If you work in the digital marketing ecosystem, 2021 would’ve been quite an eventful year for you. We saw some exceptional growth in mobile marketing spends from brands across the globe (Mobile spend made up 47% of search ad spend share, up 2% from last quarter and 5% YoY, according to this report), thus stressing the importance of having mobile-first marketing strategies.

Some key milestones that made a big noise in the mobile marketing ecosystem include:

• Tiktok’s insurmountable growth numbers  – As of September 2019, TikTok was the third most downloaded non-gaming app in the world, ahead of both Facebook and Instagram, according to market research firm Sensor Tower
• Instagram deciding to stop showing likes on posts thus snatching away the instant gratification we’ve always drooled for
• Instagram focusing to make its platform easy to shop from with catalogs & more
• Google’s priority to rank fast – optimizing mobile websites on SERPs on the top like never before
• Voice search is at its peak
• In terms of WhatsApp marketing, WhatsApp Business becoming a go-to platform for mom and pop shops
• Users now spending more than 90% of their time on mobile in one or the other app

and the list is endless!

So, if you haven’t geared up your brand towards a big fat mobile strategy in 2022 already, you definitely need to be worried. Read on to help you keep up with the top 18 mobile marketing strategies that your website/app need to definitely dive on in 2022.

Content & communication strategy

1. Vertical content
   Don’t stick to the conventionally horizontal or square format of static & video content only. Most platforms today have adapted to a vertical content format (for both static graphics & videos too). It’s time you make full use of the real estate available on your user’s screen to create impact.
2. User-generated content
   Stop treating your social media channels like an online brochure! Talking just about yourself (or your brand) is so 2010. Start posting content that can generate chatter within your community & drive conversations. Ask for opinions from your users. The generation today doesn’t like to be told, they need participation to feel the belongingness with a brand.
3. Hyperlocal campaigns with personalized communication
   Spray & pray doesn’t work anymore, or should I say doesn’t result in optimum ROI. Understand your target audience, know how their typical day looks like in the geography you’re targeting them, how their general online behavior is, then devise ways to connect with your audience, making them feel you’re one of them, and they can in turn trust you!
4. Personalized video ads
   Oh yes, you can create personalized videos at scale! Idoomo is one such tool to help you with that. Personalized Video merges data and video to deliver exceptional experiences that wow customers, and produce higher and more measurable ROI.
5. Mobile optimized emails
   It’s said that 60% of all emails are first opened up on a mobile. Your emailers today need to be more personal, with fewer links, larger fonts, and visually plausible.
6. Push notifications
   Mobile Push notifications are surely an underrated marketing mechanism in your mobile marketing strategy. Subscribers for push notifications can be carefully built using tools like WebEngage. They have much better open rates compared to traditional emailers and can prove to be a great asset in your growth marketing strategy.
7. SMS marketing
   While SMS marketing might not be the best tactic for acquisition, it surely plays an important part in retention. Keeping in touch with existing customers and intimating them of important updates, all with a view to turn them into brand advocates is possible with the right and non-pushy SMS marketing strategy.

Growth strategy

1. Chatbots
   You need to speak to your customers to convince them that you’re worthy of their time, especially when you run a services business. One of the best hacks we’ve done as a digital marketing agency on our website at DigiChefs is by implementing a Chatbot and personalizing it with my name (Deep Mehta) & face. Check it out here.
   
2. QR codes
   Though traditional, QR codes will have a big impact in times to come. And keeping it limited to your digital landscape and not utilising it in the physical world, could be counted as a missed opportunity. If you are an e-com business, you better have QR codes on your packaging to have the recipient become your newsletter subscriber or maybe follow you on Instagram. If you have a physical store, have huge banners giving users a reason to follow you on their favorite social channels.
3. Whatsapp API campaigns
   You can use the power of WhatsApp to drive meaningful conversations with fence-sitters. Freely available WhatsApp API (which by the way may not require any technical know-how) can reduce your cost per lead drastically. Here’s an example of how to run a WhatsApp API campaign.
4. Augmented reality
   While this can be an expensive affair, giants are now releasing tools like Facebook’s Spark AR to simplify augmented reality and bring it into daily marketing use. AR-driven 360-degree views of product images on e-commerce sites or how a furniture e-store can help customers see how the furniture will look in their rooms before they purchase the same can revolutionize mobile shopping experiences completely.
5. Social commerce
   Popularised mainly by Facebook, Instagram & Pinterest, most social media platforms want to be super friendly with e-commerce businesses. With Shop features and Shopify integrations, you can definitely add a lot of value to your e-com business by being available for social commerce.

Strategy to “Get Found”

1. Google My Business (GMB)
   Don’t forget to optimize your GMB listing, it can drive crazy business. Here’s an example of how we generate leads for DigiChefs using Google My Business results. Note – the results are local in nature, hence the businesses shown must be in the near vicinity for them to pop up.
   
2. Voice search optimization
   Voice searches are increasingly becoming popular. This indicates that your content needs to include conversational queries to raise your website or app’s chance to rank well on search engine result pages.
3. ASO (App store optimization)
   Just the way you optimize your website, you should definitely optimize your app. App Store and Google Play Store are equally important as user acquisition channels and just by having higher rankings on your relevant search terms, it can drive an immense amount of downloads for your app.

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Traditional marketing strategy

1. Affiliate campaigns for app installs
   Don’t fall for massive app install campaigns in 2022. Those incentive-based campaigns may give you cheaper downloads but we all know how severely useless those downloads are! Have a healthy affiliate marketing strategy with appropriate targeting from your partners and strongly monitor all the mobile KPIs like “Uninstalls within 24 hours” and more.
2. In-app advertising on social channels
   Using the not so popularly used mechanisms for in-app ads can serve as a growth hack for your brand! For example, if you are a medical clinic, you can run Messenger ads where users can ask you a couple of questions before you invite them to the clinic for a one-to-one consultation. An increased focus on story ads on Instagram can help drive visibility & clicks using vertical video content like mentioned earlier.
3. Lifetime value (LTV) vs one-time acquisition
   In 2022, people will have mobile phones with a minimum memory of 64 GB. With most of their songs & videos online, they really don’t mind installing your 50-100MB app. What is challenging is to have your app opened once it’s installed! Hence, running engagement campaigns to signify the value your app brings to your customer’s life is as important as acquiring the user in the first place.

Here you go, these were some tactics that will definitely help you have a solid mobile marketing strategy in 2022. Questions? Drop by in comments or just say hi 🙂

Bonus Read – The 16 Mobile App Metrics You Must Track In 2023