Mobile Marketing Through Mobile Apps and SMS

BY: Ava Djakovich

As the digital age continues to grow, so does the way marketers present content to the masses. Mobile apps have become a huge way to traffic content about different products, brands, companies, and etc. In Mining consuming Behaviors with Temporal Evolution for Personalized Recommendation in Mobile Marketing Apps a study performed by Honghao Gao, Li Kuang, Yuyu Yin, Bin Guo, and Kai Dou “high ROI; 71% of salesmen believe that mobile marketing is the core of the business; 58% of the companies involved in the survey have a specialized mobile marketing team, and they think having a team of people who are experts in mobile marketing can achieve maximum benefits from marketing efforts. 83% of B2B salesmen say that mobile apps are important to marketing and they plan to spend more money on developing their own marketing apps.” (Gao). They performed this study to support the fact that online marketing is becoming the best way to present content to the consumer. Most people use some form of technology in their everyday lives and most of us use mobile apps to shop, socialize, or find entertainment. 

One of the most popular forms of mobile marketing through mobile apps, is SMS. SMS stands for short message service. SMS is used as a direct way to advertise content towards a specific audience. Using mobile apps provides a more personal communication between the marketer and the audience. According to Mobile Marketing: An Approach on Advertising by SMS, their definition of mobile marketing as a form of communication “involves two or more channels and that promotes a given company using a mobile media, device or technology. In a simple definition, César (2006) defines mobile marketing as being marketing actions that use a mobile channel.” (da Silva). To ensure that SMS marketing is effective, finding a target audience is crucial. In Webs of Influence: The Psychology of Online Persuasion, there are ten steps to finding out who your target audience is. Step nine focuses on where the consumer is receiving their decision-making information. Nahai points out a few factors, consumers are obtaining this information through “word of mouth, review sites, targeted adverts, trusted experts, celebrities?” SMS falls under targeted adverts, consumers subscribe to a messaging service and from there the company can send out mass advertisements. Mobile apps however, create a platform for consumers to pass around content information through word of mouth, review sites, and celebrities (Nahai). A popular way to advertise specific content on mobile apps like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube, and other social media platforms, is through celebrity or influencer brand deals. A brand deal ensures that the celebrity or influencer relays either their personal opinion or a scripted opinion provided by the company to their audience about a certain product or service. 

To ensure that mobile marketing tasks are successful, the websites, mobile apps, and the sms are all mobile friendly (Marketo.com). Mobile friendly means that the user can access the website or other mobile apps easily. Mobile marketing covers cell phones, tablets, smart watches, basically anything that is not a computer. As of 2019, the top mobile apps used for mobile marketing were; Facebook Pages Manager, WhatsApp Business, YouTube Studio, Instagram Business Account, Twitter Business Account, Skipio, and Shopify (Contributor). 

FACEBOOK PAGES MANAGER

Facebook Pages Manager is unique to mobile marketing because it allows for every brand to manage their interactions with consumers. They can do this through posts, sponsored ads, and even direct messages. 

INSTAGRAM AND TWITTER BUSINESS ACCOUNTS 

As for Instagram and Twitter Business Accounts, the company can establish a professional account that gives them access to their account’s analytics as well as other functions that include two options to separate and organize dms from general to primary. 

WHATSAPP BUSINESS AND SKIPIO

WhatsApp Business allows companies to instantly message their consumers and YouTube Studio makes it easier for content creators to organize multiple channels as well as editing materials to perfect their channels’ performance. Skipio is similar to WhatsApp Business in the way that it also allows for companies to communicate with consumers through direct messages and SMS. 

SHOPIFY

Shopify, allows for companies to advertise and share content through SEO and other forms of social media platforms, as well as directing consumers to sales and coupons (Contributor). Mobile apps have created so many new ways to traffic content from producers to consumers. Social media and SMS, are just some of the most convenient ways to use mobile marketing. 

SOURCES

Contributor, Vandita Grover. “Top Mobile Marketing Apps of 2019.” MarTech Advisor, www.martechadvisor.com/articles/mobile-marketing/top-mobile-marketing-apps-of-2019/. 

da Silva, Alandey Severo Leite, et al. “Mobile Marketing: An Approach on Advertising by Sms.” Brazilian Journal of Management / Revista de Administração Da UFSM, vol. 11, no. 4, Oct. 2018, pp. 1012–1029. EBSCOhost, doi:10.5902/1983465918134.

Gao, H., Kuang, L., Yin, Y. et al. Mining consuming Behaviors with Temporal Evolution for Personalized Recommendation in Mobile Marketing Apps. Mobile Netw Appl 25, 1233–1248 (2020). https://doi-org.authenticate.library.duq.edu/10.1007/s11036-020-01535-1

Marketo.com. “What Is Mobile Marketing? - Marketo.” Marketo.com, Marketo, An Adobe Company, 4 Sept. 2019, www.marketo.com/mobile-marketing/. 

Nahai, Nathalie. Webs of Influence: the Psychology of Online Persuasion. Pearson Education Limited, 2017.