What is Mobile Marketing?

India has become a mobile-first economy, with increased internet penetration and a youth population driving its growth. At the beginning of 2024, around 78% of the country’s population was connected to the internet. With increasing mobile phone adoption in the country, businesses cannot afford to ignore the importance of mobile marketing.

When done correctly, mobile phone marketing provides customers with tailored and location-specific information about what they need when they need it. Check our detailed guide on mobile marketing and learn about its pros and cons and how to get started. Read along!

What is Mobile Marketing?

Mobile phone marketing is a specific type of digital marketing that focuses on mobile devices (smartphones and tablets) to advertise products and services. This marketing strategy utilises a variety of channels such as SMS, MMS, mobile applications, email, social media sites, push notifications and mobile-optimised browsers to reach its audience.

Mobile advertising specialises in providing personalised advertisements that are also location and time-specific. With better targeting of ads, customers get an improved experience than traditional marketing, while companies get to reach a specific audience. Moreover, mobile marketing is usually more affordable than TV or newspaper marketing.

How Does Mobile Marketing Work?

To make mobile marketing work, marketers need to know the location of their target audience to understand the type of ads that suit them. Mobile advertisements use proximity systems and location services to know the user’s geographical location, understand their preferences, and find the best ads for them.

Let’s say that a restaurant in New Delhi wants to promote a special menu they are offering. They will want to target only those mobile users who are within 3-5 kilometres of the restaurant’s physical location. Any advertisements outside the radius will likely waste the business’s marketing budget. This type of geographic boundary targeting mobile devices is called geofencing.

Mobile phone marketing also has specific requirements that set it apart from other forms of marketing. A mobile marketing strategy has to meet various requirements, including different regulations for advertisements, hardware types, operating systems, generations of cellular networks, and mobile channels (SMS, email, etc.). Businesses need to implement the correct mobile advertising campaign to reach their audience.

For example, if a large segment of your customers uses iOS devices, you will need a different type of push notification for their phones. Moreover, if your customers own devices with large screens and higher resolutions, mobile apps with high-end visuals will work better than for smaller devices, where ads need to be simpler.

Why is Mobile Marketing So Important?

One of the main reasons why businesses need mobile marketing is the proliferation of mobile devices. In India, a total of 1.12 billion active mobile connections were recorded at the beginning of 2024. Moreover, 60.42% of the world’s population owns a smartphone, and the number continues to increase as internet penetration and the number of mobile phones increase.

Due to the growth of smartphone adoption, more people like to access the internet via mobile devices. According to the World Advertisement Research Centre, almost three-quarters of the world, i.e., 72.6% of people will connect to the internet via smartphones only by 2025. This makes it necessary for businesses to be able to reach customers via mobile devices, even for businesses that sell through physical channels.

Mobile marketing also provides a number of unique advantages, including a wide reach, accurate targeting and increasing affordability. As a new generation that sees the world mainly through the internet grows up, having a good mobile marketing strategy will become more important than ever.

Pros and Cons of Mobile Marketing

As with any other form of marketing, there are some advantages and disadvantages of relying on mobile marketing. Here are the pros:

Pros

• Mobile marketing is a more tailored form of marketing that allows businesses to get closer to their customers.
• It’s easier for marketers to use mobile marketing as they don’t need high-level technology or expertise to get started.
• Ad campaigns can be customised to fit any budget. Moreover, mobile ads are usually more inexpensive compared to print and TV ads.
• Mobile marketing has far better reach today than any other form of advertisement.
• As this form of marketing works in real time, it’s easier to measure the success of your campaign.
• Location-based targeting allows advertisers to create very personalised advertisements.

Cons 

• There’s little room for errors with mobile marketing as users have smaller attention spans, and there’s high competition.
• Privacy issues regarding how user data is collected and poor handling of data could result in legal and regulatory actions being taken against advertisers. 
• When mobile advertisements feel invasive to users, they could develop negative connotations for the brand.
• Poorly made advertisements can go viral, which can impact a brand’s image.

Types of Mobile Marketing

There are a number of digital marketing channels through which you can carry out your mobile marketing campaigns. The following are the types of mobile marketing based on the channels used: 

1. Push Notification Marketing

A push notification is a pop-up on your phone that you can click on. It sends notifications from a mobile application to the device without the need for any input from the user. Push notifications can be used as part of a mobile advertising campaign to communicate with customers in a simple and effective way.

A push notification marketing strategy is considered to be more effective than traditional email marketing, as users are more likely to open notifications.

