What is white label mobile marketing, and what services could you resell?

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Mobile phones have been an integral part of our lives for more than a decade now. Everyone has one—from first-graders to the elderly who can barely see the words on the screen through two pairs of glasses. With instant access to a wealth of information on the Internet and the ability to connect with our friends and loved ones with a single tap, it's no surprise that we're so attached to our phones. 

Most people nowadays can barely go a few hours without checking their phones for messages or scrolling through social media. It's not uncommon to see a group of friends at a local cafe having their attention focused on the screens, rather than on each other. Technology itself cannot be held accountable for our actions, and we won't get into the debate of whether or not we're too dependent on our phones. 

What we want to discuss here are the business opportunities available thanks to the advancement of mobile technology. Mobile has been on the rise for years now, and Google's predictions came through in 2015 when mobile search queries surpassed the ones performed by desktop users. 

What does this mean for businesses today? The statistics highlight one important fact—having mobile-optimized websites and advertising to mobile users is no longer a luxury or a nice-to-have addition to your overall marketing strategy. Ensuring your site is mobile-friendly has become a necessity. 

Agencies that are providing mobile marketing services to other businesses now play a key role in the overall online advertising ecosystem. Apart from them, there are also hundreds of companies providing white label mobile marketing solutions. If you’re a reseller or someone interested in reselling, this represents an excellent opportunity to expand your portfolio of services or launch a reselling business centered on these services. 

Before we get into the specific white label opportunities you can take advantage of, let's see what mobile marketing encompasses and what the different mobile advertising strategies are. 

What exactly is mobile marketing?

The standard definition of mobile marketing doesn't really tell you much. Everyone would have guessed that it's a practice of marketing to users on their mobile devices. 

The real question is—how? 

Just like with online marketing, there are various strategies businesses can employ to reach their audience on mobile devices. These include:

1. SMS marketing

2. App-based marketing

3. In-game marketing

4. Proximity marketing

5. Mobile search and image ads

We'll go over each of the mobile advertising methods in detail, but first, we want to talk about mobile optimization, as we believe it is the pillar of any successful mobile marketing strategy.

The importance of optimizing for mobile

With the bulk of the audience searching for content, products, and services on their smartphones, it's clear that websites must be well-optimized for these devices. 

We've witnessed many businesses make the mistake of thinking mobile optimization simply comes down to adjusting their web pages to fit the smaller mobile screens. This low-effort approach is far from sufficient. 

If you often browse the web on your phone, you know what we're talking about. Although the page fits the screen, the navigation is barely visible, and you have to zoom in to be able to see anything. God forbid having to fill in a form on these sites—you'd have to zoom in and out and fill each individual field. 

Despite what businesses might tell themselves, this is a huge inconvenience for mobile users. Many people would rather switch to desktop to access the website in these cases, or simply look elsewhere. 

That's why a dedicated mobile version of the website is a must. Website designers should take into consideration how every asset on the site will be displayed on a mobile screen. This includes: 

1. Website navigation

2. Links and buttons

3. Images

4. Forms

5. Pop-ups and banners

Another thing to consider is the site loading speed on mobile. Google's data shows that over half of mobile users leave the site if it fails to load under three seconds. So, besides making the site appealing to mobile users, you should also make sure that the assets load quickly. Even if the site is designed extremely well and pleasing to the eye, it still fails to get the job done if half of the audience never gets to see it due to long loading times. 

This makes mobile optimization an excellent choice for resellers who want to offer their clients mobile marketing services. It's a great way to start a conversation on the topic, and it opens up opportunities to sell additional mobile marketing services further down the line. 

Types of mobile marketing

If your clients already have websites built for mobile, there are a number of advertising services you can resell. Which one is best may depend on several aspects, like: 

• Your clients' business needs

• Their target audience

• Their advertising budget

• The location of the business 

Let's take a look at each type of mobile marketing so you can make an informed decision.

SMS marketing

As you would expect, SMS marketing is a permission-based marketing method that revolves around sending promotional offers to users in the form of text messages. 

The core of this strategy is a database of phone numbers of the company's clients or customers. On top of that, businesses will need explicit permissions from each individual they intend to include in their SMS marketing campaigns. 

Retail stores typically do this on-site, where a worker informs you of the possibility to receive promotional messages and discounts via text messages. Consumers have the option of agreeing and giving the business their phone number or declining the offer. This choice is necessary since it would be too invasive to simply start sending out text messages without the consumers' consent. 

Some online businesses put “phone number” as a required field on their online forms, but even then, they should have a checkbox that allows visitors to explicitly opt-in to receive SMS from the business. 

In most cases, after opting-in, the customers will need to send a five-digit code that allows the SMS marketing software to add their phone number to the database. The promotional messages typically include an opt-out code, which allows customers to request to stop receiving promotional texts at any point in time.

If you're planning on reselling SMS marketing services, keep in mind that acquiring clients might prove a bit more difficult than you anticipate. This type of marketing is commonly used by brick & mortar retail stores and less so by online business. The most obvious drawback is the price of international messages. Even in the case of e-commerce businesses, which can regularly offer discounts and promote new products, SMS marketing isn't the best solution if they're advertising all around the globe.

Local businesses will benefit the most from SMS marketing, but it may be difficult to acquire a decent amount of clients and generate a profit by reselling SMS marketing alone. We recommend offering SMS marketing as one of the services in your reseller portfolio, rather than focusing solely on it.

