When creating mobile content, keep in mind what it represents.

For many users, their phone is the headquarters of their lifestyle. It’s a connection to friends, family and co-workers. Users personalize the background, download apps that fit their needs and look up information on the go. It’s by their side 24/7 and their connection to the world. With mobile marketing campaigns, you don’t have the luxury of leading up to anything and writing for mobile means distilling down web copy even further than before based on the following six criteria:

1 - Be Goal-Oriented

The best mobile content cuts copy to a minimum and only spews out the necessities - necessities being what your target should see during those fateful two seconds that determine a click. Create content focused around your goals and avoid going on tangents.

2 - Use Strong Headlines

Mobile copy should be very much to the point, while sacrificing as little power as possible. Get an idea across quickly. Headlines will have to fit on one line, avoid wrapping text, and have to be quick and clear so that users get the point right away, but with enough encouragement for them to continue reading and to also share the content with others.

3 - Screen Sizes Vary

When writing copy for the web, space on the page allows for visual cues that can draw the readers’ eye towards the marketer’s objectives. Writers have to place extra consideration on being extremely direct, clear and succinct, because presentation options will likely be limited or even inconsistent across devices and platforms. Think within the confines of a small screen.

4 - Prioritize Your Content

It’s important to put the most important content up front. Think about how readers will browse the content. Most of the time, people are only going to read headlines.

5 - Test Your Content

Find out what works best by testing two versions of your copy. A/B testing tools allow marketers to pit two versions of the same content against each other. The software splits users into multiple groups, showing different versions of the content to each one, and then automatically selects and implements the content that results in the most conversions, whether that is click-through rate, time on site, and so on.

6 - Fine-tune your Texting

With a limit of 160 characters, SMS is a challenging communications vessel. Calls to action should be kept simple and concise and you have to think very clearly about how to phrase your message; focusing mainly on whether it can be easily understood, remembered and acted upon. Make your point in as few words as possible without missing out on any important information. Events, new launches, urgent actions and relevant successes are all great message topics for an SMS message.

Readers on the go want bite-sized information that will serve them in that very moment. Acknowledging and embracing that fact is key to successful copy-writing for mobile.

For more useful advice on Mobile Marketing; such as crucial design sensitivities and how to go about creating mobile promotions - read our newly published white paper here.