The key to any successful marketing campaign is knowing your audience. But when it comes to mobile marketing, simply knowing who you’re trying to reach is insufficient. Mobile marketing poses its own unique challenges. To succeed with mobile marketing you have to know where your audience is, what they’re doing, and what kind of mobile device they’re using. Success in mobile marketing is all about understanding contextual awareness when it comes to your target audience.

What is contextual awareness?

Whether you’re designing an ad campaign for television, radio, print, or mobile device, contextual awareness is critical. As a marketer you need to know the context in which your target audience will be receiving the advertisement. The challenge for mobile marketers is that the context is always different. With television ads, marketers can reasonably assume that the average viewer will be seated on a couch or chair most likely in the comfort of their own home. Similarly, the creators of radio ads know that most listeners will be on the road. Even PC ads are likely to be seen by people who are generally in the same context.

Mobile is different because people are using different devices in different ways. Because mobile devices are designed to go everywhere their owners go, there are limitless possibilities as to what your audience will be doing when they see your advertisement or receive your text.

Mobile is about immediacy

While you can never be sure about what your audience is up to, you can count on the fact that they are on the go, and most likely busy. They probably won’t be sitting down and they certainly won’t have the time to view a 30 second ad or read a paragraph. You have to keep in mind that your customer is only using one thumb on a 4-5 inch screen and has the attention span of someone from the Twitter generation.  With mobile users, it’s all about immediacy. People turn to their smartphones when they have a question; they want to find the answer in seconds. If you don’t answer their question in a matter of seconds, you’ve lost them. In order to gain these customers, you’ll need to put more thought into context and the relevance of your ads.

Change your strategy

If your marketing strategy requires people to pinch and zoom in order to view content designed to be seen on a desktop or laptop, you’re going to have to adapt in order to reach mobile customers. Explore ways that your company can be more mobile friendly. As a minimum, have a mobile website. Mobile ads should be concise. Explore creative ways to reach customers in a situation where your ad will be the most powerful—for instance, when they are near your business location. By being aware of context, your mobile marketing campaign will be more successful.

Source:  Business2Community