Mobile Marketing Archives - Page 3 of 4

The Big Shift From Traditional to Digital Advertising

Posted on April 6, 2012 by Andrew

About three-quarters of enterprise decision makers have been shifting their budgets from traditional advertising to digital in the last year. In fact, about one-third of the marketing executives said they shifted more than half of their budget from traditional to digital.

According to a March 2012 report from DataXu, these numbers will continue next year as well, with 4 out of 5 who are shifting to digital saying that they will continue to do so for the next year.

The main reasons for the big switch is increased metastability. With a lot of traditional media, especially print, you can’t choose who sees your ads and how they see them. With digital advertising, you can choose how many people you target, what actions you are targeting them through, and you can interact with them directly after they take an action. With print media, you have to hope they respond, but you have no way of knowing if they do.

Are you doing any sort of digital advertising such as search engine marketing, retargeting or banner ads? If not, you need to get started. Internet marketing is here to stay, and can give you the best bang for your buck, while at the same time giving you more control over your campaigns than you ever thought possible.

Marketing Executives Are Continuing to Shift into Digital Marketing

Posted on March 30, 2012 by Andrew

In new research from eMarketer, CMOs predicted that their ad budgets would rise 8.1%. This shows renewed confidence in the economy, and shows a general upward trend since the end of the recession in 2009.

Out of that extra 8.1% of marketing budget, most of it will be spent on digital marketing. In fact, digital marketing spend is expected to increase by 12.8% over the next year. This is the highest change out of all marketing channels, beating traditional ad spending, brand-building, and customer relationship management.

Traditional media spending is expected to drop 0.8% over the same period. This reflects the larger trend of traditional ad spend decreasing, while digital ad spend is increasing.

eMarketer also estimates that digital advertising spending will rise 23.3% this year, while traditional budgets other than TV are going to remain steady.

Now is a great time for small businesses to market themselves online. Digital marketing and advertising channels offer access to a large audience, but offer things traditional marketing channels can’t offer such as targeting and better analytics data.

If you have any questions about digital adverting or marketing, contact us today for a free consultation.

Digital and Mobile Ad Budgets Rising

Posted on March 23, 2012 by Andrew

In a recent survey from research company Warc, digital and mobile ad budgets are growing, while TV, radio and press budgets are shrinking.

The budget sentiments are based on a system of 0-100, where anything over 50 is generally improving, and below 50 is generally declining.

Digital and mobile received scores of 78.9 and 71.2, respectively. TV received a score of 48.8, Radio a score of 42.1 and Press a score of 36.1.

Now is a great time to be spending more on digital and mobile. More and more people are accessing the Internet from desktops and mobile devices, and those numbers are only going to grow.

Mobile, Mobile and More Mobile

Posted on March 19, 2012 by Andrew

We’ve preached over and over how mobile is changing the digital marketing and advertising business. We’ve seen it with our own clients, and marketers across the U.S. are increasing their mobile budgets as well.

The latest report comes from Marin, a search-management software company. They predict that mobile will be bigger than desktop soon, and that marketers need to raise budgets accordingly.

One prediction is that at the current run-rates, mobile devices will account for 25% of all paid search clicks on Google by December 2012. Additionally, the share of ad spend will be 23%. Those are additions of 103% and 164%, respectively.

One of the driving factors behind all of this growth in mobile is the insanely fast consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets. In 2011 alone, Apple sold more iOS devices than the total number of Macs ever sold in the last 28 years.

Another reason for adding mobile into your business’ marketing strategy is that smartphones have higher click-through rate, and a lower cost-per-click than both desktop and tablets. Smartphone users click on ads 4.12% of the time compared with 2.39% for desktops and 3.12% for tablets. Additionally, the cost per click is only $.53 for smartphones, compared with $.83 and $.63 for desktops and tablets, respectively.

So have you decided that you need mobile yet? Well if you haven’t yet, I’ll do my best to convince you with some more data about mobile over the next few days.

More Marketers Flocking to Mobile

Posted on March 14, 2012 by Andrew

These days, information is passed through more channels than ever before. It used to be the big three: radio, TV, and print. Now, digital marketing has overtaken print to become the second-largest advertising medium based on spend.

2012 seems poised to continue the trend of proliferating digital marketing and advertising – especially in mobile. In a recent survey by ValueClick, 65% of US marketers’ planned on increasing their mobile ad spend for 2012.

The increase is notable, but what’s also significant is that only 3% said they were going to decrease their budget for mobile. I’m not sure who those 3% are, but they need to wake up and smell the mobile.

Another stat from the report is that the lion’s share of mobile ad budgets are going to search and banner ads, with 34% and 30.7% respectively. Also, 49% of marketers plan to use mobile video as part of their budget.

Mobile is emerging as the next large advertising medium, and with more dollars being spent online – both mobile and desktop – than ever before, marketers and business owners need to jump on board and get their feet wet in mobile.

5 Best Practices for Your Mobile Site

Posted on March 2, 2012 by Andrew

So I told you all about how one in five visits to a mobile website results in a call. Since hearing that you’re probably thinking you need to get a mobile website. It’s

true, you do need one, but before you go rushing in to make your own, read through our list of best practices for why you need to have one. Having a mobile-optimized website is becoming more and more important. Smartphone usage is continuing to grow, and mobile Internet usage is projected to pass desktop usage in 2013.

