Techblog
How you can further your business with mobile marketing tools
As one of the countries with the highest smartphone penetration percentage, Singapore has seen a great shift in how consumers browse and shop. This article gives you an insight on how you can make use of the different digital tools for mobile marketing to help further your reach.
By the myBusiness techblog team
With the introduction of smartphones over the last decade, marketing has changed from traditional means and given birth to the increasingly popular concept of mobile marketing. One main advantage it has over other forms of marketing is that messages are sent almost immediately. Here's a list of the different mobile marketing tools to help you market your offerings.
- Scanning for Information with QR Code
An interactive approach to capture the interest of your target audience is through a Quick Response (QR) code. The QR code consists of square dots in a square pattern, and was initially designed for the automotive industry. The popularity of the QR code amongst other industries skyrocketed with its fast readability and large data storage capacity features. The QR Code requires a person to have a smartphone in hand for scanning and reading the image. For example, Manny Rai, the owner of North Coast Wine & Beer in Ohio, placed large QR codes in front of two of his three retail stores. According to Cleveland.com, 8 to 10 people scanning the code daily and helps in attracting more attention to his business.
You can easily generate QR codes through free websites such as GoQR.me. Try scanning the QR code below with a QR code reader such as NeoReader.
- Going Traditional with SMS/MMS Blast Promotions
Sending SMS/MMS is not restricted to connecting one person to another; it is also an effective way of leveraging mobile marketing. SMS/MMS promotional blasts work simply: sending promotional content to customers via text messages, keeping them updated of the latest offerings. McDonald's latest SMS blast about the return of their popular Samurai Burger and the Cheese Shaker Fries at 11am saw customers heading straight to their outlets during lunchtime. This demonstrates the effectiveness of SMS marketing for time-sensitive products and being able to reach out instantly, all while cutting down on otherwise expensive TV advertisements.
- Free Apps: A Hands-on Preview
Running a business that offers Software-as-a-Service (Saas)? Free applications may be a way to reach out to potential customers. A combination of "free" and "premium", the concept of "freemium" is the offering of your software with basic functionality or one with a limited time period. It gives users a taste of what the products are like before purchasing. According to the statistics from Juniper Research, revenue generation from in-app purchases will shoot from $2.1 billion to $4.8 billion between 2011 and 2016. Positive reviews provided by users about their experience with the app may generate interest; the app is spread by word of mouth and it may even go viral on the net.
- Using Social Media Platforms for a Personalised Touch
The use of social media has skyrocketed with the advent of the smartphone. Businesses, ranging from small blogshops to big corporations like Nike, are on social network platforms to engage customers, giving them the personalised touch. Positive publicity generated by customers would spread very fast through social media, and this is reason enough to hop on the bandwagon. It is, however, a marketing tool that involves a lot of maintenance to respond to customer's queries and needs to be constantly updated.
- Augmented Reality: The Ultimate Interactive Experience
In the movie Iron Man, protagonist Tony Stark was seen pulling graphics out of his computer screen and integrating them into real-world environments in his futuristic lab. Making the jump from reel to real life, this technology is actually called augmented reality (AR), and is sometimes hailed as the future of mobile marketing. Though we are not able to pull out images from our smartphones, AR enables a unique interactive experience to users in two steps: simply download an application and place a smartphone in front of the advertised item. A good example for such use is the latest Beetle launch by Volkswagen as seen here. This is very effective way, albeit a costly one, in generating publicity and interest due to the curiosity that stem from AR technology.
Get Started With Some Tools
There is no "best" digital tool for mobile marketing, and you should be the one deciding what is best for your business. Whether you tend towards developing QR Codes or sending SMS/MMS blasts, there are always a variety of services in the market that helps bring you closer to your customers such as Mojiva, sendQuick, MoFuse just to name a few. The Singtel myBusiness portal is also running a promotion that bundles several of their marketing and sales SaaS applications - do check it out here.
Which do you think works well for your business, and why? Leave a comment to let us know.