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Nov 24, 2021
6 minutes read

10 Mobile Marketing Tips to Boost Your Retail Business

Are you harnessing the power of mobile-first marketing to drive business to your retail store? If not, you may be leaving money on the table. In our guide to mobile marketing strategies, we’ll share ten mobile marketing tips that will help you connect with customers, increase conversion rates, and build brand loyalty.

Josh Intagliata
Josh Intagliata,
Product Marketing Manager

1. Define Your Goals

One of the most important mobile marketing tips for retail is to create specific goals for your mobile advertising strategy. A highly effective way to define your goals is to create SMART goals, which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound. Here are some examples of mobile marketing SMART goals:

  • Specific: Create a mobile marketing strategy that increases online sales by 20 percent.

  • Measurable: Review sales data each month to check progress and adjust as needed.

  • Achievable: Use marketing budget on mobile marketing efforts only.

  • Relevant: Focus on mobile marketing to retain existing customers and win new ones.

  • Time-bound: Reach this goal by the end of the year.

2. Use SMS to Connect With Customers

SMS marketing enables businesses to send text messages anywhere in the world in a matter of moments. And SMS has a 98 percent open rate, making it a far more direct and effective method of communication than email marketing.

When building your SMS marketing platform, consider what messages you want to send to your customers. For example, retailers can combine SMS’s high open rate with personalized offers (like coupons) to attract potential customers and keep existing ones.

You can also share information about events, like upcoming promotions or local markets, to ensure customers are aware of future engagement opportunities.

By connecting your SMS marketing platform to your customer service software, you can create a personalized customer experience based on their previous purchases and other interactions with your company. This should increase customer satisfaction and boost your sales and your productivity levels.

3. Segment Your Customers

If you start to build out your target audiences and see similarities, try segmentation. By segmenting your SMS marketing list, you will implement our marketing tips for retail more precisely.

While list segmentation often starts with basic information like location, you can include more specific options like interest categories, birthdays, and purchasing history in each customer’s profile.

List segmentation also makes it easier to personalize your mobile marketing campaigns to a specific person. Eighty percent of consumers are more likely to purchase from a business that provides this type of experience.

4. Ensure Your Site is Mobile-Friendly

Of all our tips, this one might be the most obvious. Mobile commerce sales are projected to reach $3.56 billion in 2021. So your mobile marketing strategy won’t matter if your website isn’t easy to use or navigate on a mobile device.

Invest in a well-designed mobile-friendly website that enables mobile users to quickly find what they’re looking for, such as products, your return policy, and contact information.

H2: 5. Go Multichannel

Multichannel retail is when a business advertises and sells products through more than one method, such as a brick-and-mortar store, a website, and a mail-order catalog. By switching to multichannel sales, a retailer can reach a much broader customer base.

For example, a small business with one physical storefront can be pretty limited geographically. However, by opening an online store, they can ship orders to customers no matter where they’re located.

Today, consumers expect speed, convenience, and flexibility from the brands they shop with. According to Business Insider, 82 percent of consumers have researched products online before making a purchase in-store.

By strategically combining your in-store experience with an e-commerce platform, you are sure to see an increase in both sales and customer satisfaction.

6. Leverage Location-Based Marketing

One of the most effective mobile marketing tips for retail is to use location-based marketing, which uses the GPS function on your mobile device to show promotions and other relevant content based on a user’s location.

Sometimes called geotargeting, geolocation marketing, or proximity marketing, this type of marketing typically leads to higher engagement and better customer response because it is more relevant to your target audience.

Over 80 percent of survey respondents find more success in their marketing efforts when they are location-based. One typical example of location-based marketing is right in your Google search results. For instance, if a user searches “restaurants,” Google will pull the user’s location based on the IP address of their device and show results that are nearby.

7. Build Social Media Engagement

Most main social media platforms have billions of users, with Facebook and Instagram enjoying immense popularity. Because mainstream social media can reach a large audience, many businesses that are looking ahead use social media as one of their most effective mobile marketing tips for retail.

Although you could focus on organic social media growth only, it’s very common for businesses to use social media ads to ensure they meet their target audience.

For example, a mobile marketing platform typically allows you to create a segmented list for your target audience depending on demographics, which are then used to target ads on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, and much more.

8. Use Chatbots

Chatbots have become a beneficial tool for businesses that use mobile marketing. Many chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence, enabling them to hold conversations with customers and solve their problems.

Many AI-enabled chatbots can also streamline the customer service process by nearly eliminating wait times to speak to an agent and then wait for them to pull up a customer’s information.

9. Send Reminders and Push Notifications

SMS marketing also enables you to send simple but effective appointment reminders, delivery notifications, and other short, time-sensitive messages with just a few taps.

SMS text messaging is a great way to gently remind customers about upcoming events and share necessary information that they can easily reference later, thanks to its high open rate.

10. Test and Tweak

Although mobile marketing is vital for the continued success of a retail business, there is no one-size-fits-all solution. However, taking the time to learn from your marketing campaign results to improve future efforts will help you create an even better mobile experience for your customers.

That’s why defining the specific goals of your mobile marketing efforts is crucial. Without knowing what you’re aiming for and how you will measure your success, it will be challenging to evaluate your marketing efforts and make necessary changes.

Furthermore, marketing tools, trends, and insights are constantly changing as technology advances, so stepping back to see how your mobile marketing strategy is working is even more critical.

Transform Your Mobile Marketing Strategy With CM.com’s Mobile Marketing Cloud

If you’re ready to apply these mobile marketing tips for retail to your business, CM.com can help.

Our Mobile Marketing Cloud is the only omnichannel customer engagement solution that includes mobile messaging like SMS and WhatsApp to create positive experiences that drive engagement, conversion, and customer loyalty.

With our robust software, you can unlock your customer data, create personalized offers for your customers, and develop highly effective mobile marketing campaigns to reach your target audience.

To learn more about CM.com’s Mobile Marketing Cloud, contact us today.

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Josh Intagliata
Josh Intagliata,
Product Marketing Manager
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A marketing technology expert, passionate about driving business growth through strategic product marketing. With expertise in digital product marketing, and go-to-market strategy, he boasts a track record of success in driving product adoption and revenue growth.

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