A common mistake many companies still make is to reapply their traditional online strategy to mobile. Here are six easy ways to rectify this problem:
1. Think mobile first. Mobile users have very distinctive “snacking” behaviors. Rather than just extending web campaigns to mobile, create mobile-specific campaigns and mobile-only offers. Take advantage of the user context available on mobile devices (location, device type, source, etc.) and create mobile-specific landing pages that are simple and touch-friendly.
2. Use a self-service approach. Traditionally, the creation of mobile landing pages required IT to design, develop, test, approve and deploy. Many of these IT resources are choked simply trying to manage and update their core mobile apps and sites, and have little time to address marketing requirements. By using a self-service approach, marketers can create new experiences in hours instead of weeks. Using pre-tested/pre-approved modules and one-click go live eliminates the need for IT involvement each time. Democratizing the process of creation allows marketers to innovate rapidly, independently of IT, and take advantage of new features and device capabilities.
3. Create rich mobile experiences. Features like videos, carousels, galleries and 360-degree views dramatically increase user engagement. Experiences like inline expandable sections, tabs and jump menus allow for depth of information while keeping the call to action upfront and center. Social elements like displaying Twitter feeds and Facebook-like comments build user trust.
4. Make landing pages speak to the user. To effectively address the user, you need to create targeted landing pages. Landing pages have to be customized per campaign, per source and per keyword. By simplifying the creation process you can enable the development of more variety and better targeting. Create several landing pages and use targeted sections in each page to further segment the users. Pages should also be integrated to customers’ existing reporting and tracking infrastructure.
5. Make landing pages actionable. Mobile landing pages can trigger various types of actions—from forms embedded in the page for opt-ins to “click to call” to take users back to existing channels. Store locators and coupons can be used to get the user to walk into a physical store. Coupons can be saved to the phone (or loaded into their iOS Passbooks). Users can also invoke a buy experience. Other actions include add to contacts, app download links and add to home screen.
6. Optimize the buy experience. Traditional ecommerce experiences are not suitable for mobile landing pages. Users are interested in a single offer/product, so steps like adding products to a shopping cart before checkout have little relevance. Users are also not interested in entering credit card details and shipping and billing addresses. Purchase experiences have to be optimized (for example, one-step checkout) and take advantage of pre-saved credit card/shipping information (if available with the customer). If that is not available, offer providers like Amazon Payments and PayPal.
Vikas Murthy is CTO of July Systems.
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