Mobile marketing has certainly grown in popularity over the past few years with small and medium-sized businesses. It is a great way to reach customers quickly with targeted messages and is highly measurable, making it one of the top ways businesses of all sizes are marketing their business. We’ve gathered some of the best tips, tricks and reasons for mobile marketing from our archive and put them together for you with links to each original article.
SEO/SEM
Consumers use an average of nearly eight different media tools to research local purchases before they buy.1 In fact, nearly 70 percent of consumers start their local business searches online.2 That includes mobile, where more than 40 percent of mobile phone users search for information on their phones. From – How Findable Is Your Business?
There are benefits to making a leap to mobile marketing. Primarily, you will have the ability to reach customers with a greater degree of accuracy. The new targeting technologies of local mobile search mean that you will have more control over what messages potential customers see and when. According to Pew Internet and the American Life Project, 74% of U.S. consumers use location based services on their smartphone and 46% of mobile phone users use location based services.3 From – Why Mobile Is Vital To Your Business
Search engines give higher ranking scores to business websites that also include a “mobile optimized” version. Having location keywords (city, neighborhood, street, etc.) are especially important to people searching for you on a mobile device. Also keep in mind that mobile users are often seeking fast access to information and services. – From 9 Ways to Increase Your Local Business Search Results
Benefits of Mobile Marketing
Because most mobile users are tethered to their phones 24/7 and ready to interact, many businesses consider mobile marketing to be the ultimate direct response tool. Some of the more attractive benefits include:
- Immediacy – Mobile users usually keep their phones within easy reach, so your message can be received within seconds of it being sent. Even if the device is in standby mode, your message will be seen as soon as the customer or client turns the phone on.
- A 100% opt-in form of marketing – Unlike direct mail, where businesses can purchase a mailing list, a customer has to provide their phone number in order to receive mobile offers. In most cases, these consumers are previous customers who have a history with a business and want to receive offers from them. This results in less waste and higher response rates.
- Personalization – Because messages are only sent to customers who have opted-in, personalized offers and content can be sent to increase response rates. Marketers can even open up direct dialogues with users via text messaging and get instant customer feedback.
- Mobility – Customers can receive your message on their mobile device anytime, anywhere versus needing a computer, radio or TV to receive it. There are even programs that can generate an offer any time a customer gets within a specified distance of your business.
- Affordability – Mobile marketing can be very easily and economically integrated with most business’s marketing programs to help increase response rates. And, like most mediums, the more customers you reach, the lower your cost per lead.
- Effectiveness – According to many surveys, text messaging has over a 90% open rate (83% within one hour) and, generally speaking, mobile response rates average around 15%.
- Highly trackable – User response can be tracked almost instantaneously. Plus, mobile marketing can be used to track other marketing methods by including a direct call to action (e.g. “text ‘WINBIG’ to 12345″) in a radio or TV commercial.
- Sharing potential– Like email, mobile marketing is easily shared with friends and family. So marketers can get a whole lot more exposure with no additional cost or effort on their part.
Ready to Begin?
If you’re ready for mobile marketing start a log of customers’ mobile numbers while following all industry accepted privacy rules. Then, make sure the offers you send out are truly valuable and unique and not something customers will find elsewhere. Also make sure that your offers are consistent with the rest of your marketing program. Your messages could be fun, with plenty of polls, trivia, sweepstakes, freebies and other great discounts that customers will want to forward to friends. Then, keep track of which offers and messages receive the best response.
From – Mobile Marketing Basics for Local Businesses
Local businesses should to develop a coordinated offline and online marketing program to reach customers across the myriad of ways savvy mobile buyers search and shop. You can test how cohesive your marketing strategy is working to make your business visible, right now for free. Take a few minutes to get your Findability Score by answering five simple questions about your business.
1 – Source: Kelsey Group, 2010
2 – Source: Small Business Administration, January 2011
3 Three-quarters of smartphone owners use location-based services: Pew Internet & American Life Project, May 2012
