Small Business Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing is growing rapidly for small business owners. Are you keeping pace with how your customers are already using mobile devices to find the products and services that you offer? Are you missing out on opportunities because you aren’t mobile ready?

Here’s a quick overview of the types of mobile use that your company could potentially implement. Google Analytics Mobile Devices

Google Analytics – are you measuring what mobile traffic your website already gets on desktops vs. tablets vs. smartphones? This is the starting point. I’m seeing on average 1/4 to 1/3 of all traffic coming from mobile devices on sites that I maintain.
Mobile optimized website – do your entire website work on a smartphone in particular? Your visitors shouldn’t need to pinch to zoom in on content on your website. Ideally, your website will be mobile responsive and include some mobile landing pages.
Phone Links – Do you include a “click to call” number on your website so that mobile viewers can click a link and it will start dialing their phones with your number? Do you include an address with a map to your location if you have a physical store?
Email Newsletters – Increasingly people preview their email inbox on their phones while they have just a few minutes to spare. If they have time to read your message, is it also mobile responsive like your website? Is the text large and readable without zooming? I love Mailchimp because they offer easy mobile responsive newsletter templates.
Photo sharing – photos are great for viewers to see your newest products. Are you sharing photos to Instagram (which can syndicate to Facebook and Twitter) as well as to your Google+ company page? More people are using the mobile versions of all of these sites than the desktop versions.
Check-Ins & Reviews – Do you encourage visitors to check in on Foursquare, Yelp, Facebook, and Google+? Are you asking them to review you as well on these places?
Text Message Marketing – like email marketing, do you have a way for people to receive text messages about current promotions and important announcements?
Phone call tracking – You can create call-tracking phone numbers that all route back to your primary number. These are helpful at measuring specific things like if your Yellow Pages ads still work, how many people called because of that postcard you mailed, who found your number on your website or other online outposts. Services that provide these numbers will show you all the call data based upon each number that you configure.
Mobile Ads – whether it’s your local newspaper or an advertisement on The Weather Channel’s app, you can run ads that only display to people in your local community. Consider using ads to bring mobile viewers to your website, but only if your website is really ready for mobile traffic.
iBeacon & NFC – While not widely implemented yet by small business owners, these services offer your foot traffic targeted information, such as current specials or promotions. For example, when I’m within 50 feet of my nearest Starbux, it causes the app on my iPhone to send me various notifications. It’s time to start thinking about how you could use this related to your store.