Mobile devices take the lead in total traffic in the US by 63%. The consumer no longer wants just a fast experience in their hands, but also the best experience. People use mobile products to constantly be connected and they want their experience to be the same. Mobile devices are becoming the most effective way marketers can give consumers what they want, and fast. But how do you get there?
What is a Mobile Strategy?
The first step to starting your mobile strategy is understanding what it is. A mobile strategy is a plan for how you get to your mobile solution. It is the process of aligning business goals and user needs with mobile technology, such as apps. An app needs to follow a structured mobile strategy to incorporate certain components to be able to provide customers with effective and relevant information. Understanding how to launch such a product is key. Marketers use specific mobile marketing techniques within their mobile strategy to achieve the results they desire.
How to Create a Mobile Strategy
When it comes to creating your strategy, researching and gathering information is a key component. Getting viable information will lead to a successful product that fits your specific business needs and goals.
Follow these steps to help you plan and create your company’s mobile strategy:
1. Understand Your Company’s Overall Strategy
The overall strategy of your company will help drive your mobile strategy. You need to first define and understand your company’s current business standing, where they want to be, and their market conditions. Determining their strengths, weaknesses, threats, and opportunities will also help in building the foundation for your mobile strategy.
2. Assess Your Product’s Business Needs
Knowing and analysing the business needs of your product will help developers better create a product that aligns with your business.
These will include:
- Defining device types your product will support
- Choosing your OS platform
- Scalability
- Potential migration capabilities
- Product integration
- Offline requirements of your product
3. Identify why your product is being created
How will creating a mobile product help your company and it’s business needs? Knowing why you are creating the product will help to align your mobile strategy.
Here are just some of the questions you need to answer while creating your product:
- Will customer demands be met?
- Is the product fast and flexible?
- Is it user focused?
- Does it create conversions and leads for the business?
- Is social media leveraging advertisements in-apps?
- Does it achieve the company’s goals?
- What is the product’s intention?
4. Know Your Target User
Does your product’s target user differ from the users who frequent your non-mobile products? It is ideal for you to distinguish and focus on a general and defined target user to determine how to tailor your product. Differentiations such as gender, class, age, and business are great starters when defining your target. Having the end target user in mind will help you save money and time when working on your mobile strategy.
5. Determine a Budget
The cost of creating a mobile product can range vastly depending on the type of product you are creating. By defining clear constraints to your budget, you will be able to prioritize and allocate funds within your mobile strategy. Having this budget will create a clear scope of where you can spend and save you money in the long run.
6. Design your mobile marketing strategy
Once you have all of your information, you can now begin to design your mobile strategy. How will you drive and encourage the usage of your product to create visibility? Having a good plan of action to encourage users to engage with your product is key. A few different types of engagements you can take advantage of are social media advertising, press releases, specific offers, SMS marketing, and mobile internet marketing.
Implement your Mobile Strategy
Now that you’ve completed the planning phase of your mobile strategy, you are ready to put it all together and implement it. Having a well thought out plan of action can help ensure a smoother product launch. Keeping to your budget, tailoring to target users, and understanding your business needs will only help you in creating a viable product.
