Driving Foot Traffic With Mobile Marketing

As the smartphone market nears saturation, mobile continues to change the way consumers shop and the way businesses advertise. When it first began, mobile marketing was something only the large, national and international corporations did. Now even the smallest local businesses are getting into mobile marketing. If your business depends on getting foot traffic into a brick and mortar location, you might think that mobile marketing isn't for you. You couldn't be more wrong. Mobile is a great way to drive foot traffic to your location.

According to one study, 80% of smartphone owners use their phone to search for local businesses. Furthermore, 80% of mobile searches result in a purchase and 75% of them lead a customer into a brick and mortar location. Here are three ways you can use mobile to drive foot traffic to your business's location.

Competitive Conquesting

Location based marketing has been gaining popularity for some time now. It's a technique in which businesses advertise via mobile when a customer is nearby that business's brick and mortar location. According to a recent report, mobile ad revenue from 40% to 52% in the next four years and businesses are expected to invest 4.5 billion in location based marketing this year and 15.7 billion by 2018.

Some businesses are taking location based marketing one step further. Competitive conquesting is based on the same principle, except businesses send a push notification when a customer is near a competitors business. Evidence suggest that competitive conquesting can lead to greater results from location based marketing.

Optimize Mobile Store Locators

One of the toughest thing mobile marketers face is that most conversions (or purchases) take place in a store and offline. A mobile marketer's job is to get mobile consumers to get off their phone and visit a business's store in person. One of the most effective ways to do this is mobile store locators.

The goal here is to make it as easy as possible for mobile customers to locate a business's brick and mortar location. According to a recent study, 70% of mobile shoppers use a store locator when planning their shopping trips. Your mobile optimized website should include a store locator (if you have a number of locations). Another great option is to include a click-to-map and click-to-call link for customers who have found your business's address or phone number. With just one click, their phone's GPS opens up and they can see exactly how to get to your address. The easier it is to do, the more likely they are to do it.

Provide “Tap And Collect” Service

As mobile technology continues to advance, mobile users are finding it easier and easier to complete purchases online. Businesses that don't sell online are missing out on a lot of business that way. For that reason, “tap and collect” services are growing in popularity.  “Tap and collect” allows consumers to make purchases on their mobile device and then come in to the store to pick up their purchase.

Restaurants have used this technology successfully by allowing people to order from their phone then have their order ready when the customer comes in. Pharmacies are using the technology to allow people to order a prescription and have it filled and ready for when the person comes in. Not only does it increase sales, but it gets customers in your store where they make additional purchases.

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Source: streetfightmag.com/2014/05/13/3-mobile-marketing-musts-for-brick-and-mortar-retailers/

Mobile Marketing Strategies: Developing An App

We have already established that going mobile is the only way you can stay competitive in today’s marketing world. Whether or not you are using smartphones for advertising isn’t the question. The question is how exactly you will develop mobile marketing strategies and whether or not that comes with your own app. It’s not for everyone, but most businesses are starting to create their own apps.

Why Use An App?

Some people may be wondering why you would develop an app for your business. Some of the more obvious reasons would be to sell things through the app. If you sell stuff online, having a mobile app makes it easier for your customer to quickly browse items and check out. It is also a much more mobile-friendly way of shopping than trying to pull up a browser and get to your company’s website. Another reason to get a mobile app is to help your customers remember you. If they download the app, they’ll see it when scrolling through their phone and remember to check it out. It’s also a great way to help customers monitor accounts, see tracking information, and more for your business.

