While mobile is already the top performing channel in marketing, there is always room for improvement. According to a recent report from the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), built on the agency's "Smart Mobile Cross Marketing Effectiveness" studies, companies that stick to mobile text marketing best practices can boost performance up to 160 percent.
"[As] the first comprehensive study of its kind," the research firm notes, "marketers who employ the winning combination of greater mobile allocation and best practices will find a significant competitive advantage."
The MMA reported that mobile is still being undervalued by businesses, despite clear opportunities to expand marketing reach, and that most firms need to put more of their marketing budget into SMS services.
Below are some of the best practices the MMA recommends for boosting mobile marketing performance:
A/B testing – Split testing can improve the returns of a campaign by identifying winning creative and messages that work better for certain segments. The firm reported that companies that implement A/B testing saw a 40 to 60 percent increase in campaign performance.
Context/frequency – Optimizing the timing and context of marketing messages may seem like common sense but not all businesses invest in this area as a best practice, and it can play a major role in reducing opt-outs and boosting returns.
Location-based – Targeted ads within proximity to a physical retail location offers significant growth over non-location based advertising. The strongest impact, according to the report came from the combination of expandable ad unit and proximity targeting.
Video/audio – Text messaging is no longer just about text, smartphones allow audio and video to be sent as part of SMS messages and companies can leverage this technology just as well as consumers can.
