Hi everybody! I hope everyone’s been having a good week so far! I believe most of you are reading my blog on your phone and maybe few of you are on your desktop. This brings me to today’s topic which I am really excited about as it is largely relatable and relevant: Mobile Marketing
Now, let’s make a guess: What are the most downloaded apps in 2019? I believe most of your guesses are Facebook, Instagram, Youtube etc. Take a look at the chart below!
Did you know the top 3 most dowloaded apps are actually WhatsApp, Messenger and…… Tik Tok? Surprise? For those who do not know what Tik Tok is, it is a platform for short-form mobile videos. The app is popular among teens and has a unique potential for overnight viral sensation.
So what exactly is Mobile Marketing?
any marketing activity conducted through a ubiquitous network to which consumers are constantly connected using a personal mobile device.
Kaplan (2014)
How can businesses use Mobile Marketing to their advantage?
With people spending 59% of their time on their mobile (according to a research by AppGeeks), it is important for businesses to expand their marketing initiatives to include mobile marketing campaigns.
The different marketing tools for mobile marketing includes mobile ads, coupons, websites, apps and mobile payments.
Based on Kaplan 4 I’s Theory on how to successfully implement mobile marketing through Social Media:
1.Integrate activities into users’ life and avoid being a nuisance
The Nike Run App is the epitome of integration. Users use the app as part of the fitness regime. Nike’s training app provides users the following functions: Track progress and get real-time feedback, creating a challenge with friends and even add Nike shoes to track how far one goes in every pair. As such, this app is non-invasive and is well-integrated into users’ life.
2. Individualize activities to take account preferences and needs.
Different users will have different sets of preferences and interests. As such, businesses have to take account these needs and tailor to them accordingly. One good example would be Fashion Nova.
Fashion Nova is an American fast fashion retailer. Many fashion retailers allow users to filter clothes according to the size, type of clothes and price. Fashion nova takes it further up a notch as it allows users to filter the clothes according to colours and customer ratings size.
This has allowed shoppers (like me) to view clothes with relevance interest and avoids generic information.
3. Involve the user through engaging conversations
Involving users through encouraging engagement and conversations is ultimately one of the most important factor in determining a successful social media campaign. Brands have to ensure that the conversation between customers is a 2-way street and not just the brand advertising to the customer.
Familiar with the brand The Ordinary? The Ordinary is an evolving collection of skin care products offering familiar, effective clinical technologies positioned to raise pricing and communication integrity. The brand is constantly providing skincare advices to their customers on their Instagram and answering to each customer’s skin care enquiry. Hence, customers are largely involved and engaged on the company’s Instagram.
4. Initiate the creation of User-Generated Content
A company who has perfected this ‘I’ is no other than Shopee. Shopee is an e-commerce platform which serves users in Southeast Asia and Taiwan to buy and sell products online. It is a platform tailored for the region (Individualize) and provide users with a fast and secure online shopping. I guess you should know by now that I am a huge fan of shopping and one of their new features ‘Feed’ got me intrigued and certainly engaged with the app. This feature was released in January 2020. It is a platform for sellers to share their brand with the Shopee community through visually engaging content.
Although this feature is mainly for sellers to gain brand exposure, it guides users to comment or even leave their ratings on the posts.
So what do you all think about Mobile Marketing? I like to hear from you if there are other apps who successfully fulfilled all 4 ‘I’s of Kaplan’s theory! Also, do let me know if you have used any of the apps I have mentioned above!
Thank you for reading my blog and I will catch you next week!
Goodbye!
Welcome to My Lens of Digital Marketing 
Hello there Sandy! A great and informative post you have written on mobile marketing right here. Personally, I liked how you are able to relate Kaplan’s theory to the success of social media. In this technological era, almost every businesses and people utilizes mobile and IT gadgets, and it is indeed amazing to see how social media has taken over the world!
Once again, thank you for sharing these information! Keep the great content coming in, and I look forward to read your next blog.
– Jack T.