Five Things To Ask First

You may be thinking, “Yeah! Let’s get an app!” But you will need to think through a few things before doing it, according to Entrepreneur. Here are five things to ask before getting an app put together:

1. Should you outsource? If you hire someone else to develop the app, it is pretty cheap, but you won’t have a lot of control over what happens. If you hire an in-house staff, it can cost a lot more money, but you’ll be able to make every decision.
2. What device should you use? Are you developing the app for a tablet? Smartphone? Computer? Each of these devices have their own positives and negatives. For the most part, you’ll want to stick with smartphones where you can get the most traffic. Of course, if you can create an app that is compatible for both Android and Apple, which would then make it available for most tablets as well. Start with smartphones and move to other devices if you so choose.
3. What is the purpose of the app/what should it do? This is the next most important question. Obviously, you can’t build an app unless you know the purpose. Maybe the app should help monitor accounts. Maybe it is informational. Maybe it is for shopping. It all depends on what your business does.
4. Can you handle more traffic? If you aren’t prepared for more website traffic and more business, you may want to put things on hold. Your app creation and mobile advertising will bring in much more business, so you need to be prepared to handle it. Otherwise, with too much business, you’ll end up giving bad service making customers unhappy and unwilling to return.
5. What about design? Are you going to make design a priority? Some people forget about design because they are so focused on what the app does. Make sure you consider design and look. If people don’t like the way it looks, they might stop using the app. Design is important and is something to consider when developing an app.

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Source: entrepreneur.com/article/231411

Is Your Smartphone Too Addictive?

In the last day, have you checked your phone for missed calls or messages more than a few times? Do you spend more time than you should playing games or surfing the web through your phone? The real question is: is your smartphone too addictive? Well the answer to that might be yes, especially if you had the Flappy Bird game on your phone that is no longer available. That’s what the creator of the game believes anyway.

What is Flappy Bird?

If you haven’t heard of Flappy Bird yet, you are in luck, sort of. At least you won’t have to deal with the addictive tendencies associated with it. Unfortunately, it is not available to anyone anymore. The game was created by Vietnamese creator Nguyen Ha Dong in an effort to create something people could enjoy for a few minutes at a time. Maybe you were waiting in line or trying to get in a few minutes of the game while at the airport. The basic idea of the game is to get a bird through obstacles. It is so simple, yet challenging, that people just love it.

So What’s The Problem?

The problem isn’t that it’s a fun game and that it was doing well. The problem was that the game was doing so well that Nguyen wasn’t able to take a break. It brought in a ton of money, but he didn’t feel it was worth it. The point wasn’t to create crazy adicts of the game. The point was to give people a game they could play when they had an extra minute here and there. Now, the game is no longer available in the app stores, so those who don’t already have it cannot purchase it anymore. Goodbye Flappy Bird.

Selling Online

There were phones found online with a price of over $100,000 just because they had this game downloaded onto them. Of course, only the iPhones could go for such a high price, and there were other listed for much less than that. If you really feel like you want to get Flappy Bird on your phone, your only option is to buy it pre-loaded on a phone online, according to the Wall Street Journal.

What This Means For You

Any company recognizes that this kind of addiction may actually be good for business. If people are getting so addicted to simple smartphone games that they are willing to pay excessive amounts for phones with the game online, then that means you have a higher chance of reaching your customers through mobile. The marketing side of your company needs to look into how to better bring in more business with a smartphone. You can easily text your customers and know they will get the message within a matter of minutes. Mobile-friendly social media and advertisements will make all the difference, especially if you can get in on advertisements for a popular game. It’s time to make the switch to mobile advertising.

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Sources: stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-451394/

Finally Making Mobile A Top Priority In Marketing

As we’ve always stressed, mobile is the most important way to achieve success in marketing. And it seems the rest of the world has finally caught on to that. In fact, retailers have finally realized that they will have limited success now and days without resorting to some sort of mobile marketing. The question isn’t whether or not to do it anymore. The question is now how to do it better than everyone else.

More People Using Mobile Solutions

Since smartphones are in the hands of almost everyone in America now, it just makes sense that you would advertise there. Maybe it has taken a couple of years for retailers to catch on, but it seems everyone has finally come around to mobile marketing. A recent study shows that more than half of all businesses now consider mobile advertising their number one priority, according to Mobile Marketing Watch. Of course, if you aren’t doing any business online, it might not be quite as effective, but most people can benefit greatly by switching to mobile advertising.

