Marketers are always looking to make their communications more personal, more targeted, and more relevant. Mobile is arguably the most personal, targeted, and relevant marketing channel available.
Mobile devices provide individuals with almost instant access to friends and family, location-based information, productivity tools, entertainment, and all the benefits of accessing the Internet from almost anywhere. If you're responsible for marketing a business or organization, making sure your marketing campaigns find their way on to mobile devices is one of the most important jobs you have.
This book shows you how to create and run engaging mobile marketing campaigns using today's mobile technology. We explain the opportunities and strategies you need to reach mobile consumers and get them to engage. We show you how to deliver mobile messages including SMS, MMS, and mobile e-mail.
Because your prospects and customers have to opt in for you to deliver mobile messages to them, this book explains how to build a quality mobile opt-in list full of subscribers who reward your mobile marketing efforts. We also show you how to create great mobile Internet sites, mobile applications, advertising campaigns, and social media interactions.
This book also shows you how to take advantage of voice by creating voice campaigns and how to enable your customers to make purchases on their phones through mobile commerce and point-of-sale campaigns.
Mobile marketers are subject to many legal requirements and industry guidelines, and many mobile marketing campaigns require carrier approval. This book shows you how to adhere to professional standards, follow the rules, and get through the processes involved in setting up your campaigns.
Mobile marketing has the ability to provide you with all kinds of great data on your customers and prospects, including their location data, so we include tips and ideas for using mobile tracking reports and analytics to improve your strategy and increase your sales.
Mobile technology is emerging and developing all the time, and new ways of marketing are adapting all the time too. The best time to start marketing through the mobile channel is today. Get ready, get set, go for it!
Mobile Marketing For Dummies is written to answer your questions about mobile marketing and to give you tips and ideas for executing the various steps involved in a successful mobile marketing campaign.
This book isn't written to impress technically savvy pocket-protector types. It's for marketers and business owners who have to make the most of every minute of every day. We include lots of bulleted text with concise descriptions and ideas for implementing each topic immediately.
The content in each chapter stands alone, so you don't have to read all the chapters in order. You can use this book like an entire series of books on the subject of mobile marketing. You can scan through the Table of Contents and read about a single topic to refresh your memory or to get a few ideas before beginning a task, or you can read an entire chapter or a series of chapters to gain understanding and gather ideas for executing one or more parts of an entire mobile marketing campaign.
Sidebars are included in this book as interesting additional tidbits or to give anecdotal examples of the tips and ideas in the book. You don't have to read them to benefit from this book.
To make this book easier to scan and internalize, we use the following conventions:
Words in italics are used to point out industry terminology or words that have special definitions in the book.
Words in bold represent the keyword or the main idea in bulleted lists.
Web addresses and snippets of programming code appear in a different font, as in
www.MobileMarketingForDummies.com.Placeholder text in code is in italic, as in
<a href="http://www.yourwebsite.com/page.html#anchorname>, whereyourwebsiteshould be replaced with the actual name of your Web site.
It's hard to imagine that anyone has managed to stay completely away from mobile phones. However, to get the most out of this book, we assume that you already
Are familiar with the basic functions of a mobile phone
Are responsible for (or are soon to be responsible for) marketing in a business or an organization
Know how to use a computer and a mouse
Have a Web site or a physical location (or you soon will)
Have a product or service that people need or have an idea for a product or service that people need
Mobile Marketing For Dummies is divided into five parts according to the different types of mobile marketing campaigns you can create and deploy.
Part I: Getting Up to Speed on Mobile Marketing
Part I explains where mobile marketing fits into a marketing mix and describes the benefits and limitations of mobile devices as marketing tools. We give you insight into the consumer landscape including tips for understanding laws and industry regulations as well as advice for developing a mobile marketing strategy and choosing partners to help you execute on your plans.
Part II: Executing Direct Mobile Marketing Campaigns
Part II helps you to build a solid foundation for sending text messages, multimedia messages, and mobile e-mails. We show you how to obtain a common short code, gain opt-in subscribers to your messaging campaigns, and promote your business with messages. We explain how to set up a variety of campaigns and tips for designing e-mails for mobile screens.
Part III: Mobile Media, Publishing, and Advertising
Part III explains how to go about building mobile Internet sites, mobile applications, and advertising campaigns. Part III also shows you the power of mobile when applied to social media and voice campaigns. We tell you how to use layout and design elements to make your mobile sites effective on mobile devices and we show you how to develop and distribute mobile applications. We explain how to make money through mobile advertising and the importance of making your social media content accessible on mobile devices. Part III also shows you how to enable marketing campaigns using a mobile phone's most used and yet often overlooked feature — voice. After all, it's still a phone, no matter how many other bells and whistles it has!
Part IV: Mobile Commerce and Analytics
Part IV is where your mobile marketing strategy finds an enduring future. We explain how to enable monetary transactions through mobile devices such as mobile Internet purchases, point-of-sale scanners, and mobile wallets. We also show you how to use mobile marketing analytics to track your campaigns and determine whether your strategy is working.
Part V: The Part of Tens
In Part V, we include two chapters that list ten important bite-sized summaries of mobile marketing information. The first list contains ten ways to reach consumers on mobile devices today. The second list covers ten mobile marketing resources you should become familiar with so your mobile marketing can advance and grow, along with new advancements in technology and industry best practices. In addition, we include a Glossary to collect the definitions of mobile marketing terms into one convenient resource.
When you are scanning through the contents of this book looking for tips, reminders, and ideas, you can look for the following icons in the margin to help you find important information fast:
Note
This icon signifies information that you should remember and file away in your brain for later reference.
Warning
This icon signifies important details that might cause your strategy to stumble or come to a halt if left unaddressed.
Note
This icon signifies information that is technical in nature. It's for geeks only, and you can skip it if you don't fit that description.
If you aren't familiar with mobile marketing or if you don't know a lot about mobile devices, you might want to start with Part I and read each chapter in order. If you are an experienced and tech-savvy marketer with a good idea of which direction you want to take your mobile marketing, you can scan through each part's Table of Contents and read the chapters or topics in any order.
Either way, it's time to get started with building your business and deepening your customer interactions with mobile marketing!