Advantages and Disadvantages of Mobile Marketing

As of 2021, the entire world’s population is at 7.7 billion people, and surveys show that 3.8 billion of them have their own smartphones. That’s a whopping half of the entire world’s population! It’s no wonder that plenty of business owners are studying the advantages of mobile marketing and are considering incorporating it into their business models — or have already incorporated it.

What is mobile marketing?

Mobile marketing works exactly the same as the commercials you see on TV — the only difference is that it’s on a mobile platform. It's a form of promoting your brand or service to mobile device users. It’s the best chance to raise awareness for your brand in the palm of anybody’s hand.

So what are the advantages?

Ease of access

People spend an average of about four hours on their smartphones every day. It’s ubiquitous to see people’s noses in their phones while being stuck in traffic, waiting in line at the local coffee shop, or even while doing their daily business in the bathroom. Not to mention, most people nowadays can’t leave home without their phones. Businesses have a solid chance of reaching audiences with mobile marketing because browsing through a smartphone is one of society’s top pastimes in today’s era.

Cost efficient

Did you know that you can target specific audiences for your ads in mobile marketing? Unlike commercials which target virtually anyone (a broad targeting setting), mobile marketing gives you the option not to spend precious advertising money to audiences who couldn’t care less about what you are selling. This is probably the best advantage of mobile marketing that isn’t an option anywhere else.

For example, say your business sells hiking shoes. You can optimize your ads to target people who are avid hikers, have shown recent history of browsing through places to hike at, or people who love the outdoors. In mobile marketing, you also have the option not to show your ad to people who have already seen your ad and taken some sort of action in the past.

Location specific

This is one of the biggest benefits of mobile marketing. Almost everyone nowadays can’t leave their houses without their phones, and businesses can take advantage of the GPS features of smartphones to target audiences who are in specific locations. If a user gets to a specific location, advertising in the form of alerts, notifications, or anything of the sort pops out which is highly relevant to the user. An example for this would be marketing for a restaurant. This is also called geo-fencing.

Availability of multiple channels

Businesses can take advantage of the multiple marketing channels that are available today. These can come in the form of:

• Mobile websites: A majority of website traffic nowadays comes from smartphone use. It’s best to be able to optimize your website to make it as mobile-friendly as possible to avoid hiccups.

• In-app marketing: What else do people do when they’re on their smartphones but spend it in some kind of app? This is your best bet in reaching audiences by displaying ads in mobile apps. This can also be done in-game.

Potential for reaching viral status

How often have we seen people sharing links, websites, articles, or anything of the sort, to their own social media channels, because they thought it was interesting, helpful, or just plain funny? This is especially helpful because your brand has the potential to reach a bigger audience without you having to do or pay for anything.

Of course, there’s also the other side of the coin. Though mobile marketing has plenty of advantages, it has its drawbacks too. Here is a list of a few things you have to consider if you’re thinking of going mobile with your marketing.

Possible navigation issues

Not all smartphones are the same size, so your website has to be optimized to be mobile-friendly in order to be able to take full advantage of the benefits of mobile marketing. If your website works perfectly well in a desktop setup, but is laggy, too wordy, and unresponsive for the smartphone user, chances are your audience will not give your website a second thought. Your website has to work smoothly because, let’s face it: not everyone has a second chance when it comes to grabbing your customer’s attention. Also, nowadays, most website traffic comes from mobile users.

Variations of mobile devices

Optimizing your campaigns for both the Android and iOS user requires a different set of settings. Because there is not one single standard for mobile marketing, this makes it difficult for the marketer to properly identify and duplicate successful campaigns.

So you see, there are pros and cons to this technology as with everything else. However, with the way the world is being shaped nowadays and its advancement in technology, we strongly believe that it wouldn’t hurt to learn the platform because mobile marketing is here to stay for sure, and your business will surely benefit from it.