Mobile ecommerce marketing or m-commerce marketing as it’s often called has certainly been on the rise over the last few years. As mobile adoption continues to grow all over the world, online shopping has evolved to include multiple devices.
While this is good news for conversion and sales, it is not without its share of challenges. One of the biggest challenges is that many online retailers treat mobile as an after-thought or worse, assume that mobile shopping is the same as online shopping. Not having a dedicated mobile ecommerce marketing in place can result in plenty of lost sales.
To help you keep your m-commerce strategies on track, we have put together a list of the most common mistakes to avoid.
Watch Out For These Mobile Ecommerce Marketing Mistakes
From treating mobile users the same as desktop users to overly busy homepages, clumsy navigation, SMS spam, complicated forms, and unintuitive search, there are a number of things that can affect your mobile ecommerce marketing results.
Here are some of the biggest mistakes to watch out for when optimising your online store for mobile.
Treating mobile users the same as desktop users
It is all too common for store owners to assume that mobile users are the same as desktop users. In reality, mobile and desktop are very different – not just at face value but also in the way that content is consumed. Treating these users the same can be devastating on many levels, leaving customers unhappy across both platforms.
As consumers become more tech-smart and devices continue to grow smarter each year, smartphones are slowly taking over. A large number of searches are done on mobile devices and many purchases are done via mobile, too. Often, customers will view products on a mobile phone and then complete the purchase on desktop. Putting a lot of effort into your main desktop site and ignoring your mobile site will mean losing out on a large number of potential customers.
A hard to navigate website
When consumers have mobile sites that are hard to navigate or online stores that are not responsive, making them difficult to browse on a smartphone or tablet, they will very quickly lose interest and exit the site. No one wants to waste time trying to get around a website that is hard to use, let alone deal with slow loading images, confusing navigation or other issues.
Your buttons, images and other elements will need to be spaced properly and your menus should be easily accessed, whatever device is being used. Mobile friendly menus and easy to use navigation that reduces the need to click page after page will help keep visitors on the site.
A confusing, busy homepage
On that note, your homepage also needs to be optimised for mobile. This is by far the most important page on your online store. This is the first thing a potential customer will see when visiting your store. If the page is clumsy and loaded with too much text or too many images, it will not convert well. If it is clean and easy to use, it will convert far more easily.
Make sure that your homepage is designed according to your primary audience. Focus on a simple homepage that features your top selling products and ensure that it loads quickly. Look at tools that compress images to further make the page load fast. The easier it is for people to find your products, the more likely it will be for people to make a purchase.
Overly complex forms
Another common mistake is forms that are overly long and complex. For ecommerce marketing, you will typically need two types of form – an initial sign-up form and a more detailed form that gives shipping address, name, payment details and other important information. Avoid asking for too much information and focus first on a very simple sign-up form that asks only for name and email address.
Mobile-friendly forms use larger touch areas to make it easier to add information. Remember that mobile forms lack the space that desktop forms have, which can make completing long forms very difficult. Another way to simplify registration is to look for services that allow users to login with social media accounts rather than completing another registration.
A limiting search bar
How easily can customers find your products? On your main ecommerce site, you likely have a search bar (or at least you should have one, anyway). This can be a bit more complicated on a mobile shopping site. The last thing that mobile shoppers want to do is waste time trying to find products in your store. If they cannot find it with a quick search or a few taps, they will go somewhere else.
Make sure that you invest in a decent mobile search tool that is fully optimised, easy to spot and easy to use. Look at including an autocomplete feature to make it even easier for people to find what they are seeking while they are typing. This type of feature can make it far simpler, boosting conversion in the process.
Ineffective or broken QR codes
If you are using QR codes as part of your overall mobile marketing strategy, you will know how much value they add. That is when they are done correctly, however. Done right, QR codes offer an interactive, simple way to connect to customers. There is still plenty that can go wrong and when codes do not work, customers end up being taken to unoptimised pages or even being sent to a dead end. When no clear calls to action are used these campaigns also fall flat.
Make sure that you have a solid strategy in place to use QR codes in a way that delivers real results. Don’t use them purely for the sake of using them – instead, focus on making them work with strong CTAs and links that work properly.
Spammy SMS marketing
SMS marketing is another ecommerce marketing strategy that is highly effective if done right. SMS offers a great tool to connect to customers in real-time. Sadly, this tool is often abused with spammy campaigns that drive customers crazy. If you are sending out SMS every single day or bombarding customers with SMS campaigns all the time, you will soon lose any value.
With all the phishing scams doing the rounds, mobile users are more cautious than ever before. Don’t put their trust in jeopardy by spamming them or asking them to send sensitive information via SMS. Do not ever deliver messages with embedded login links, either.
Not offering a holistic mobile experience
Finally, one of the biggest mistakes to avoid is not delivering a holistic mobile experience. Mobile is one channel in a number of ecommerce channels that you should be using for your ecommerce marketing campaigns. Treating mobile as the only channel is just as bad as overlooking it as a channel.
Keep focusing on how you can use mobile to convert more customers, keep testing and keep aiming for an integrated strategy that incorporates multiple touchpoints.
Fine-Tune Your Mobile Ecommerce Marketing
Now that you have a better idea of what not to do, we hope that it will be easier to move ahead with your m-commerce strategies. Mobile offers many opportunities for growth and we are sure that this channel will continue to grow as the ecommerce marketing landscape evolves.
