Is Your Small Business Enjoying Mobile Marketing Success?

Internet-enable mobile devices are changing the way people communicate, the way they interact (or don't interact) with other people and the way they shop.

The smartphone phenomenon is only about six years old. As more people use smartphones as shopping and buying tools, the effect on business will be significant.

Will You Reap The Rewards?

This revolution holds great promise for the businesses prepared for it. Do you own or manage a small business? Are you ready? Chances are some of your key competitors are already reaping the rewards of a smart mobile marketing strategy.

If you set one up for your company, you can benefit in a big way. If you don't, be prepared to be left behind while you watch your competitors fatten their bank accounts.

Mobile marketing represents a potential goldmine for small businesses like yours.

This article will complement our previous article on mobile marketing, and will specifically discuss some ways small  businesses, especially retail operations, can leverage smart mobile marketing strategies in order to win a flood of new and repeat business from a loyal army of smartphone users.

One of the challenges in today's hyper-competitive marketing environment is simply to get noticed. Our culture is bombarded with marketing and advertising messages, and most are ignored. But very little goes unnoticed on the average smartphone. People check their smartphone messages, voicemail, text messages, etc., and they usually do it immediately.

The Most Amazing Marketing Statistic Ever?

Remember that to get your marketing message read and acted upon, you have to get it noticed. And you have to get it opened! No other marketing tool has an open rate like text messages; according to some studies, 98% of text messages are opened and read.

98%!!! Let that statistic sink in for a moment.

Assuming you wisely used great copywriting and mobile marketing strategy and tactics, do you think a 98% open rate could help your sales skyrocket? Of course!

And it's not just text messages that mobile users pay attention to. People tend to pay more attention to social media and email and respond to them more immediately when they are on their mobile devices.

Some Excellent Ways For Small Businesses To Profit From Mobile Marketing 

As a small business owner, you can use mobile marketing to capture the attention of potential customers “on the fly”, benefiting them and you at the same time. Let's say you own a restaurant and you're facing a time when business is typically slow, maybe a Monday night early in January, when the Christmas holidays are over.

Let's also say you had built up a list of over 500 phone numbers collected from previous diners. That Monday afternoon, you could send out a text message that offered a discount off of the check total to anyone who ate at your place that night.

You could send them a text that included a link to your mobile-optimized website where they could download your custom mobile app that included a monthly newsletter with topics related to your business.

For example, let's say you ran a retail wine shop. One of the features you could include in your app-based newsletter could be a story about visiting the California wine country.

You could program your app to include a message telling readers to sign up for your email and text message lists. You could use it to send traffic to your website or to your mobile ecommerce landing page. The possibilities are almost endless!

What You Must Remember About Mobile Marketing

Keep in mind that when people are using their mobile devices for shopping or buying purposes, they are often “on the go”. They may be out having a fun day with friends; they may be doing a Google search for a local lunch spot.

They may be shopping on their phone's browser for a new Spring wardrobe; perhaps they are looking for an independently owned specialty clothing store.

In these situations, they want an answer to a question, they want to find exactly what they are looking for, and they want it now! Will you give it to them, or will they go somewhere else?

If your mobile website, email or landing page is confusing, cluttered or loads too slowly for their tastes, chances are they will bail on you and go looking somewhere else. So it's critical to your mobile marketing success that you keep your messaging brief and to the point, that your website be “responsive”, that you avoid graphics files that are too large, and that you keep as much critical information as possible “above the fold”.

NOTE – If you need to put some critical content or page elements below the fold, don't assume the reader will find it. Tell him about it. Say something like “scroll down to read about our latest special”

Plus, the mobile user experience is critical, maybe even more so than on a full size computer. You want to make it simple for your prospects. If they find their experience of shopping or buying from you difficult or cumbersome, they'll quit on you in a heartbeat.

Take a look at the overall shopping and search experience you provide your mobile users. Put yourself in their shoes as you review your mobile marketing “machinery”. Ask yourself  “Is this easy or hard?” You want it to be easy – VERY easy! Whether you run a large national company or a small, local retail store.

Remember what we said earlier – a lot of your mobile prospects will be looking for what they want while they are out shopping, not while they are at home on their PCs. They will be busy and distracted. If the mobile shopping experience you give them is hard work, they will quit on you and look somewhere else.

Review your content and copy. Is it brief? Take a look at your webpages, including your landing pages. Do they load quickly? Are they designed in a simple, uncluttered fashion? Are they responsive and well-formatted for mobile or does the reader have to scroll back and forth just to finish each sentence?

Are there any surplus steps you could remove in your mobile marketing process in order to make it even easier for your readers?

At the risk of sounding redundant: If buying from you is hard work, they won't do it. This is especially true with your mobile marketing efforts.

A Great Addition To Your Mobile Marketing Campaigns That Many Marketers Never Think About 

A lot of small business owners get caught up in “shiny object syndrome”. They look at the latest popular new marketing tool as the “magic bullet” they hope will solve all of their marketing woes. They forget, if they ever understood, that marketing success requires  multiple tools in their “toolbox”.

Social media is a marketing tool. Video is a tool. Mobile marketing is a tool. None of these are complete marketing solutions, in and of themselves. But when multiple marketing tools are used together in conjunction with a solid marketing strategy, the results can be powerful. So use mobile marketing as a tool in your marketing “toolbox”. Don't try to make it a standalone solution. It isn't.

Don't embrace the latest marketing technology just because it's popular or “cool”. And don't neglect traditional marketing tools that have stood the test of time and still work, but are no longer “in style”.

Remember that offline marketing can still succeed as part of a comprehensive campaign. And offline can help your small business' mobile marketing efforts in a big way.

How? Here are a few examples. Let's say you run an ad in a local (printed paper) magazine. This ad might flop or it might be wildly successful for you. One way you could make it more successful is by including a message that “sells” readers of the ad to join your text message list.

Or you could include a QR code in the ad with a call to action to scan it so the reader could learn about some special offers you have. When they scan it, you could then direct them to a mobile-optimized landing page where they could sign up for a special “private event” you are holding at your business.

And of course, you would require them to give you their email address when they arrived on your landing page. Now that their email address is part of your list, you can send them emails with links to your mobile optimized webpage that has a special offer on your latest product or service.

The possibilities of how you can use offline marketing to enhance your mobile marketing campaigns are numerous, and often ignored by small business owners.

A Word On Mobile Landing Pages 

Landing pages are an important online marketing tool, in many situations, and they can play a pivotal role in your mobile marketing campaigns also. A small retail business can set up a mobile-optimized ecommerce engine with a mobile landing page where prospects make buying decisions.

Small businesses that don't sell products through ecommerce can still use mobile landing pages for white paper signups, webinar registrations, etc.

But, mobile landing page design and implementation can be very tricky. A mobile landing page is much smaller than a landing page on a typical PC.

You don't have nearly as much room for written content, sales copy, graphics and images, call to action buttons, etc.You need to make your mobile landing pages as simple and “bare bones” as you can without hurting their ability to convert.

An overly complex landing page is the “kiss of death” in an online campaign. This is especially true in a mobile environment.

Lander is pleased to offer you a full suite of landing page templates to help your online (including mobile) marketing campaigns sizzle. They are loaded with valuable options like advanced A/B testing capabilities and built-in countdown timers. And they are enhanced to help you enjoy increased conversion rates. Try one out for free today!

Happy Marketing!