How to Create a Mobile-First Marketing Strategy — And Why You Should
30 years ago, people would have laughed at you if you said that one day we’d all have a computer in our pockets. Now, with the power of mobile phones and tablets, consumers are able to get access to the entire internet wherever they are and whatever they’re doing.
Mobile device usage is incredibly pervasive — think about how many times you use your phone every day and the number of different things you use it for — so to make the most of the billions of people using mobile to get online, savvy marketers will be turning to a mobile-first marketing strategy.
In this blog, we’ll take a look at what a mobile-first marketing strategy is and why you need one to grow your business and succeed.
Why Mobile-First Marketing?
As of 2020, there are at least 4.28 billion unique mobile internet uses around the world, and this number is set to continue to grow as mobile devices become increasingly accessible. Mobile internet traffic also accounts for more than 55% of total web traffic. With mobile forming such a significant portion of internet usage, it’s important that mobile marketing plays a substantial role in your digital strategy.
People go everywhere with their mobile phone, and they use them for pretty much anything you could think of. Quickly checking a piece of information, more in-depth research, communication, ordering products; there’s almost nothing that these little devices can’t do. As a user’s first port of call for most actions, it would undermine the importance of mobile to only make it a small part of your marketing strategy.
Enter, mobile-first marketing.
Mobile-first marketing used to refer predominantly to UX and responsive web design, where the aim was to make sure websites were well-designed for mobile visitors. We know the impact of user experience on a prospect’s impression of a brand — and so their likelihood to convert — so making sure that a potential customer got the same great experience on mobile that you would expect if you were visiting on desktop is a crucial part of mobile success.
However, a mobile-first approach now takes into account the vast range of interactions that a user can have with your brand and marketing messages from their phone. Consider social media, mobile apps and texting — there are a whole host of different and unique ways that consumers will engage with brands through mobile.
A successful mobile-first marketing strategy, then, will prioritise the user experience of mobile users beyond just optimising your website. Mobile-first strategies will consider a more holistic view of the mobile user journey and consider how to reach and communicate with these groups effectively.
Creating A Mobile-First Marketing Strategy
Now we know what a mobile-first approach is, it’s time to look at how to create a mobile-first strategy. Your mobile strategy will depend on your buyer personas — where does your target audience spend their time? What apps do they use? What are they looking for? However, there are a few things that will be relevant to every mobile-first marketing strategy:
- Optimising your website
- Targeting your ads
- The Importance of video
Optimising your Website
While making sure your website is optimised for the mobile user experience isn’t the only factor of a mobile-first strategy anymore, it’s certainly still one of the most important parts of your digital marketing strategy. There are a number of reasons why, including Google’s move towards Mobile-First Indexing earlier this year. This means that Google uses the mobile version of your site for ranking and indexing in order to encourage you to have the same experience on mobile as you do on the desktop version.
Ensuring that your site is well optimised for mobile users (or uses mobile-first design) is a crucial stepping stone for a mobile-first strategy because it means that all of your other activity won’t be in vain. You’re making sure that users drawn in on mobile, through your mobile-first activity, are coming to a site that is suitable for them.
Targeting your ads
With many targeting options and advertising platforms to explore, there are plenty of ways to make sure your paid ad campaigns are designed to be mobile-first. In the ad creation stage, you’ll want to focus on how your ads look on mobile search pages, rather than desktop. Text PPC ads don’t tend to show as many characters on mobile because of the space constraints, while images for paid social will need to be built to look good on a phone screen first, rather than desktop.
Beyond this, a mobile-first approach might also add bid modifiers that specifically target mobile devices over tablet and desktop. This is an important way of boosting your visibility on specifically mobile devices. You may also wish to layer in demographic targeting so you’re narrowing in on the groups that are most likely to be browsing on their phones.
The Importance of Video
Video is an incredible marketing tool that many brands are picking up on. According to research, 66% of people said they would rather watch a video to learn about a brand, while 54% say they prefer video content from their favourite brands to any other. If you aren’t already exploring video marketing, now is certainly the time to get started.
An interesting point to note is that people who are consuming social media video content tend to do so with the sound off. This means that if you’re creating video content for social media, you’ll want to make sure it still makes sense without sound. Whether this means including captions or using creative typography to get your message across, a truly mobile-first video strategy will work both with and without sound.
Building a mobile-first marketing strategy is crucial in a world that spends most of its time on smartphones. Working with a full-service digital advertising agency will give you insights into how to create a successful marketing strategy and help you to execute campaigns that are designed for the world of mobile.
About the Author: Larry Kotch is the co-founder of The Brains, an award-winning digital marketing agency in London. Ranked #3 in B2B Marketing’s Global 30 under 30, Larry leads a dedicated, remote team of talented digital marketing professionals.
