Mobile marketing is set to be one of the most important drivers for change in the way that prospective customers will be engaging with businesses in the future, and no marketer worth his or her salt can afford to ignore the need for mobile marketing translation if they are going to reach a global audience.
In its simplest form, mobile marketing allows the user to view a webpage on a mobile device, but it also covers text message or “SMS” marketing, apps, and location-based marketing. The huge recent uptake of smartphones is of course driving the rapid expansion into these areas, and already in excess of 20% of the internet searches made using Google are made via mobile devices. Google currently dominates the mobile search market, and there is clearly an opportunity for businesses of all sizes to get ahead of the competition by staking out an internet presence in the mobile market, and marketing translation can help build your online presence.
Mobile internet is different to the internet you can access from a desktop or laptop computer – once we realise this we can see that there really is some leverage to be had from establishing a mobile version of your website. Although you can browse a standard internet site from your mobile device, you will experience problems both with speed and accessing and viewing content easily. This is because these sites are not actually configured for mobile devices, and this means that companies with truly mobile websites have an instant advantage as many of their prospective customers increasingly use their smartphones to search for products and services including translation services.
A truly mobile website is specifically configured to fit the very much smaller screens of smartphones and mobile devices. Graphics, text, navigation and key messages are all presented in a very different way and the whole site is laid out in such a way that it can be viewed quickly and easily by the smartphone user. The smartphone arrives at the address of a mobile website in several ways; through the use of “quick response codes”, with which a smartphone will identify and access a mobile website; an internet search leading to the site which then automatically serves up the mobile version of the browser to the smartphone; and also as a direct result of any text message or mobile marketing campaigns proving links through which the prospective customer can access your mobile website.
Many big retailers are already mastering the world of the mobile internet. The ubiquitous online retailer that is Amazon is a perfect example of a company that utilises mobile marketing so successfully that customers are able to view and purchase goods directly from their smartphones. While not everyone has the marketing budget of Amazon, Mobile Marketing Translation is an easy way of making sure that your marketing messages reach the widest possible audience.