A year or so ago, you would never find a business sending you text messages to get you to buy more stuff. Now, every business you go to is trying to get you to sign up for text alerts and email clubs. Customers are used to seeing your advertising, so you have to step up and offer even better deals or reminders than you were before.

In The Coming Year

In 2014, stepping up your game with mobile advertising will be essential to success. In fact, most businesses are planning to do the same thing this year. If you want to be successful, it will be about more than just getting on mobile. It will be about making sure you are better than your competitors. Last year you might have gotten away with just staying on social media, but now you need to change everything.

Your website needs to work better on mobile. Your social media needs to be mobile-based. You need to have a text-messaging service set up and emails that are based on mobile-viewing. By making these changes, you will not only be ahead of the curve but will be able to reach out to your customers on a more personal level.

Beating Out The Crowd

Everyone is focusing on mobile changes this year. That begs the question of how you could possibly beat your competitors or stay ahead of them. And if you haven’t made the switch to mobile at all, it can seem way too overwhelming to deal with. Start small by offering text message deals. You don’t even have to have your website fully operational to offer discounts through text messages. Then, slowly move on to the next thing. Build your website into a mobile-friendly version, and get your site running really well. Then, you can direct your customers to your website through texts. Eventually, you can build yourself up to the point where you have everything mobile, and that’s when you’ll see a huge difference from when you weren’t on mobile at all.

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Sources: mobilemarketingwatch.com/mobile-finally-reaches-top-of-retailer-priorities-39331/

Top Three Uses of SMS Marketing

If you own your own small business, you know how important it is to keep connected to your customers. Whether you sell a product, run a restaurant, or provide some type of service, your success depends on your ability to keep your old customers and continue to get new ones. Of course in today’s world, there’s never been more competition between businesses, if you want to maintain a competitive edge, you need a cost effective way to reach your target audience. That way is bulk SMS. For just pennies per text you can send a message that over 90% will receive and read, most within minutes of getting it.

When text message marketing is used correctly, it can be an extremely effective tool for boosting customer loyalty. Here are three ways you can implement text message marketing to reach and engage with your customers.

Right Place Right Time

The reason so many marketing efforts fail isn’t always the message itself, sometimes it’s the timing. A TV commercial advertising savory meals at a popular restaurant for instance isn’t going to be as effective at 10:00 in the morning as it will be at 5:00 at night when people are getting hungry for dinner. That’s where SMS comes in. Unlike with other channels, a text message gets the information to the customer when they need it. SMS boasts of a 99% open rate and 90% of those will be read within three minutes of receiving it. There’s no better option when it comes to delivering time sensitive information.

If your business suffers from slow periods in the day like many do, you can use SMS during those times to deliver special offers that can be redeemed only during that window of time. Because your message is sure to be seen by nearly everyone you contact, you’re bound to see an increase of business.

Involve Your Customers

A good SMS campaign will encourage customers to purchase, but a great SMS campaign will encourage customers to engage with your brand. Most people tend to think of SMS marketing as a one way communication, but it doesn’t have to be. Consider the effect of a marketing campaign in which you ask your loyal customers for their feedback about a new product or menu change. Getting your customer’s feedback shows them you care enough to ask for their thoughts. There’s no better way to build customer loyalty.

Spoil Your Customers

These days, people are growing accustomed to receiving special offers via text. To really stand out to your customers, it’s no longer enough to just send the typical mobile offers. You need to really spoil your customers. You can send invites to exclusive events, offer seasonal promotions, or send a customized message to them on their birthdays. While these are little things, they go a long way in showing customers how much your company cares about them individually.

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Source:  hospitalitymagazine.com.au/management/top-three-ways-to-use-sms-marketing

Five Mobile Marketing Game Changers

Mobile marketing has come a long way since its beginnings. It got its start with the humble text message. Today it has grown to incorporate hundreds of marketing strategies from QR codes, to push notifications, to mobile apps. Of course the most important development in the mobile industry was the advent of the smartphone. In just five years the smartphone market penetration has gone from 25% to 75%. The smartphone changed virtually everything about mobile marketing. Instead of being limited to basic phone features capable of calling or texting only, mobile devices today are just miniature computers capable of doing just about anything.

