If you want to be a thriving e-commerce business for decades to come, embracing mobile marketing is essential. That means everything from ensuring that you have a mobile-friendly site to making mobile advertising a crucial part of your strategy. Today, more than half of all online shopping is done from a mobile device. Although this is a critical part of the e-commerce experience, a vast majority of shoppers have reported issues with mobile sites, which means you have an opportunity to get ahead of the competition.
Consumers’ favorite e-commerce companies provide seamless experiences, from the discovery of the brand to receiving the product in their hands. Your first interaction with a potential lead should provide quality content with enticing photos or videos to drive them to your site. Once on the website, they should be able to easily view products, read important details, add them to their cart, and checkout without any roadblocks along the way. With the introduction of shoppable posts on Instagram and other sites, e-commerce companies have the opportunity to provide an easy, one-click shopping experience to their audience.
A better experience for customers. Just as e-commerce relieved customers of the need to go to brick and mortar stores, mobile commerce enables them to shop without being tied down to their desktop computers. As long as your consumer has a phone, they can shop whenever and wherever they are.
Connect where consumers enjoy spending time. Connect with consumers where they spend the most time. The average internet user spends a majority of time on their phone compared to their desktop. And, much of that time is spent on social media, where they're looking for entertainment. This provides an opportunity for marketers to connect with their audience in a way that's more personal, casual, and entertaining than in previous decades.
New one-click payment options are emerging. Mobile e-commerce requires mobile pay solutions. Luckily, many new ones are emerging to help e-commerce companies in the process of boosting revenues — more on this below.
Connect with your audience every hour of the day. By combining the power of email, display ads, direct messaging, and text communication, that little phone can do a lot of work for your brand when it comes to keeping in contact with your audience. Unlike their laptops or desktops, people are typically with their smartphones at all times, which means you have incredible access to them nearly 24/7.
Collect better data with mobile. Your audience's responses can be monitored accurately and instantaneously via mobile, providing necessary data to optimize your campaigns. Smartphones offer a highly effective way of collecting user data, especially over the long-term, since people tend to keep their phone numbers longer than their email addresses. That means that mobile marketing provides a more reliable way of keeping in touch with your audience.
Reach a broader and younger audience. 81% of Americans now own smartphones, which exceeds the number of people who own laptops. And, ⅕ of American adults consider themselves “smartphone-only internet users,” meaning that they don’t use traditional broadband services at home. That number continues to rise as phone capabilities and our dependence upon them increases. Whether you want to reach a broader, younger, or more international audience, mobile marketing provides you with the unique opportunity to tap into this expanded market.
Optimize your website for mobile. Although this tip seems obvious, it still needs to be repeated, as consumers continue to report frustrations with sites that aren't mobile-friendly. Making sure your site renders well on mobile devices is the number one priority if it hasn't been completed yet. 67% of consumers surveyed by Google said that they're more likely to buy from a mobile-friendly site.
Provide a positive user experience across all devices and interactions. Marketing is more fluid than ever before, especially as consumers become more comfortable with switching between devices depending on where they are and what is most convenient for the task. Today, consumers may start shopping on their work computer, continue on their phone as they catch the subway home, and end up purchasing from Alexa as they cook dinner.
Fashion and luxury retailers have the highest share of mobile transactions, so it’s essential for your ads, emails, and online shopping experience to translate across all devices and platforms. When your consumer is excited about your product and is ready to purchase, the last thing that you want is for a snag on your mobile rendering to block the sale.
Leverage display ads, especially on Instagram. Display ads capture your audience’s attention. And, when they’re placed on sites like Instagram, they feel much more organic to the user experience. Take the opportunity to entertain and entice your audience with compelling images and videos to encourage them to click or start shopping.
Use opt-in pop-up offers to convert users. A quick way to boost conversion rates is with pop-up offers that provide your consumer with a benefit while you collect their email for ongoing mobile marketing purposes. A popular option for e-commerce brands is something like, “Submit your email to receive a 15% off discount code for your first purchase.” Free shipping is also a great incentive if you don’t already offer it on your site.
Offer free shipping. Free shipping benefits you and your consumers. With cart abandonment rates being higher than ever, it’s helpful not to give your audience one more reason to bail out on their purchase. 70% of consumers surveyed say they have a higher opinion of brands that offer free delivery and shipping. 84% are more likely to shop if there’s a free shipping promotion. It’s an absolute priority for modern consumers and could be considered an expectation more than a desire at this point in the e-commerce evolution.
Ensure your email marketing is mobile-friendly. Email marketing is still the number one marketing method for companies because it continues to be effective. But, many companies have run into issues with transitioning their email marketing to mobile. After you do the work to capture email addresses and design a beautiful email with great offers, it’s critical to ensure that your audience can enjoy reading it on their smartphones. When people open emails on their mobile devices and can’t read them, they typically go straight to the trash, and for good reason. How can consumers believe that they’ll have a positive online shopping experience if the email doesn’t even render correctly?
Add live chat to your website. If your visitors are struggling to find what they need or if they have questions about your products, adding live chat can help to move them further down the funnel. Live chat can point them to the information they need and even help them to complete a purchase — a tremendous asset for any e-commerce brand.
Make mobile payments easy. People are often running around town, in an Uber, at a kid’s soccer game, or distracting themselves from work when they are staring at their phones. They’re not always home or in a place where they can take out their wallets and copy their credit card numbers. Make mobile pay easy by connecting with apps like PayPal, Amazon, Venmo, Samsung Pay, or Apple Pay — places where consumers typically save their payment methods.
The closer you can get to a one-click purchase experience, the easier it’ll be to convert leads. You don’t want someone who’s about to make a purchase getting stuck at checkout because they don’t have their card on them — help them help you.
Last updated on February 21st, 2023.