App-based marketing

Another way for businesses to market their products and services to mobile users is through a variety of mobile applications. There are a few approaches here. Regarding app-based marketing, businesses can choose to: 

• Create their own app

• Have their ads featured in third-party applications

• Run mobile ads on social media

The answer to which approach will suit your clients best  lies in the goal they wish to accomplish. Developing their own app is more of a tool to boost loyalty and generate repeat business. It's safe to assume that people won't download random apps developed by businesses they've never even heard of. The more likely scenario is that they'll use the apps for products and services they've purchased in the past, as a way to keep track of promotions and new offers.

There are a number of white label mobile app providers, so if you believe you'll have success pitching them to your clients, you'll have plenty of options to choose from. If you opt for mobile app reselling, we recommend checking out different solutions and familiarizing yourself with the app features and branding options before making a final decision.

The other approach requires less commitment from your clients' side, as it simply involves creating the ads and forging business relationships with the app owners. The services you can offer here mostly include mobile ad creation, while your clients can simply run them through services like GoogleAdMob. The service finds the most suitable apps for the ads and is a much better alternative than manually sifting through different apps—which virtually no white label solution provider will do in your stead. 

Another alternative would be running ads on Facebook and Instagram, but this falls more into the realm of social media advertising. The ad creation process is the same for desktop and mobile, with the addition of ensuring the ads are mobile-optimized as well. It's good to keep this in mind if you're planning on offering social advertising services. It will help you gain a competitive advantage by offering your clients fully-optimized ads they can show to both desktop and mobile users.

In-game marketing

This form of advertising is typically done through mobile games. Free games often earn revenue from advertising money—they allow other companies to promote their products within the app, for a certain fee. 

Most often, the ads are for other mobile games, which makes perfect sense since these ads are primarily shown to mobile gamers. In some cases, however, the advertisements can be for businesses that are in some way connected to the theme of the game. 

The players need some form of incentive to watch the ads, however. This is typically: 

• In-game currency

• Extra lives

• Cosmetic items

• Other benefits that can help the players advance in the game 

Some apps opt to run ads based on the time spent in the game, say every few levels, but this is generally frowned upon by the mobile gamers. 

The services you could offer here come down to ad creation. Once again, GoogleAdMob can take care of where the ads will be featured, so neither you nor your clients need to worry about this aspect. 

That said, the effectiveness of in-game advertising is questionable. Although many players prefer free-to-play games and aren't prepared to spend money on microtransactions, most view ads as a “necessary evil.” They'd often put down their phones while the ad is running and click the X to close it without even checking what the offer is. 

As a reseller, you could offer mobile ad creation services for this purpose, but make sure your clients know what results they can expect. We also don't recommend focusing on in-game advertising as a standalone service. 

Proximity marketing

Proximity marketing is another great option for retailers and local businesses. It utilizes beacons to send promotional material to people in the geographic vicinity of the business. 

As is the case with SMS, proximity marketing is permission-based. The beacons regularly scan for compatible devices in the area, and upon detecting them, request permissions from mobile users before sending out the promotional campaigns. 

This is an amazing opportunity for resellers since you can offer both hardware solutions—the beacons themselves—as well as the accompanying services, such as training on how to set up the beacons and creating the advertising campaigns for them.

Another amazing sub-type of proximity marketing you could offer are QR (quick response) codes. They are codes customers can scan with their phones to reveal the marketing message behind. Businesses could place them on products, store windows, or even posters, as a way to engage mobile customers and stimulate repeat business. As a reseller, you can offer both QR code creation, as well as resell the advertising campaigns the codes will show to the mobile users. 

Besides beacons and QR codes, businesses can also utilize Wi-Fi marketing, which will allow their customers to use the Internet, in exchange for opting in. It's a great way to generate leads, but it's done internally, so there's no opportunity here to resell any services. 

Mobile search ads

Mobile search ads are practically the same Google ads you see on desktop, with added functionality for mobile and optimized for these devices. Last year, Google introduced enhanced campaigns that allow advertisers to run the same ads on both mobile and desktop, thus eliminating the need to create separate campaigns. 

They also introduced several mobile ad extensions that enhance the user experience by making the ads more mobile-friendly. These extensions include: 

1. Mobile site links

2. Click-to-call

3. Click-to-download

4. Local ads 

Mobile site links are a “quality of life” improvement since users don't have to wander around the website to find the page they're looking for. Instead, the ad can feature direct links to the relevant pages and take the users straight to where they need to go on your website. 

Click-to-call and click-to-download extensions are pretty self-explanatory. They include an additional option to call the advertiser or download the promoted app. 

Local ads feature Google Maps apart from the ad copy, showing the users the business’ location, its open hours, and additional information.

You can offer this service to a wide range of clients, regardless of what niche they're in, or whether they're a brick & mortar or online business. If you're interested in reselling mobile marketing services, we recommend focusing on mobile ads. 

How to start as a mobile marketing reseller

You should take your time to research the available mobile marketing services and providers. If you have a sizable client base already, consider which services they'll be most open to. If you're starting out from scratch and need to acquire leads, think about who your target audience will be and which service will give you the most flexibility regarding who you can sell it to.

You should also check each solution you're interested in carefully, to see what the rebranding options are, what profits you can expect on each sale, and whether there are any limitations when reselling it. 

We believe that the best approach is selecting a niche you're familiar with and creating a portfolio of related products you can pitch to your clients. This will provide you with variety, making it easier to sell something to each part of your target audience, as well as give you the opportunity to upsell existing customers by offering additional services.

Since you're interested in mobile marketing, consider selling additional marketing and lead generation services. We provide a wide range of white label software solutions that can help your clients win over more customers and scale their business. 

Discover how you can partner up with SellSaaS, launch your software reselling business, and start earning revenue today!