Everyone has heard of the fear of failure, but the fear of success is what prevents many small business owners from taking advantage of the recent innovations in mobile marketing. Many people are afraid that their current staff and even themselves are not up to speed on the technology required to manage mobile marketing campaigns. Others might believe that their current marketing methods could use some improvement, but they are unsure of where to begin. One strategy that is proven to work for any business, large or small, is mobile marketing. It’s a relatively recent marketing development and is quick, easy, and extremely cost-efficient.
It starts with a mobile or responsive website.
Mobile-friendly websites are designed to display properly in any smartphone, regardless of the make, model, or screen size. They also automatically adapt as the customer transitions from smartphone to laptop or tablet. This is an important consideration, as for some purchases, the journey may begin on the smartphone and be completed on a tablet or PC.
But perhaps even more importantly, Google and other search engines give higher rankings to businesses with websites that are what is called ‘mobile friendly.’ If your website is not mobile-friendly, then you are losing new customers each and every day. If in doubt, simply submit your website url to any one of dozens of online tools that will measure your site’s performance. Check out Google’s PageSpeed Insights service as a starting point.
Understand and get creative with coupons.
According to TechCrunch, 80% of all online adults now own a smartphone, and approximately 70% of Millennials search for coupons on a regular basis using handheld technology. If your small business is experiencing a particularly slow week in sales, then simply upload a new coupon to your mobile website or social media account and measure the response rate. Statistics show that businesses get more overall value from their online marketing investments when ads are accompanied with coupons.
Leverage the power of social media.
Who doesn’t love to play around on social media from time to time? Why not connect your mobile media site to your Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram accounts? As a small business owner, you can now follow your mobile customers around online. You can post customer testimonials, solicit customer feedback, and use the resulting information to develop new products and services. You can even remind them of upcoming sales and promotions, share instructional videos that might entice them to visit your business, and of course, offer those wonderful coupons.
No company should be too big to fail, and no business is too small to succeed. One of the tremendous benefits of living in the Digital Age is that technology is advancing at such a rapid pace. Designing and installing a mobile-friendly website now takes only a few hours instead of weeks.
Here at Big Red Cloud we spent time deliberating on how best to ensure that we had an accounting software website that was responsive / mobile-friendly. The excellent research from Google on the Zero Moment of Truth or ZMOT, showed how important a responsive website is as potential customers move from device to device gathering information before making their purchase decision.
Don’t let fear of success hold you back from entering the world of mobile marketing. The future is now.
