How to Plan Your Mobile Marketing Strategy in the UK

If you are still ignoring “Mobiles & Tablets” in your online marketing strategy then hopefully this will be the push you need. Smartphones and Tablets are a vital part of any online marketing campaign in 2015. If we just analyse the UK, 68% of all mobile phones in the UK are now smartphones and are catching up with desktops for Internet usage in the UK.

These statistics should not just be read but then forgotten. They are expose the paradigm shift of users from desktops to Tablets and Smartphones, so while planning your online marketing strategy do keep “Multiple device targeting” in mind. Some points to remember while planning your overall Mobile marketing strategy are :

1. Keep your Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) efforts aligned to Mobile marketing i.e. if you are a local business then make sure your business is registered on Google Business with a verified mobile no & address. You have to keep in mind that as mobile devices have small screen, Google automatically truncates the length of the titles and descriptions. So show off your best work in SERPs & be as concise as possible. You can find some amazing tips and tricks for Mobile SEO at this resource provided by Moz.
2. If you are planning to launch a PPC campaign, make sure you have separate ads for mobile, use mobile sitelinks & mobile call extensions. Remember to keep in mind that clicks on mobile PPC ads are usually less expensive than clicks on desktops, even though mobile traffic tends to convert more than desktop. Mobile has a totally different experience than Desktop so you have to work to provide a tailored experience to mobile users. Read this awesome guide from Wordstream.
3. Social Media is becoming more and more dominated by smartphones and tablets. All major social media platforms i.e. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram or LinkedIn, have statistics to show that mobile users have surpassed desktop long ago, nearly 80-85% of logged in FB users in UK are active via smartphones or tablets. In Feb 2014,The United Kingdom was ranked top in Europe, with 30 million social media users. According to Statista there were around 24 million active Facebook Mobile users in 2014 and a projected 26.2 million in 2015 (See the graph below)
4. Now lets discuss 5 behavioral statistics which will genuinely help in getting a clear direction when planning Mobile Marketing Strategy.

1. Which devices do people use?

The following statistics give us an idea about the market share each device has and whether a cross device marketing strategy is needed or not. Smartphones, Tablets and Desktop all hold a large market share, and so it is important to learn your audience and assign the budget split accordingly. Internet Enabled TVs also hold a huge market share and are becoming more and more popular. This cant be ignored so future marketing strategies can loop in that audience through Video sharing websites like YouTube, Vimeo & Netflix etc.

2.With what combinations of devices do people go online?

As smart devices are increasing, consumers are also adapting to the tech hustle, a huge number of customers consume content from multiple devices. To understand this, the below statistics can be helpful. Computer and Smartphone users top the charts with 30% users, therefore we should push our campaigns to a bare minimum of these 2 devices.

3.How often do people go online (for personal Internet usage)?

Believe it or not, the Internet was considered as a secondary digital media until 2008. As we know, that has all changed these days, it is well and truly a main stream digital media which is constantly used by consumers, so it’s crucial to know how often people go online. The below statistics clearly indicate that 66% of consumers are online multiple times a day.

4.For what daily life activities do people use their smartphone?

This is all very well and good, but so far it is missing one key ingredient, sentiment & context – what exactly people do on these devices. Statistics suggest that we can better optimise our ads based on the content that they are based around. This is important to understand – it will also decide how long you have to get your point across to users. Checking the weather involves a quick look at the phone, Reading the news keeps users engaged for much longer whereas listening to music probably means the phone is in the user’s pocket so unless you have a ‘Radio ad’ on Spotify your content is never going to be seen!

5.How do people go online with different devices?

This is another statistic linked to the frequency that users are online on their Smartphone. As we know, Smartphone, Tablet and Desktop all goes hand in hand. 35% of consumers go online with Computers, Tablets and Smartphones equally. So by now we have understood that at a bare minimum these 3 devices are to be kept in focus with nearly equal attention while creating a marketing plan.

Hopefully, you will now be clear on where and when you should be spending your marketing budget with regards to Mobile. It is not just spraying money around and hoping for a return – as with all digital marketing, and because it’s the 6 nations at the moment I’ll use a rugby analogy, you need to play with intensity, accuracy and in the right areas of the pitch! In other words, decide which key verticals are must have, and which ones don’t need to be concentrated on as much, align your multi device strategy and ensure all ads are optimised for their device, content type and schedule.

Clearly then, a large part of the future of Digital Marketing is not purely in mobile, but in how you manage your multi device campaign.