Please click here to download Mobile Marketer’s Classic Guide to Mobile Creative
Welcome to Mobile Marketer’s third annual Classic Guide to Mobile Creative, a special edition meant to offer tips to marketers on how to approach mobile advertising, marketing and media from a creative standpoint.
Creative is not easy to execute on mobile given limited real estate on smartphones and tablets. For example, banner ads on mobile Web sites and applications have little room to showcase visual, brand name and call to action – if all three can fit. It gets easier on seven- eight- and 10-inch tablet screens.
Advertising is all about capturing the target audience’s attention and getting them to follow the call to action. That is tough regardless of channel. But mobile’s special qualities – always-on, location aware and portability – are big plusses for mobile ads.
That said, it is still early days for mobile creative development. Advertising agencies and service providers are doing their level best to help marketers – both brands and retailers – with creative tips and suggestions.
But there is no doubt that brands and retailers need to get more creative with their design and advertising on mobile sites, apps and marketing channels. Failure to aim for higher standards will eventually lead to customer and prospect disinterest and weakening loyalty, especially as more consumers shift their work, home and play lives to mobile devices.
Designs on future progress
As readers of this guide will see, leading players in the mobile space offer tips on an array of subjects: how to design rich media mobile ads, for example, or the art and science of mobile design. Making sure emails are mobile-friendly is another must-read article, as is the design of a mobile site.
The guide also focuses on building a database through mobile site, app and SMS, and makes a case for why MMS is key for retailers and marketers. There is discussion on QR codes, mobile tips to drive in-store traffic, creation of native advertising and the ABCs of mobile search.
Add to all of that is how mobile video can bring products to life, best-practice tips for creating in-app rewards and, perhaps most important of all, legal guidelines for mobile.
Top form
A big thank-you to all the senior executives who spent time and effort on crafting creative tips for mobile. Please read their pieces and feel free to reach out to them for strategic advice.
Another thank-you to Kargo, a premium mobile ad network that underwrote this year’s edition. Kargo connects brands with publisher audiences and counts several Fortune 500 companies as clients.
Finally, thanks are owed to associate editor Rimma Kats for her painstaking effort in putting this Classic Guide together. Rimma’s favorite word is perfect.
Please read this guide from cover to cover. Marketing only succeeds with the combination of right audience, relevant call to action and eye-catching creative – be it words or images. In mobile, form and function go hand in hand.
Mickey Alam Khan
Please click here to download Mobile Marketer’s Classic Guide to Mobile Creative