Tips to Get You Moving on Mobile Marketing

Looking to reach more mobile customers? One thing you should not do is try to jam your regular website onto a mobile site—it won’t work, according to Joel Barrow managing partner for Mobile Fusion.

Speaking at the Shop.org conference in Dallas on Tuesday, Barrow advised fixing your website with a single web page so it can be viewed by people on a mobile device.

You should also understand what your customers are likely to want on a mobile site, he said, adding that 82% of shoppers are using mobile while in a store.

In most cases, he said, “mobile users are just trying to find you,” so multichannel retailers should include their store locations, hours and phone numbers. Web-only merchants should include the toll-free number, e-mail address and perhaps the most popular deal.

You need to deliver a good, seamless mobile experience across your website, email, retail, Facebook, phone system/call center, catalogs and other channels, Barrow said. “Make the 800-numbers click-to-call—don’t take customers out of your site,” he said.

Mobile marketers should use text messaging to squeeze every drop of revenue out of promotions, Barrow noted. “Text messaging is direct marketing nirvana.”

One of his company’s clients, food gifts merchant Edible Arrangements, had great results with a text promotion sent at 1 p.m. the Friday before Father’s Day. The campaign generated a 365% return on investment with a 1.6% buy rate. That’s 11 times higher than the e-mail campaign buy rate of 0.15%, he said.

Don’t have a mobile file to promote to? Launching a “Text2win” campaign “is a good way to develop a list,” Barrow said.