Here’s a look at five more game changers that have developed since the smartphone.

Little Guys

Smartphones have done a lot to level the playing field for small business owners. It used to be that only the largest corporations were seeing success with mobile. Today, small businesses with good ideas are capable of achieving the same success using mobile tools. Consider some of the most popular mobile apps. Many of them are developed by small, independent app designers. Today, “small” businesses have the same opportunity to succeed with mobile thanks to the many tools at their disposal.

Social Media

One game changer that surprised everybody was social media. No one could have predicted just how big of an impact social media would have on mobile marketing. Today 4 out of 10 smartphone users report that they check their social media every day. Many smartphone users now access social media accounts from their mobile device only. With millions of Facebookers connected through mobile, brands are constantly discovering new ways to integrate social media into their mobile marketing campaigns. Social media and mobile marketing have become inseparable.

Rich Media

Before there were smartphones, mobile marketers were limited to 160 characters of text. And that was it. Today mobile ads can include high resolution images, vides, links to webpages and other media content, links to mobile app downloads, etc…  Today marketers are limited only by their creativity. Each year brings exciting new developments in what mobile advertising can be.

Mobile Search

Mobile search is vital to any mobile marketing campaign; however its importance is often overlooked. Mobile tools like click-to-call or click-for-directions make search especially huge for mobile devices. Mobile search is changing the way consumers find the information they need and it’s changing the way marketers advertise online.

Ad Spending

Finally, a fifth game changer is the amount being spent on mobile marketing. A few years ago, no one could have imaged the amount companies would be spending on mobile advertising. The mobile marketing industry has truly exploded in recent years and as companies both large and small begin to see the opportunities, we can expect to see ad spend numbers continue to rise in coming years.

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Source:  thedrum.com/opinion/2014/02/06/five-game-changing-developments-mobile-marketing

New Amazon Flow App Technology

Have you heard about this new Amazon Flow technology? It is making smartphones smarter, which is something we love to see. The more our phones can do for us, the less we have to do for ourselves, which means we can have more fun. The new Amazon Flow app will let you find prices on any product without much effort, making life just a little easier for the average shopping customer.

Recognizing Brands

People who wanted to save some money or make sure they were getting the best deal possible had a scanner app on their phone. The app would let you go to a store, scan the barcode, and get as much information as possible from it. Most of the time, you just wanted to go to Amazon and check the price there anyway, especially for anyone with free two-day shipping on Amazon Prime. Sometimes it’s cheaper on Amazon. Luckily, the Amazon Flow technology now recognizes brands from pictures instead of just needing a barcode scanned, according to PC Magazine.

Another cool feature of the app is it allows you to scan a bunch of items at once instead of just one at a time. This makes it way easier to compare products in the store. Maybe you’re trying to decide between two movies and just want to quickly check reviews or maybe you just need to see if the price is better in the store or on Amazon.

Benefits of Choosing Amazon

Some of the reasons why people like Amazon over brick and mortar stores is that Amazon has very competitive pricing. On top of that, you don’t have to pay sales tax on the products in most states, at leave for now. Then there is the fact that you have so many options to choose from, whereas a store can only stock so much product. Having reviews on all the products also gives Amazon a very competitive edge. The Amazon Flow app is only going to make Amazon even more appealing to people now.

Get The App; Advertising

The app is currently available in the app store for anyone with an iOS 7 device. If you have that device and want to find more efficient ways to show your favorite things, you can try it out. All we know is that smartphones are getting better every day and offering more and more for everyday people. Your company should be taking full advantage of the opportunity by investing in more mobile advertising. The more advertising you can do through mobile, the better, especially since everyone is switching to mobile. Amazon is just one of many businesses that have already figured out mobile is where it is all at. Many more companies are likely to follow. You need to consider your mobile advertising options to decide how to best find your customers. Try text message advertising or get your social media all put together. Whatever you decide to do, do it on mobile, and you’ll be fine.

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Sources: pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2430502,00.asp