In order to take advantage of this expanding market, you need to have a mobile website. Not just any mobile website, however, as mobile users have drastically different needs than desktop users. Below are five tips for you to apply to your own mobile website.

1. Make it quick
Mobile users are usually searching for your website while on the go, trying to get things done while they go about their day. In order to serve them, remove clutter and give them the basics they need to contact you such as your phone number, address and hours of operation.

2. Make it easy for them to convert
Mobile users have higher purchase intent than desktop users, but they still need additional prodding to make a purchase. Focus on information that will help the mobile user convert: product details, photo galleries and simplified data entry.

3. Make it simple
Clear navigation is key with mobile users, as they don’t have as much screen real estate as their desktop counterparts. Minimize scrolling and make buttons large enough to press with a thumb. If a user “fat-fingers” a link one too many times, they might leave and never come back.

4. Make it seamless
Users might check your website out at home, and then be reminded to check it while they are on the go. If they navigate to your mobile website and it is a vastly different experience from your desktop version, they might be unnerved. Keep logos and colors uniform across both sites, so it’s obvious that they are visiting your mobile site, not one of their competitors.

5. Make it accessible
Your mobile site needs to work on more than one platform. Android and iOS make up the lion’s share of smartphone users, but you still need to cater to the millions of people that use other operating systems. Also, use HTML as flash doesn’t show up on mobile devices.

So there you go, five tips to help you with your mobile website. If you have questions about mobile feel free to contact us for a free mobile consultation, or leave a question in the comments.

Mobile Advertising is the Fastest-Growing Media Segment

Posted on February 27, 2012 by Andrew

Total revenue from mobile and social advertising is up to $45.38 billion according to new numbers from PQ Media. That’s up 30.2% from last year, and it’s set to keep increasing.

Mobile advertising and marketing was the fastest growing segment in 2011, growing 53.7% year-over-year to $3.39 billion. Those are some big numbers, and you may be wondering how those huge figures applies to your small business. The reason this matters to small businesses is that those numbers represent the overall trends of the marketing and advertising landscape.

If your ad agency isn’t pushing mobile, then you should ask them why. Mobile is the next big wave, perhaps the biggest since Internet marketing became viable. Take control of your marketing and examine how you will be taking advantage of this growing platform.

If you have questions about mobile advertising or marketing, let us know in the comments.

3 Marketing Trends You Need to Implement

Posted on February 24, 2012 by Andrew

A lot of business missed the boat on a few marketing trends over the last few years. Some missed out on websites, some on email marketing and others on mobile. Your business may have missed out on some or all of these trends, but I’m here to make sure you don’t miss out on these next three!

1. Mobile
Mobile is huge these days. Mobile search has already been exploding and mobile shopping is expected to increase substantially in the next few years.

2. Data
You need data to understand exactly why you’re doing something, and how you can make it better. The old model of creating a radio or TV commercial is gone. Now we have the ability to track, alter and optimize every ad campaign.

3. Branding
Your brand doesn’t just exist on your website anymore. You are on social places such as Twitter, Facebook, Digg, YouTube, etc. Your brand is more “out there” than ever, and your customers have more avenues than ever to contact you — you just need to give them reason to.

It’s a unique time to be a small business. Never before have you had the power to reach so many customers as easily as you can today. The world of digital marketing offers countless ways to interact with your customers, and using as many of them as possible can help bring you new business and more brand exposure.

If you are curious about any of these methods such as SMS targeting, search marketing, retargeting, behavioral targeting, mobile targeting and more, contact us today. We’ll help you wade through the field of digital marketing and advertising.

Local Mobile Search infographic

Posted on February 22, 2012 by Andrew

Just letting you all know up front: I love infographics, and I share them like crazy whenever I find a good one. Recently, I stumbled upon several infographics I think warrant posting on here as they’re all relative to the world of digital advertising.

The first infographic is from a marketing firm called Orange Soda. It’s called “The Power of Local Mobile Search,” and it runs through some of the stats and figures I’ve posted on here before, but includes some fancy graphics to drive the points home.

Check it out!

Mobile Search Increased 269% Y-O-Y in Q4

Posted on January 17, 2012 by Andrew

We’ve talked a lot on this blog about the emergence and importance of mobile advertising, but I’m afraid we’re going to talk about it a little more. According to a new report from IgnitionOne, mobile search advertising spend grew 269 percent year-over-year during the last quarter.

That’s an outrageous amount, and really showcases the increasing importance that is being placed on mobile. Over the same period, mobile ad impressions also increased by 317 percent, and CPC decreased by 8.6 percent. Meaning marketers were serving more impressions at a lower cost than ever before.

Things were all good on the desktop front as well, as desktop search grew 22.4 percent year-over-year in quarter four. There were also increase in impressions (20%), clicks (34%) and CTR (12%).

Overall, the search market is still growing, especially in mobile. If you want some more background on what makes up a mobile marketing campaign, and why it’s important, check out some of our previous blog posts.

If you have more questions about mobile, let us know in the comments. Or, contact us today for a free mobile consultation.