Top 5 Mobile Marketing Mistakes

With 58% of American adults owning a Smartphone (PewResearch Internet Project, 2014) the prospect of reaching new customers through their Smartphone is heartening. However, sometimes companies get mobile marketing wrong and mobile campaigns fail. Find below some important tips and the biggest mobile marketing mistakes you should avoid:

1. Understanding how people really use their mobile.

According to the Harvard Business Review, mobile doesn't mean on the go at all times: “New data show that 68% of consumers' Smartphone use happens at home. And users' most common activity is not shopping or socializing but engaging in what researchers at BBDO and AOL call me time." Now, “me time” refers to activities seeking entertainment or relaxation, such as watching a funny video or even window shopping for fun. Therefore, apps don’t have one single purpose; the same app can be used for self-expression or socializing and connecting with users during “me time” is what make you able to reach shoppers through their Smartphone’s.  

2. Overlooking a mobile-optimized web site

A common mistake is to run a mobile campaign without a mobile-optimized web site. For example, pointing users to a flash web site that isn’t optimized for mobile is a letdown for the potential clients and landing page it’s useless. Then it’s important to have in mind that sites on a desktop don’t necessary work on a Smartphone screen, and user-friendliness is the key to keep customers engaged.

3. Tracking the results

It makes sense that if you are investing in the execution of a marketing campaign, you will be interested in measuring the results. However, many companies run a mobile strategy without considering its effectiveness. To improve the communication with customers and to create new ways of reaching them, tracking the results is a must of any mobile marketing effort.

4. Discounts & coupons

The number of consumers who participate in mobile marketing, represent the success of your campaign. Then, you need to tell customers what’s available in the stores for them. There must be links to redeem a special offer or see related items of interest. Your clients may use of their phones as they’re in your shop to check competitor’s prices, so another tool is to activate discounts if the user checks-in at your store location,  to prevent “showrooming”: customers going elsewhere if they find better deals.

5. Under-investing in mobile media           

Ten percent of consumer’s media time is spent on mobile. However, only 1% of all advertising money is spent on mobile. (eMarketer, 2011). You should consider elements such as your specific target market, percentage of revenue generated from mobile users, b2b & b2c trends and then make decisions towards your mobile marketing expenses.

For additional information about how can mobile marketing and mobile web optimization help your business, we invite you to visit our website and contact our mobile marketing team www.XperienceMarketingSolutions.com to get a FREE consultation.

Wordpress vs. HTML5 for my new website, which one is the best?

There is not a clear choice or a single answer for this question.  There are many variables to take into consideration before you make the decision about what’s best for you. First of all, if you are still wondering what Wordpress or HTML is, the basic to know is: HTML stands for Hyper Text Markup Language, and is the behind the scenes coding language that makes us able to see objects such as images and structured text online. HTML5 is the latest HTML update, which adds capabilities to deal with elements like video, audio, and graphic animation.

On the other hand, Wordpress is one of the most popular content management in blog publishing applications. It was released as blog engine; however it has turn into a full feature customizable website creation tool. Then, Both HTML5 and Wordpress can be an appropriate Content Management Solution (CMS) but to make your decision on which option is the most suitable for your company or personal website, it is important that make yourself the following questions:

Do you want to make changes?

Website changes include a variety of activities like adding, modifying and removing content –for example, when you include a blog–; modifying core elements and layouts; your in need of following the latest’s web design trends, and more. If you are planning to implement this for your business website, it’s recommendable to use Wordpress due to the easiness of content managing, page layout options, timely core updates and code-free HTML scripts.

On the other site, if you think that your content won’t need to be updated at short term, in other words, there is a very low probability of new content being added, HTML5 is perfect. Then, if you want to build a website with just the basic business information: operation hours, telephone, address, e-mail, and a few other pages like contact form, HTML5 is still the right choice.

How often do you expect to make changes?

If you are constantly making changes and your website requires daily updates, it makes sense to have a website that allows you to make those changes.   Wordpress allows you to make those changes rather easily, but you will need to have basic knowledge about it. HTML5 will also allow you to make changes if your web developer creates a content management application for you.  This can be a good option if you want a simple content management application that you can use very easily and it will be web-base (no need to download software).

Are you going to do SEO and SEM?

Search engines update continually. According to Google’s webmasters support page, the Googlebot –the program that does the fetching– discovers new and updated pages to be added to the index through the process of “crawling”: it continuously visits sitemap data provided by webmasters to detect links on each page and adds them to its list of pages to crawl. Also, the program determines if the content is relevant to the user’s query so the site will rank well for a keyword.

On one side, Wordpress provides a lot of plug-ins and SEO is pretty much built-in because as we said before, it was build as a blogging platform. Nonetheless, you will still have to work in SEO. On the other hand, HML5 allows you to use advance SEO techniques like incorporation of social media and implementing elements of the social graphs, so it adapts quickly to the changes on the search engines. But, you will surely need to have good knowledge about it.

Taking your budget into consideration

At this point you should start thinking what kind of website fulfils your expectations and your company real needs. There are several differences in the cost of using Wordpress vs. HTML5. For example, you might find a cheaper hosting plan for basic HTML5 than for hosting a Wordpress site, because Wordpress requires a MySQL database and PHP support in your web-host. Besides, the cost of a Wordpress well designed theme is higher than the HTML5 one.

As a conclusion, if your company’s budget is limited, and you want to consider cost efficiency in the long run, look over the question number two. If you are using HTML5 and you need new content and old content updates, you’d have to ask a developer to modify a new page, this translates into spends. However, with Wordpress you have capability of adding or modifying content without the help of the original developer. In this situation, Wordpress is more cost effective than HTML5. Conversely, if you are not planning to make changes very often and your website is going to be ecstatic you should definitely take HTML5 as lower cost investment.

For additional information about Wordpress or HTML5 for your new website, go to www.XperienceMarketingSolutions.com to get a FREE consultation.