In many ways mobile traffic mirrors ‘ordinary’ net traffic, only the formatting of ads and other material is a lot more strict, the potential market size is a lot larger, and mobile users often have expectations that are quite different than those of desktop users. It is important to keep these and other differences in mind when advertising on mobile devices, but it is equally worth remembering the similarities. It might feel like a whole new world when you plan a mobile campaign, but don’t let that force any assumptions. Paid traffic is not the only way to reach mobile users. Properly tagged audio and video iTunes podcasts can be just as effective at driving mobile traffic as paid ads.
When marketers look into the potential of advertising on mobile devices they initially see a huge field of pay-per-click marks with lower competition and lower cost keywords. Working within a tiny screen real-estate is a small price to pay! But don’t forget the expectations of mobile users that align them with other advertising methods. Using a mobile device is often just as interactive and immediate an experience as sitting with a laptop or desktop can be. Consumer demand has driven the cell-phone market to provide larger, brighter screens, high quality audio, and reliable internet access and there are services that have developed along with these trends. To target these customers for free just make sure to give them what they want.
A five to fifteen minute podcast designed to outline a problem and offer a solution makes a great venue for a product advertisment. Offer something of genuine value that matches the interests of your target market and then refer them to your offer. Do you have an Italian cooking website or cookbook to advertise? Offer a recipe in the form of a simple video podcast, or if you are afraid you’ll cut off a finger in a fit of performance anxiety, create a video guide to shopping for the best produce using still images in a slideshow timed to demonstrate your points. Then send them to the offer. Of course audio-only podcasts can work well, too, but remember that mobile devices can go just about anywhere. It doesn’t hurt to echo your audio points on the video and vice versa. You just might catch that customer on the subway who couldn’t hear you properly.
iTunes is not the only place this technique works. Naturally, you can try YouTube as well; many mobile devices can display YouTube videos now. Depending on your content you may have to stick to one platform, however. I talked to another internet marketer who explained that many ad platforms terms of service prevented him advertising his poker training site, but his short instructional podcast video was a hit on iTunes, generating tens of thousands of hits per month for more than six months.
It is true that with this approach your target demographic will be a little less focused and you may get as many or more people on desktop systems viewing your creatives as on mobile devices, but aside from production costs, the traffic is free. What’s more, it will often be a different subset of traffic than can influence with your paid ads, so the two methods won’t interfere with one another.
For a more thorough coverage of specific mobile advertising topics I can recommend the short, intense video tutorial series at Mobile Monopoly. For lots of mobile marketing advice & support, plus loads and loads of other internet marketing techniques, there simply is no better place to learn to earn than the PPC-Coach forums.