2. SMS Marketing

Once a marketer obtains the phone numbers of users, they can create a broadcast network with advertisements. SMS ads typically contain a link or ad for the user to click on, which initiates a conversation between the user and the company. Marketers can use applications with SMS-enabled APIs to compose messages and create campaigns.

SMS marketing is a powerful tool for businesses as it allows them to reach their customers more effectively. According to a popular industry statistic, 98% of SMSes are opened and read, allowing marketers to directly reach their customers.

3. App-Based Marketing

With the growth in mobile app usage, more marketing agencies are utilising app-based mobile marketing to increase their client’s visibility. There are several ways to carry out app marketing, including banner apps, in-screen advertisements and notifications. The aim of this form of advertisement is to increase the appeal of the business’s app, promote subscription and in-app purchases and enhance the brand’s image.

4. In-App Mobile Marketing

This involves the use of banners, overlays or inbox messaging to promote your brand. There are two main ways to carry out in-app or in-game marketing. First is the promotion of your brand in an app/game you own, where you will want to engage users and improve user experience.

In addition, you can promote your brand by partnering with a top-rated app or game or sponsoring an app/game developer. There are many creative ways through which brands can promote their products or services organically, including clever product placements, interactive ads and in-game/in-app rewards.

5. Location-Based Marketing

This type of mobile marketing utilises location-based services (LBS) to send custom advertisements to users based on their current location. Marketers can use location-based marketing to gather relevant data and create targeted marketing campaigns. Other ways to use LBS are to automatically detect the nearest stores and provide useful information such as weather forecasts, traffic updates and roadside assistance.

6. QR Code Marketing

Nowadays, many businesses are using QR codes to market to customers. QR codes allow marketers to bridge physical and online mediums, as QR codes can be printed on posters, brochures, storefronts and more. They work well in directing more people to specific landing pages and promotional material.

Examples of Successful Mobile Marketing Campaigns

Here are some examples of mobile marketing campaigns in India for inspiration and actionable insights:

1. Swiggy’s Voice of Hunger

Summary: India’s leading food delivery platform, Swiggy, launched the “Voice of Hunger” ad campaign on Instagram in 2019. Under this campaign, users were invited to record their “hunger pangs” with creativity using Instagram’s new voice note feature. Users were incentivised with a year’s worth of food vouchers on the platform.

Results: The marketing campaign was a resounding success, as it recorded around 10,000 entries in just the first 12 hours. It resonated with foodies on the internet, recording a 40% increase in Swiggy’s Instagram followers.

2. Zerodha’s Varsity Content Strategy

Summary: India’s leading stock brokerage, Zerodha, wanted to dominate the search results for investment-related queries in India to build a large audience. It then set up Varsity, a content hub with thousands of interlinked pages, creating a detailed guide for various topics and subtopics. Its in-depth collection of pages was entirely free and open-access.

Results: Zerodha managed to build an organic traffic of 2.24 lakh monthly visitors with an impressive number of banklinks (over 72,000). It made the discount broker a thought leader in financial literacy. 

3. Spotify India’s There’s a Playlist for That

Summary: In 2019, Leo Burnett India created a ‘hypercontextual’ marketing campaign for the music streaming giant that utilised everything from traditional billboards to mobile marketing. Its aim was to advertise that Spotify had created 3 billion playlists to suit any mood of every Indian.

Results: At the end of the campaign, it saw 72,000 social media shares despite the marketing taking place mostly offline. Spotify India also established its presence in the Indian market as a leading streaming service platform. 

4. British Airways’ Fuelled by Love

Summary: In 2016, British Airways featured a real-life inspired story where a cabin crew member of the company arrived at Hyderabad from the UK for the first time. It recreated several in-flight scenes as well as some home scenes set in Hyderabad. The film aimed to tap into the emotional psyche of Indian customers to nurture good relationships.

Results: Not only was the company’s special travel offer massively popular, but the feature film also won the National Film Award in India.

 5. CRED’s Not Everyone Gets It

Summary: This campaign by the fintech startup CRED created an air of exclusivity, indicating that its benefits were not available to everyone. The ad showed famous 90s Bollywood celebrities taking part in extensive theatrics as a part of their audition. Then, the video cuts to CRED’s executive team, who rejects the audition and gave a much simpler idea: “Download CRED”.

Results: Like some high-end fashion, CRED’s marketing campaign established the startup as a desirable premium service. Moreover, the ad campaign won the prestigious Blue Elephant Award in 2022.

How to Start a Mobile Marketing Campaign?

