8 Mobile Marketing Trends To Watch For in 2022

I. Mobile Commerce Growth

Not surprisingly, the scale of mobile commerce, or m-commerce, has grown exponentially. The pervasive use of mobile phones and tablets has paved the way for m-commerce to take a larger piece of the digital marketing pie. According to Forbes, mobile commerce is expected to grow 68% by 2022 as more people shop on their phones.

With consumers getting increasingly comfortable shopping online, optimizing your website for mobile is long past being optional. The impact of COVID-19 has further pushed consumers away from shopping malls and toward online shopping sources. To capitalize on this mobile trend, be sure to remove all online shopping barriers for your customers.

II. Mobile-First Marketing

To keep pace with mobile commerce growth, having a mobile-first marketing approach is the most effective way to capture and cultivate new online clientele. In addition, Google seems to favor mobile-responsive sites, ranking them higher on SERPs.

Here are a few reminders on how to optimize your site for mobile first-marketing:

• Create mobile-friendly content by ensuring your website loading speed is optimal. If your site takes longer than five seconds to load, you may be losing business. Run your site through Google’s Mobile Speed Test tool to measure current performance.
• Ensure your website adapts to multiple screen sizes.
• Emphasize calls-to-action (CTAs) to attract attention and make buying easy.
• Test your site’s performance with Google’s Mobile-Friendly Test tool.

III. Omnichannel Marketing

An effective marketing strategy encompasses several customer touchpoints for maximum reach. Omnichannel marketing embraces social media, chat, content marketing, email, and even webinars to create a cohesive customer experience.

SMS marketing remains at the top of the marketing heap for establishing and retaining customer engagement, as text message open rates remain at a staggering 98% compared to email marketing. However, failing to harness the power of SMS is an oversight that may be costing you time and money.

IV. Rapid 5G Adoption

As consumers increasingly upgrade their devices to take advantage of carriers’ 5G technology, marketers must be ready to exploit its capabilities to the fullest. 

5G enables your business to provide engaging data-heavy experiences that were previously unavailable due to bandwidth and speed limitations. 5G’s increased bandwidth enables high-definition VR experiences and 4k streaming video, along with high-speed data delivery.  

The race is on for brands to harness the power and opportunities that 5G will create – before your competitors do.

V. Conversational Chatbots 

The use of conversational AI chatbots continues to gain ground. Chatbots respond to customer questions that mimic human interaction through a combination of pre-programmed scripts and artificial intelligence.

Chatbots can make (and cancel) reservations, conduct surveys, place orders, answer questions – and the list keeps growing. In addition, Chatbots enable you to learn more about your customers as the chatbots interact with them, creating future marketing opportunities and increasing engagement.

Providing 24/7 service improves customer satisfaction while reducing the need for support staff, increasing efficiency. In addition, as chatbots “mature,” they can produce answers to frequently asked questions by gathering data from previous exchanges. This ever-expanding information database gives customers the information they need and reduces programming expenses. 

VI. Voice Search

Has your business optimized for voice search yet? Studies show that over half of all adults have used voice search, which strongly indicates that voice search capability is now a necessity, not an option. 

The surge in voice search can be attributed, at least in part, to the rise in smart speaker adoption. In 2017, 13% of all U.S. households owned a smart speaker, a number predicted to rise to 55% by 2022.

 Consumers on mobile devices use voice search to take advantage of virtual assistants like Google, Siri, Alexa, and Cortana. 

The challenge of optimizing successful voice search results is that consumers use different search terms in speaking versus typing. Voice search requires marketers to target long-tail keywords to capture speakers’ conversational style over typists’ abbreviated style. In 2022 and beyond, sure your SEO strategy considers these differences when you incorporate voice search into your marketing plan.

VII. Location-Based Marketing

Location-targeted mobile ads are coming into their own as a way to serve location-focused ads to consumers on the go. According to industry forecasts, targeted mobile advertising spending in the United States is forecasted to surpass $32 billion by the end of 2023.

Location-targeted ads have shown to be a remarkably effective way of cutting through marketing noise, delivering offers that meet consumers’ needs at just the right time. Restaurants, bars, pet stores, grocery stores, and entertainment centers benefit by using three types of location-based marketing tactics:

1. Geofencing

Geofencing creates a specified radius around a physical location in which targeted ads are served to attract customers.

2. Geotargeting

Creating targeted audiences based on past visits to specific locations. Delivering relevant content and ads based on these locations is used to create effective marketing campaigns.

3. Geoconquesting

Geoconquesting creates targeted audiences from visitors to competitors to lure those visitors to your business. Offering mobile coupons is a popular way of coaxing customers away from competitors.

 VIII. Social Messaging Apps

The popularity of social messaging apps like WhatsApp, Apple Messages for Business, and Facebook Messenger has enabled businesses to engage in conversational marketing. Communicating with customers directly, especially when facilitated by a communication platform, organizes and streamlines conversations, increasing efficiency. 

Connecting to OTT messaging apps via one interface allows you to switch between channels quickly, enabling your business to continue conversations with customers through multiple channels easily.

Mobile Marketing Cloud Helps Boost Your Business in 2022

Your mobile marketing strategy is one pillar of your overall marketing objectives. CM.com’s Mobile Marketing Cloud includes numerous tools to help your business reach consumers on their favorite mobile channels.

The Mobile Marketing Cloud is an omnichannel marketing platform with powerful B2C and B2B marketing features. It centralizes real-time and historical data from multiple sources to create 360° customer profiles and hyper-personalized mobile marketing campaigns that resonate with your audience.

Contact us to learn more about the Mobile Marketing Cloud today.