Mobile devices are the next wave of marketing. By keeping a few critical issues in mind, you can enhance your brand and open up an important revenue channel.

With the explosion of the mobile market this decade, marketers need to be constantly on the lookout for ways to tailor their efforts to the mobile user. After all, Mary Meeker’s 2018 internet trends report shows that more than half of the 5.9 hours that people spend on the internet each day is through mobile devices.

At the same time, those individuals are growing increasingly accustomed to navigating their consumer decisions through their smartphones and tablets. For that reason, mobile marketing is a critical channel not only for directly driving sales ordered through mobile platforms, but for maintaining brand visibility and loyalty.

The problem is, knowing just how to optimize your mobile marketing campaigns is not always obvious. It’s important to understand the options you have and to implement them effectively. Done well, the following strategies will help you and your company make the most of mobile marketing.

1.) Gamifying your approach.

Although consumers may no longer be impressed with gimmicky gamification, being able to engage their attention through something legitimately fun and mentally stimulating can still be a powerful technique for keeping your brand in their minds. Given that mobile is well integrated with online social networks, gamification can enable friends and family members to act as brand advocates as they bring new people to the games.

Although innovation and creativity are crucial to good gamification, there are some basic principles that you should keep in mind. A system of rewards is important because people like to know they are making progress in the game or getting closer to some real-world discount. Badges and points systems are perhaps less appreciated now that they’ve been standard features of gamified ads and websites for some years now, but they can still be valuable if used skillfully.

2.) Playing well with Google and the robots.

All of your digital marketing efforts should be adapted for mobile use, including your website, email newsletters and other channels. This is especially imperative now that Google is indexing based on mobile sites rather than desktop sites, an approach called “mobile-first indexing.”

And if you’re not considering AI in your marketing efforts, you should be. Demandbasereported that 80 percent of marketing executives believe that AI will “revolutionize” marketing in the next two years.

3.) Building the infrastructure you need.

In order to successfully use the tech required to make your mobile marketing dreams a reality, you need to invest in the right infrastructure. Part of having the right infrastructure means understanding the importance of speed. For example, Google found that when the load time for a page on mobile went from one second to five, the bounce rate went up by 90 percent.

Another essential infrastructure element is a secure network. According to Alissa Lovens, leader of Zayo Group’s global marketing strategy for its finance and professional services sector, “Private, dedicated connectivity to a public cloud provider reduces many of the performance and security concerns associated with public internet environments.” Lovens notes that this approach provides solid network reliability, keeps the costs of infrastructure down and ensures your bandwidth is able to handle your needs. She adds, “Applications must be up and running when customers want to access them, whether … through a mobile app or at their desktop or laptop computer.”

With these strategies in place, let the devices and the culture of sharing on mobile do the rest of the work. Mobile devices are the new horizon for marketers, and they need to be taken seriously as a key priority. Fortunately, technology continues to make this platform a faster, more secure and more enticing experience for users. By keeping in mind a few central issues, you can capitalize on this new opportunity. In the end, companies that create compelling mobile marketing campaigns will be the big winners in the years to come.

Article written by: Tiffany Delmore