Mobile Marketing for eCommerce: Trends, Strategies & Tips
- Mobile marketing focuses on reaching customers through smartphones using channels like SMS, apps, social media, push notifications and mobile-friendly websites.
- A good mobile marketing strategy includes personalised messaging, mobile-optimised content, targeted ads and timely notifications for engagement and sales.
- Common challenges for sellers might include limited screen space, ad fatigue, privacy concerns and difficulty capturing user attention.
- Success in mobile marketing depends on speed and relevance, followed by attractive content and a seamless experience.
Forbes reports that mobile-based commerce sales will reach around $856 Billion by 2027. This indicates that mobile marketing should be your priority if you are looking to boost your sales and reach new customers. With attention spans decreasing and convenience becoming a priority, any eCommerce brand that doesn’t cater to smartphone users is sure to incur losses. However, mobile marketing strategies are more complex than just creating easily navigable pages and responsive designs. [1]
The idea is to craft interactions that can only occur in a mobile environment, ranging from in-app experiences to playful QR code stunts.
This blog outlines how to incorporate a smart mobile marketing strategy for eCommerce to reach customers where they are: on their phones.
What Is Mobile Marketing?
If your ad makes your customers stop and watch as they scroll social media, you are successfully implementing mobile marketing. This strategy requires being in the right place at the right time to capture your target’s attention.
In simple terms, mobile marketing is the act of reaching out to and engaging customers through their mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets. This can be done by promoting products, sending updates, running ads and geofencing.
What Are the Top 5 Mobile Marketing Strategies for eCommerce?
Now that you know mobile marketing for eCommerce is a crucial part of customer acquisition, let’s explore the strategies to boost your sales:
- Mobile-friendly content
A seamless shopping experience begins with a mobile-friendly user interface. Imagine a potential customer visiting your site, only to look at pages that are too tough to navigate on their smartphone. The result? They will quickly leave for a competitor’s website with a better shopping experience.
Design a comfortable user interface by optimising for the “thumb zone” and prioritising mobile typography for readability. Successful brands also reduce their customer’s cognitive load by limiting the layout to one decision per screen and giving instant, colour-coded feedback to every user interaction.
- Push notifications
Sending push notifications to your potential and existing customers is important. These updates alert users about sales, personalised offers, new products and low stock. Some of the effective push strategies include geofencing for location-based targeting, personalised witty messaging and compelling CTAs.
A popular example is Swiggy and Zomato, two food delivery platforms that send customers quirky invites to order and avail new offers.
- Personalised campaigns
Marketers have figured out in the past few years that the audience doesn’t like to be treated as just another person. AI has made this sentiment stronger, with more and more brands utilising it to pump out copy and visuals. So, now businesses spend a lot of time and effort creating campaigns that have a special touch and would make customers feel like the brand is catering to them on a personal level.
You can achieve this in many ways, such as through SMS, email marketing, smart carts or social media. The mission is to make customers feel that you are only talking to them.
- Augmented and Virtual Reality
AR and VR have become highly accessible tools on smartphones. They overlay digital information onto the real world and eliminate customer anxiety regard a purchase.
A prime example is the “3D view” option, where customers can imagine how a product would look in their space before deciding on the purchase. Companies like Titan and Lenskart commonly use augmented reality so you can visualise whether a watch or pair of glasses would suit you.
- Social media marketing
Social media is often the first place where customers check out new products and decide to purchase. Platforms like Instagram, Facebook, Youtube and Pinterest have become the primary channels for reaching mobile customers. Social media offers you an opportunity to engage with the audience where they spend most of their time.
To leverage the benefits of social media, create visually stunning ads. Further, post short-form videos as reels and build communities through WhatsApp and Instagram broadcast channels.
What are the Challenges of Mobile Marketing for eCommerce?
Mobile marketing introduces a brand to several opportunities, but it does have a set of limitations to consider. Here are certain challenges that you may face and how to overcome them:
- Limited optimisation
If your website/app does not guarantee a satisfactory mobile experience, you risk losing customers even before they shop. Everything from loading time and navigation to the design templates and fonts should be mobile-optimised to retain a user’s interest.
- Constant alerts
Frequently bombarding your customers with messages and notifications can annoy them. They might uninstall the app, turn off the notification alerts or stop shopping from you altogether. Your mobile marketing strategies should be highly targeted and spaced out in order to be distinguished.
- Inability to understand user behaviour
Most brands start ad campaigns without analysing their users’ behaviours. Your mobile marketing strategy will be effective only if you understand how customers interact online. To engage them, it’s important to know when they’re most active, what kind of content they like, what products they search for and how they use mobile apps and websites.
Create a Seamless Shopping Experience for Customers with Shiprocket
You have targeted the customers, and they have completed the purchase. What’s next? Today, when brands are competing intensely for customer attention, the Shiprocket is the platform that helps you manage and deliver all your orders from a single platform. It offers a comprehensive customer experience platform for SMEs, D2C retailers and social sellers.
By delivering across 19,000+ pin codes and 220+ countries and territories at 3X faster speed, you can now empower your eCommerce business and reduce costs.
Final Thoughts
Mobile marketing for eCommerce is no longer a fleeting trend but a standard requisite to build a strong customer base. You can turn every minute into a business opportunity by analysing your customers’ behaviour and fully optimising your website for small screens. Implement the best strategies to capture your audience’s attention, and start selling more.
As far as the timely deliveries are concerned, Shiprocket takes care of your orders, whether national or international. It acts as your trusted eCommerce enabler so you can focus on targeting customers and ensure a seamless checkout experience for them.