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Hi Jack! Thank you for your kind words:) Yes I totally agree! The ubiquity of Social media has brought convenience/ pleasure / excitement but at the same time it does cause many of us to lose the human touch! But it does have a lot of business implications of businesses and should be regarded with relevance! Looking at Kaplan’s theory, I am actually very confident to say that I will apply to my marketing work in the future 🙂 Thank you and I hope you will like the subsequent articles 🙂 Cheers!
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Hello there Sandy! A great and informative blog post on mobile marketing! In this modern and technological era, social media has indeed provided convenience to businesses and people. Personally, I liked how you had brought in and relate to Kaplan’s theory on social media marketing.
And yes, I myself actually utilize the top 10 apps that you had presented with the info-graphic chart. Mobile marketing has definitely improved our lives and brings information across the globe to everyone rapidly.
Thank you for sharing this week’s blog post. I certainly look forward to your future content. Keep up the great work!
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Hi Ayden! Thank you for your comment really appreciate the time you have taken to read my blog! I am most grateful and happy to hear what you have commented and more importantly, more objective is to help anyone who aspire to be a marketer in any ways. I of course, have my own short comings but I do hope with my research and experience I can always bring something to the table. Really agree on the convenience social media has brought to our life. I believe if companies leveraged on social media properly, it can effectively increase their awareness and better their value proposition. I recently wanted to start my business in the fashion industry and learnt many things I didn’t know about social media. I thought I was a genius but well, clearly I’m not! Anyways, I realise CONSISTENCY is key. Marketing on Instagram and Facebook; two very different platforms but both platforms have to bring across the same message. As such, starting a business would require one to decide the direction, the market, and more importantly, the perception you like to create for your audience.. This requires the harnessing of important social media tools such as the advertising feature on Facebook and Instagram, that allow you to run Facebook and Instagram campaigns and garner the right attention. Thank you I hope through my reply I shared with you some more useful information!
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Hi there Sandy! Interesting blog you’ve done. The blog have given me insights to digital marketing. One of the interesting post is the mobile marketing. It has given me a different perspective on how marketing is actually done. Keep up the good work!
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Hi Zen! Thank you for those kind words 🙂 I am surprised and also glad that my post gave you a different perspective! I myself have learnt a few things from writing this blog post. Mostly for me, from a consumer’s perspective, I do not look into the marketing efforts by a brand of course. For me, anything within the first 3 seconds that attract my attention would make me a customer. Therefore, understanding this “fact” from a marketer perspective, it is important when designing an ad, it has to capture the user’s attention with the right caption or what marketers call “opening title”. Some articles written by for example, Business Insider, tend to have interesting or what I like to call cliffhanger titles. For example, the title I came across was “You would not believe what this man did…”. I feel such marketing strategy has such a strong impact especially when it is properly optimised for mobile! I hope this has been informative for you! Would love to hear what are your thoughts!
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Hi Sandy, great post you have written there. Yes Indeed, I am using my phone to read this and also a comment. Agree on the cruciality of mobile marketing and how all of us are so glued to our phone. Essentially, traditional marketing, although still prominent, seems to lose its value, having been replaced this form of mobile marketing. I like the fact how the 4Is were associated with the various examples. It is so applicable for target audiences like myself. Good job in also highlighting the facts about top 3 most download apps, new knowledge for me! Looking forward to future posts. Also curious, what are your opinions of traditional marketing?
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Hi Mindy! Thank you for your comment and your kind words! Yes totally agree how social media or rather, technological advancement has gotten us all glued to our phones! Regarding your question on traditional marketing, it certainly has lost its relevance however, it still holds some importance in marketing. Print advertisements for one, still serve its usefulness as it is more of “push marketing”. Advertising right in the face of the customers. Push marketing is like a marketing push where businesses get their message in front of their customers and this requires a lot of reach and may even be considered as interruptive. However, it is important to note that marketing landscape is constantly changing along with marketing strategies and now, it’s more of a pull marketing. This is where brands make a consumer actively seek the product by creating desires for the product. I hope I have answered your question! Thank you for this 🙂 Have a great day Mindy!
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