stated that mobile is now driving 36% of all email opens.

Solutions such as aWeber and Mailchimp do some of the heavy lifting for you, making sure your font size adapts to various screen sizes, but there are a few things you can do to make sure your email is mobile-friendly.

A great start is by reading the 5 tips for better results with mobile email marketing.

The most important thing you can do when going mobile with your email is to test. Just because you follow the 5 tips above doesn’t mean you’re golden.

Your analytics should display the devices and screen resolutions frequently accessing your site, so start with those.

I highly recommend you test on real devices. Just like with the landing page tips above, you want to make sure your call to action is clear and any links or buttons have enough space around them to avoid mis-clicks.

Are you mobile-friendly yet?

How are you using mobile and what type of results have you seen?

Let us know in the comments …