Tag : Strategy

  • Retailers Use Mobile Marketing to Attract More Customers

    Posted Jul 21st, 2011 By in Mobile With | 2 Comments

    As a customer, you’ve probably experienced the benefits of mobile marketing to give you discounts, specials, and freebies from your favorite brand. Right? Well, as a business owner, you can use this same type of hands-on mobile marketing to reach customers more effectively than ever before.

    Even the most popular fast food chains like Subway, Pizza Hut, Burger King, and Wendy’s started marketing to customers with text marketing, iPhone apps, and mobile coupons just a few years ago. Many of these mobile apps will allow a customer to place an order online and pick up their food moments later. Simply brilliant.

    Even large retailers like Target, Wal-Mart, and Best Buy stay connected with customers via text for holiday specials and discounts and have introduced iPhone apps to give customers more options. Instead of visiting the official website, customers can read reviews, order products, and create a gift list directly through their mobile phone.

    As a business owner, you can take your mobile marketing campaign beyond just the standard text message. You can get creative with the following ideas:

    • Mobile Payments: Starbucks recently introduced Starbucks Card Mobile payments available at more than 1000 Safeway locations via the Android App. Customers can load up their Starbucks card on their mobile phone and use their phone to pay for their coffee at their convenience. This means that Starbucks mobile payment is now available on 90% of all smartphones to make it virtually impossible for a customer not to connect with Starbucks through their mobile device. (more…)

  • Mobile Marketing Trend: Texting Is Mainstream

    Posted Jul 13th, 2011 By in Mobile With | 1 Comment

    If you’re a small business owner who already uses text message marketing, then you’re on the right track. But it’s still important to stay up-to-date with the latest mobile marketing trends to ensure that you too can stay ahead of the pack.

    Currently, there are four times as many mobile phones in the world as opposed to PC users. Roughly 20% of houses in the US are mobile only without a landline.

    When you consider that we send 130 billion text messages each month, mobile marketing can be incredibly lucrative for small and large businesses if it is approached correctly. This is precisely why so many businesses have embraced text message marketing wholeheartedly as the most popular form of mobile marketing. Which is why text messaging is now becoming more mainstream than ever before.

    To best grasp the concept, text messaging should be compared to e-mail marketing and can be used in the same way that you would create an e-mail campaign. Of course, instead of encouraging your customers to give you their e-mail address for a newsletter or a coupon, you’ll be asking for a mobile phone number to send the same type of condensed updates to a mobile phone.

    Yet mobile marketing provides an even greater benefit. You don’t have to go to the trouble of creating a fancy e-mail campaign with images and video because you’ll only be using 160 characters of a text message. Even if a customer doesn’t make a sale the first time, 97% of your customers will still read your text message because it’s so short. You can’t beat those odds!

    Businesses have been using text messages to reach out to customers for several years. A Comscore study has confirmed that 25% of all mobile phone users have signed up for anywhere from 1 to 10 text messaging programs on a monthly basis. This means that customers are ready and willing, and you can reach them with your marketing message at any time away from home.

    And the text marketing trend continues. People of all ages are using texts for communication, meaning that businesses can use text message marketing for all generations. More and more customers are searching for mobile coupons as our economy recovers from the recession and programs like Groupon rise in popularity. As a result, a number of retail stores, grocers, and restaurants have launched mobile coupon marketing programs to reach out to more customers.

    Last but not least, the result that can’t be beat in text marketing is the impressive ROI. A text message will normally get seven times the response rate as an e-mail, meaning that the same message sent out to the same group of customers via text versus e-mail will be much more successful to generate even more sales and revenue.

    Guest Author:  Bethany Ramos is an expert in Internet marketing and social media marketing, and she also co-owns her own e-commerce website, The Coffee Bump.

     

  • How to Make Quick Gains from Location Based Mobile Marketing

    Posted Jun 28th, 2011 By in Mobile With | No Comments

     

     

    Under the broad umbrella of mobile marketing is location based marketing. Savvy smartphone users everywhere can pull up local search results on their phones at any time. These same smartphone users rely upon location based apps and social networks to share, interact, meet, and even recommend certain places to their online friends.

    Some top location based networks for mobile users include:

    • Foursquare
    • Gowalla
    • Loopt
    • Yelp

    As a business owner, the first step in the process to maximize this mobile marketing platform is to understand how each location based social network works. Most users will rely on the above apps on their smartphones to check in to certain locations to alert their friends of their whereabouts. The same feature can also be used with Facebook Places.

    In order to get acclimated, download all of the above apps to your smartphone so that you can understand how each is best used.

    The next step in the process is to set clear goals for what you hope to accomplish with the use of location mobile marketing for your business. Perhaps you want to increase local traffic to your retail store, raise awareness about a new shop that has opened up, or even bring back repeat customers to support your business. (more…)

  • I Have a Video! Now What?

    Posted Jun 27th, 2011 By in Video Marketing, Viral Marketing With | No Comments

    If you’ve taken the big leap and joined the ranks of the online video marketers, congratulations! The first video is always the most difficult.

    But now that you’ve produced your first video, what’s next? How do you not only maximize the marketing from that video, but also create new video marketing opportunities? Unless you want to succumb to the dreaded “one and done” syndrome, you’ll want to create a strategic marketing plan for using video regularly in your business.

    As with any plan, you must begin with the end in mind. What are your business objectives for video? Is it to grow your list? Build your brand? Drive more web traffic? Enhance your credibility? Your goals will determine your direction.

    If you said “all of the above” to the video goals we just listed, here are some ideas for maintaining your video momentum…

    1. Create an “expert tips” series to share your expertise. Short, 1 – 2 minute “how to” videos are a great way to increase your credibility and expand your influence.

    2. If you’ve got a blog, add a videoblog post every couple of weeks. The search engines love video, and your readers will be treated to a dynamic change of pace from your traditional blog posts. Extra bonus: Video is much more personal and compelling than print alone!

    3. Get some face time. Use a personal video message or video email to go “face to face” with your clients or prospects. Sending a video greeting, birthday wishes or a thank you video have much more impact than yet another regular email. If you want to stand out and be memorable, use video! (more…)

  • 3 Mobile Marketing Musts for the Small Business Owner

    Posted Jun 21st, 2011 By in Mobile With | 1 Comment

    Sure, you can try your hand at mobile marketing as a small business owner, but what’s going to guarantee that you’ll be a success? How do you know that you’re not going to waste thousands of dollars of your advertising budget trying to reach your customers through text or smartphone apps?

    Fortunately, the answer is simple. As a small business owner, you can develop a clear mobile marketing strategy that will ensure that you avoid many common mistakes that competitors in your industry have likely made by now. When mobile marketing is approached correctly, you can reach your customers even more effectively, quickly update them about product news and specials, and boost your sales as a result.

    1. What phones are your customers using? This may be a no-brainer, but you need to find out what type of phones that your customer base uses on a regular basis. If your customers don’t have smartphones, then there’s no use in creating a smartphone app. On the flipside, if your customer base uses smartphones exclusively, then your best bet would be to create a smartphone app to market to your customers or to have a presence on a smartphone social media location-based app, like Yelp or Foursquare.

    Think about the fact that 33% of people in the US are using smartphones, and that number is only expected to increase. It’s likely that your customers are already using a smartphone, but it’s important to find out before planning your marketing strategy. (more…)

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