In order to be effective with mobile marketing, it’s important to examine your own pre-existing communications strategy within the context of the mobile experience. Marketers must consider how it can help to enhance and/or improve existing programs, as well as how it can ultimately develop new customer experiences that drive more efficient results.

How can marketers integrate mobile-optimized with their established marketing programs to result in greater consumer engagement and ROI?

Interactive Calls to Action

While product packaging, signage, and other visuals might typically be considered one-directional interactions, mobile marketing can easily transform them into engaging experiences using Quick Response (QR) codes, text messaging or a combination of the two. Encourage consumers to use their mobile devices to scan a QR code and instantly connect with interactive content such as photos, web pages, product specifications and videos.

Location Finder

Drive foot traffic and sales by pointing customers to the nearest location where they can find your product or service via their text-enabled mobile devices — try not to alienate those in your customer base who might not have a smartphone with GPS capabilities. This tool is especially essential for those with multi-location businesses. Consumers can simply text their zip code to a designated code associated with a retailer (typically the retailer’s name) and receive a text response listing all of the nearest locations.

Coupons

Long gone are the days when consumers would tediously clip coupons for discounts and savings. Instead, the 21st century now sees using the timeliness of text messaging to provide these special offers to customers. Send opted-in subscribers scheduled text messages with coupon codes and expiration dates. Mobile coupon redemption rates have been recorded at 10 times that of mail and newspaper distributed coupons, most likely because customers are able to redeem them straight from their mobile device while at the store location.

Targeted Offers

All effective communications campaigns should have a target audience, and mobile marketing is no different. Ensure that your customers receive engaging offers that are most relevant to them by gathering data and putting it to good use. For example, prompt customers to submit demographic information when they submit their entry into a sweepstakes. With this data, you can then segment your offers across different channels, including mobile, email, and social.

Customer Service

Though negative feedback can spread virally across social media channels, working with customers to ensure their satisfaction with your company and services has never been easier. Mobile marketing can be used to engage customers in the feedback process — they can text questions, suggestions, and voice opinions that are beamed instantly to store staff and management. Customer service through social media channels is also effective. It’s becoming increasingly popular as consumers frequently access social media websites via mobile devices, giving them the opportunity to instantly complain when things go wrong. It’s important to monitor company Twitter accounts, tag posts with sentiment ratings and assign tickets to particular followers so that customer service agents can follow up directly to proactively head off problems before they spread.

Promotions

Engage your customers in a contest, such as a sweepstakes, at the point of sale or while browsing a website by using a concise, engaging call to action. Sweepstakes may be the ultimate expression of mobile marketing’s power to engage consumers no matter their location. For the broadest coverage, utilize a variety of channels—mobile, email, web, and social networks—to simultaneously promote your program and gain valuable consumer insight.

Loyalty Programs

In an economy where price is the leading factor in purchase decisions, customer loyalty can be hard to develop. To overcome this challenge, register customers for loyalty programs across channels.. Providing such an assortment of ways to participate can prompt and foster consumer connections for your brand. These steps enable you to open a dialogue (via the mobile channel) between your brand and the customer, but it also gives you the data necessary for building a profile of the customer for future interaction.

Integrate with Offline Channels

Marketers can increase the exposure of mobile campaigns via offline channels, including billboards, print media, radio and TV. Discover which offline media buys prove to be the most effective in driving response by using keyword segmentation and tracking, which involves adding a text message call to action to any media placement (such as a billboard, magazine, or television advertisement). Responses can be tracked to discover where your marketing budget is best spent.

Consumer and Market Research

Today’s consumers are always on the go – why not meet them there? Conduct research by surveying your customers through text messaging or the web. Monitoring Twitter conversations also provides key insights into consumer attitudes and opinions. Almost all marketing today is direct marketing, so it should be treated as such. Part of this is learning as much as you can about individual customer preferences.

Live Audience Engagement

Engage audiences on their mobile devices during live events such as concerts, auctions, or fairs. Real time text message chat and Facebook conversations are two ways to capitalize on these events. This is also a way to use mobile marketing to build a brand community, which often results in customer loyalty and brand advocates.

The bottom line is that mobile can no longer be ignored as a marketing channel. It should be integrated into the campaign as another touch point for customer interaction. The key is to think of how mobile fits into your other business objectives and your overarching marketing strategy, and then plan accordingly.