Follow the given steps to learn how to grow your online business by creating a mobile advertising campaign:

Step 1: Set up a Mobile-friendly Website

To start with mobile marketing, first, you need to have a mobile-friendly website. Your website must be properly formatted with a responsive design to allow for better mobile viewing. Create a mobile-friendly site with proper scaling of the text, buttons and other screen elements so that it fits a mobile screen.

If you have an existing website, you can get automated services from sites like WordPress and GoDaddy to convert it into a mobile-friendly site.

Step 2: Opt for a Location-based Platform

Before you set up your business’s new website, ensure you have chosen a location-based platform such as Foursquare, Facebook Places, WordPlace or Joomla. Alternatively, you can use APIs such as Google Maps API, HTML5 Geolocation API, Apple MapKit, etc., to create a geolocation-enabled app.

Step 3: Launch Paid Search Advertisements

Paid search ads are one of the most common strategies to market to mobile device users. These ads can be set up to target searches made by users that relate to your business or the location they are in. Google Ads, Facebook, LinkedIn and Microsoft Advertising are some of the best paid advertising platforms.

Whether you pay for sponsored or paid ads, it’s a good idea to invest in native ads. These are designed not to appear as advertisements but instead as recommended articles or blog posts.

Step 4: Advertise Through Mobile Apps

You can create your own mobile apps for your business and optimise its page on the Play Store and App Store. Alternatively, you can partner with third-party apps for your mobile marketing campaign. Google Ads allows you to create mobile ads for the Android platform. You can choose to target certain applications or categories of apps.

Step 5: Set up Your Google Business Profile

Mark your business on Google Maps using Google Business Profile. This allows anyone using Google to find your business if they are near your location. It also enables your website to rank better on the search engine result pages for location-based searches. Ensure you include accurate and complete information for your business, including its address, contact number, email, and opening hours.

Step 6: Use Email Marketing

As more people use their smartphones to open emails, email marketing provides a compelling way to market your company. You can create an email list by collecting data from your customers or use Google Ads to craft paid advertisements.

You can get emails from your customers and site visitors by offering special discounts or insight-based content. Email signups allow you to get phone numbers and other personal details.

Step 7: Run Social Media Marketing

With more people spending their time on social media sites, you will find it an effective target for your mobile marketing campaign. Use your business’s social media account to establish your brand’s authority and craft social media ads to target new users. You can also use feed-in ads to appear in people’s social media feeds.

Tips to Implement a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Know the best digital marketing tips for implementing an effective mobile marketing strategy that suits your client’s needs:

1. Make Short, High-Quality Ads

As mobile phones are personal devices, people don’t spend a lot of time looking at an advertisement. Hence, a good ad that appears on mobile must be short and simple and provide either high-value or humour to keep the user engaged.

2. Create Responsive Pages

Whether you are making a webpage, application or email for marketing on mobile devices, the page must fit well on a small screen. Incorporate designs and techniques that allow viewers to easily load the page.

3. Get a Real Feel

Get a real feel for the mobile marketing you have created to ensure it’s effective. Immerse yourself by sending ads to your own devices. Sign in to the mobile application, use the location services and try to check out of ads to get the feel.

4. Find the Right Audience

Develop target buyer personas and ideal client profiles to understand the components of your marketing strategy. You need to know which social media channels are used by your target audience, their operating system (Android or iOS) and their behaviour.

5. Fulfil Searcher’s Local Intent

Many searchers have local intent, such as finding nearby restaurants, shops or bars. If you are using location-based systems for advertisements, ensure to offer something useful with your advertisements. For example, you could provide important information, special offers and more with your ad. 

6. Offer Rewards to Get Permissions

To enable mobile ads, you will need two key permissions- for tracking location and allowing push notifications. As most people are cautious about providing these permissions, you will need to build trust and provide something useful to get them. For example, you can provide a one-time offer for signing up or a useful service (location-based music playlist).

7. Ensure Easy Redirects

If people have to go through many steps to get to what they want (information, offers or checkout), they will likely give up. This is why you need to ensure to navigate customers seamlessly . Take steps like designing an easily noticeable button or link and checking the rendering of the site/page to make sure that users don’t click away.

Final Words

As mobile marketing has become essential for businesses, marketers need to know how to reach their online audience in a more effective manner. As a part of their overall digital marketing strategy, they must create a mobile-friendly site and keep a growing presence on all their social media channels. Furthermore, mobile advertisements need to be concise, compelling, and engaging.

With so many requirements, you may find it hard to create content for your business’s mobile marketing campaigns. In such a situation, you may want to take the help of a reputable content writing agency to complete the work needed for all your marketing channels. Skilled content writers understand how to create high-quality content while optimising it for SEO and mobile-friendliness.