Within the last year or so, mobile has dominated desktop when it comes to consumer usage. The numbers tell the story: According to Google’s statistics, in 10 countries (including the United States and Japan), more Google searches are being made on mobile devices than on desktop computers. According to CIO.com, 60 per cent of digital media use in the United States is spent on mobile devices, and U.S. mobile ad revenues are predicted to reach $58 billion by 2018.
With mobile revolutionising the industry as marketing’s biggest game-changer, here are six of today’s most effective trends in the mobile digital marketing arena.
1. Video
Next to social media, video is the Internet’s greatest phenomenon when it comes to user popularity. Almost five billion YouTube videos are viewed every day, and YouTube currently has more than a billion users — a number that represents a third of all Internet users worldwide. At least 400 hours worth of video content is uploaded every minute.
In a recent survey conducted by the Web Video Marketing Council, out of 600 participants, 82 per cent of the respondents said that using video as a marketing tool had a decidedly positive impact on their business — which indicates that Web content, when enhanced with video, can lead to significantly higher levels of user engagement.
2. Social Media
Social media advertising is predicted to reach $11 billion in revenues by 2017. These numbers aren’t surprising, considering that users watch 100 million hours of video a day on Facebook alone.
As social media sites have gained in popularity, their user demographics have changed as well. Although LinkedIn was founded primarily as a business network, its membership age has been lowered to 13 — and every two seconds, LinkedIn gets a new member. Twitter may seem to be the prime domain of millennials — but seniors make up Twitter’s fastest-growing demographic.
Likewise, Facebook’s fastest-growing demographic is users who are over 55 years of age. These numbers indicate that social media is a fertile marketing ground for a wide range of age and lifestyle demographics.
3. Content Marketing
Content is a particularly valuable marketing tool because it provides the perfect platform for native advertising, which can be seamlessly integrated so that it reads like it’s part of the content. Native advertising, when creatively implemented in engaging content, can lend itself to a variety of search and click formats without distracting the user.
4. Music Streaming Services
A number of companies have recently begun to offer free music streaming services to attract new business. For example, T-Mobile is offering free music streaming (with no data burn) to new customers, while mega-retailer H&M is offering free music streaming to store customers through Spotify. While this strategy is fairly new, companies worldwide are continuing to join the free music streaming bandwagon.
5. App Indexing
With app indexing, a Google search can link users directly to content within your app. This can bring higher user engagement to your app, which paves the way for using a number of marketing strategies that will keep users not only engaged but coming back for more.
6. Digital Assistants
Currently, 20 per cent of queries made on mobile devices are voice searches — but studies indicate that these numbers are increasing steadily. Toward this end, marketers are discovering ways to optimise their sites to accommodate digital assistant searches.
Digital assistants such as Cortana and Siri are looking for quick answers, and often prioritise sites that offer instant information. When they receive conversational queries, however, digital assistants tend to seek out more conversational posts, so keywords and content style can also play a part in making your site more accessible to Cortana, Siri and other digital assistants that may be emerging on the horizon.
Mobile digital use has revolutionised the marketing industry, but for savvy marketers, this just means that there’s a whole new playing field with even more opportunities for increased user engagement, which can be leveraged into marketing dollars.
