Image by: Yutaka Tsutano
By Michael Sterling

It is predicted that by the end of 2013, Mobile Marketing will reach $11.4 billion dollars. It doesn’t come as a surprise since everyone and their mother has a smart phone nowadays. Five-year old children are carrying tablets to school, and according to recent predictions, in the next five years classrooms will be equipped with individual take-home tablets.

Gadgets are exploding in the market and the app world is gaining so much momentum, it’s hard to keep up. Large companies are now competing with small to medium sized app programmers for popularity and traffic. We need to start thinking like a machine in 2013 – how do we do it?

According to a recent survey by Gartner, a leading technology and advisory company, American companies spent an average of 10.4 percent of their revenue on overall marketing investments last year. The number is expecting to grow in 2013, especially with mobile marketing companies being more sought after which allows them to charge clients more money.

Develop “Quality”

In another survey by Gartner of 250+ marketers with $500 million in revenue between them, they discovered that corporate websites actually had more “marketing success” based on their quality alone than they had marketing on social media websites, like Facebook and Twitter.

When they asked respondents why they gave their patronage, 45% of them said development and maintenance while 43% said they saw their ads on social media – still a big number, but what does this prove? That the quality of your overall look is crucial in gaining loyal customers.

People are very visual – if they like how you present yourself, it is likely they will not forget you. Create a brand for yourself and market yourself with that brand. Develop an attitude. Are you hip? Free-spirited? Straight forward? Make it work for your business and translate that to your marketing strategy.

The job of the mobile marketer is to listen to your vision and try their best to create exactly how you see it. Most marketing companies can have you up and running in a few days.

Mobile Perks

Here’s an idea: offer discounts that can only be claimed by using your mobile app. This will obviously drive more people to want to visit, and by offering these “mobile discounts” it will give more reason for people to explore your page. But why not take it a step further? Why not make DAILY discounts?

By offering daily specials, traffic will explode because people will always be interested to discover what your offering each day. Companies like Groupon have proven that daily updates will always create interest because they never know what they’re going to see. The surprise will keep them addicted.

By installing GPS locations and easy to use drop down options, the customer will never have an issue finding you. Once again, the quality is all set up for them and it will benefit your revenue in the long run. People love using their phone maps when finding places – with a great working GPS option on the home page, you can let them know how close they are and even give directions. Already, this is one step closer to getting their loyalty.

Balance The Budget

Today, Google is the world leader in mobile advertising. They will be launching a new service called the Full Value Of Mobile. Basically it is a calculator – a measuring tool that can tell you how your mobile marketing is translating to dollars and returns. For example, one of the tools will tell you how many people have called you because they were directed from a mobile ad.

The Full Value Of Mobile will also act as your marketing agent, telling you total values and giving you an average amount of dollars per app visit from customers. With this information you will be able to see how cost-effective your mobile marketing investments have turned out, thus helping you along with future decisions and changes.

Public And Private

Keeping aware of where your money is going should always be the first priority to you as a business owner. Sometimes, a business may not benefit from public phone apps, depending on your kind of service. In this case, there are options to offer private phone apps which can be applied to a small number of clients only.

When a client has a private app for themselves that keeps them connected to you, it makes them feel much more appreciated, acknowledged, and exclusive. When you have a small number of patrons, loyalty is the main ingredient for longevity.