Check Out These 4 Reasons Why Your Business Needs Mobile Marketing

Here’s a fairly interesting statistic: people are now checking their mobile phones around 150 times a day on average. Is that a bigger or smaller number than you might’ve thought?

So what that boils down to for marketers is opportunity, and for those who’ve either missed it or stubbornly refused to go mobile, a neglected opportunity.

However you slice it, mobile marketing is here to stay. For those who need one final push over the cliff towards mobile, listed below are 4 reasons you’ll want to implement it as soon as possible.

See these 4 reasons mobile marketing can deliver for your business

1. Mobile is the consumer’s weapon of choice – US mobile users are spending 23 percent more time on their mobile device than they did in 2013. You can also see this reflected in the chasm developing between mobile use and desktop: People spend 2 hours and 51 minutes a day on mobile versus 2 hours and 12 minutes on a desktop.
2. Mobile is imminently sharable – Mobile is simply by its very nature social, and this translates into the possibility that your content could have a far wider reach than you might have envisioned when you created it. Once someone shares your content, their followers and friends have the chance to share it with theirs, and so on.
3. Mobile users are more apt to take action – Mobile users are inclined to act. 70 percent of mobile searches lead to an action within only one hour! They are often out and about, searching for products and services, and you want to be on their radar.
4. More people will see or open your messages – Since now over 90 percent of American adults own a cell phone and 42 percent have a tablet, more of your communications are going to be opened. Text messages can reach people where phones might not, and an astounding 98 percent of texts are opened within one hour.

We’ve morphed into a world where many more communications take place in a far more compressed time period. Your business has to be mobile to stay competitive.

The age of looking at mobile marketing as just a “fad” or the “next big thing” has ended. It’s here, it’s big, and it’s just going to get bigger. A recent survey by the Web.com group found that some 69 percent of the people surveyed declared that they thought that mobile marketing is going to be crucial to their business over the next five years, yet the majority of those hadn’t yet implemented it. With 84 percent of those using mobile marketing reporting a boost due to mobile, there isn’t any excuse for falling further behind the curve!

5 Tips on how to get mobile marketing active in your small business

• Mobilize your website and social media pages – Ensuring that your website and any significant social media pages, such as your Facebook business page, are optimized for mobile is crucial. Keep in mind that mobile versions of your content really need to be Spartan in size, images smaller, and textual content more brief and concise, so they won’t lose the busy mobile browser.
• Claim and optimize your local listings – Ensure that your local listings, such as on Google local, Yelp, FourSquare or other local directories are up-to-date with regards to contact information, directions, and any promotions you’d like to feature.
• Optimize your email – One that frequently gets brushed aside, optimizing your email for mobile devices is crucial as well. eConsultancy tells us that 41 percent of email is now opened on a smartphone or tablet, and of that group, 63 percent close or delete any emails that aren’t mobile optimized. Try to use one-column layouts, font size of 14, and line spacing to 1.5 for small-screen readability.
• Use Google Analytics – If you’re just guessing about whether or not mobile is helping you, you’re gonna be wasting lots of time and money. Get hard data you can use by utilizing Google Analytics. There is a mountain of data available, but you can simplify by segmenting smartphone and tablet visitors and analyzing their on-page behavior, allowing you to see how your campaigns are performing.
• Offer irresistible deals – Everyone loves a deal, and mobile shoppers are among the most voracious. Moreover, they are out and about NOW, and you can entice them with timely offers and coupons.

Marketing with Instagram – Take a Page from the Kuwaitis!

We’ve all watched as Instagram is the latest web property to soar to stratospheric heights, and with their acquisition by Facebook, it looks as if that’s not going to slow anytime soon. What’s been fascinating to notice however is just how innovative marketers are beginning to use the platform in many ways you might not have imagined.

Let’s hear it for Kuwaiti ingenuity!

According to Kottke.org, Kuwaitis have taken to using Instagram as a visually oriented mobile store, selling nearly anything they wish. Examples of the offerings you can find are Manga, clothing and fashion accessories, makeup services, and surprisingly, sheep! While selling sheep on Instagram is probably not your thing, you can understand the ingenuity of these people adapting Instagram for their own marketing purposes in uniquely innovative way. They’ve got products they would like to sell, so they take a picture, upload it into their Instagram account, give a price and ask them to contact for more information or to purchase. Marketing at its most basic, on a world-wide scale!

What lesson can we learn here?

The key lesson to learn here is that there’s always opportunity for those prepared to think outside the box and explore the possibilities. You may not be ready to sell directly off of Instagram, but some marketers already are using it to direct to CPA offers, send people to squeeze pages for list building plus more. With a base so large and growing daily, Instagram provides a unique opportunity to connect with people who are interested, (at least in the images you uploaded) and it’s your job to find a way to connect the dots in your marketing efforts. Let your imagination go a little wild!

You might want to get into it now, however, as seeing as this is now a Facebook property, it’s more than likely change is going to be part of its future, so strike now!

Is Your Small Business a Candidate for the New Foursquare Ads?

Mashable is confirming that location based social networking company Foursquare is now testing a new advertising platform geared towards small business, by permitting large advertisers like Burger King, Gap and Starwood Hotels to test promote themselves on the platform. These listings show up in Foursquare when a customer gets close to a business’ geographic location. Small businesses already had the capability to offer discounts when a user checked in to a location, but this time Foursquare is providing them with a way to attract geographically close customers by showing an image ad and/or review by a previous Foursquare user.

What’s in it for Foursquare?

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Its users “check in” wherever they happen to be using a mobile website, with a text message or a device-specific app. Foursquare locates them from the GPS in their mobile device. While Foursquare has so far been a way for consumers to share their hangouts, favorite places and eateries, now they are allowing these places the opportunity to promote themselves directly to consumers. Foursquare, while seemingly successful with over 25 million registered users, they’ve been singularly unspectacular when it comes to earning money. They made a modest $2 million last year, according to The Wall Street Journal, and are looking for ways to increase the revenue.

How the new ads work

The way this works is the ad platform targets Foursquare users determined by their locations and check-in histories. Merchants will and do have a chance to target nearby consumers with particular tastes – a predilection for fine dining, for instance, or customers who had previously checked-in to their store. Merchants in this program have the capability to turn off and on their Foursquare promotions any time they want, and are charged similar to a pay per click model, that is, they are going to be charged only on a “per action” basis (when a user actually taps on a promoted listing rather than merely viewing it). So far, Foursquare is charging $0.50 to $3 per action, but that is subject to change when it is released to the masses. Foursquare CRO Steven Rosenblatt said, “Small businesses are willing to pay for local advertising if it makes sense.”