In this high-tech digital age, we are all addicted to our machines and devices. Hard to teach our kids to put down that smart phone or stop with the social media jazz when we are so dependent on it too. That’s where we are, so what do we do about it?

Mobile has become today’s brave new marketing frontier, especially for offerings courting younger consumers. Mobile devices are very personal, ever-present, and always on. That makes them an ideal medium for obtaining quick responses to individualized, time-sensitive offers when moments matter. No question, our mobile devices dominate our interactive lives, and you don’t have to be a millennial to know it. So what do you think, are they important to our content marketing strategies? Should they be? Maybe you noticed, we now call it a SmartPhone. What is that? Why do we still call it a “phone” at all when only 10% of the time it is used as a long-distance communication device, per Alexander Graham Bell.

Allow me to explain (mi spiego in Italian), content marketing is the practice of sharing content relevant to your target audience to build trusting relationships, increasing brand awareness, certainly sales, engagement, and loyalty. Compelling content may include any media created with the intent of educating or entertaining your audience and the content that you put out into the world is more important than ever. Mobile devices will dominate content marketing strategies, because almost everyone in the world has them.

Our business is changing your future… Not unlike traditional marketing, mobile content marketing is meant to build brand loyalty to your products, improve engagement with your customers, and still most certainly to increase sales. We teach at the graduate level that going mobile doesn’t mean just putting your marketing plan on a smaller screen. All of us, even the non-millennials, are running around, in a hurry, moving & shaking, on the go and want things quickly and hassle-free. Access is king!

If you buy in so far, my suggestion is that mobile content marketing must do these things:

1. Content must be SIMPLE: a clear and simple call to action. You just cannot get all the content you want on a mobile screen. You really have to be good at more with less. Focus on messages that entice them to download your app, or to view that video that visually sells your value proposition, or to click on that link with more detailed content. Your target audience is most likely walking and/or talking when they get a glimpse of your text or tweet, so don’t make them overthink it. Just tell them the one thing you want them to do, and if there is a need, they’ll do it.

2. Must be QUICK: instant gratification is just not quick enough these days. Download now. Watch the video now. Visit our website now. Order now. Provide a link that is quick and easy to access. A quick effective message is all you need to get their attention and the desired response. Even the larger mobile screens can’t handle a lot of stuff, so don’t overload it. 

3. Must create RELEVANCY: how many emails, text messages, tweets, posts, ads do you get every day? With me, it’s hundreds… it’s getting harder and harder to access the things we actually care about. Things I don’t care about get directed to the junk file. Make sure your content doesn’t suffer this fate. The best way to be relevant is to think about what people do on their devices. Are you talking to your target audience that need your products and services? Are you solving problems, not just selling stuff? Do you matter to your mobile users? If you do, they will listen….

4. Integrated Marketing Communications (IMC): bring it all together in a clear, organized way. Carefully integrate and coordinate the content message about the organization and offering across the many communications channels, not only your target customers but to your employees and stakeholders as well. Engage, entertain, inform and persuade to action…..

5. Must measure the RESULTS: it’s a digital game….the analytics are there. Evaluate how you are doing. Open rate, hits, click rate, unique clicks, visitors: new & returning, referrals, SEO, etc. Do more of what works, change what doesn’t. Very important in the era of Big Data. Oh, hire a Millennial…