Mobile Marketing Strategies For The Local Business Owner

When you think about mobile marketing, the first thing that comes to mind might be how consumers can have access to world-wide information right on their hand-held devices. This is indeed a big benefit to global marketers. However, mobile marketing is equally, if not more, powerful and effective as a marketing too for local businesses. This article will discuss how that is so.



If you have a local business established in your neighborhood, like a restaurant or the corner bookstore, your main clientele is the people in your neighborhood and people who may be occasional visitors. You can use mobile marketing to drive more customers to your door, right when it matters.



People use their mobile devices to stay virtually connected to information at all times. Most of them carry their cell phones with them all the time. They have instant access to text messages and emails, and get immediate alerts to services that they have signed up for.



As the owner of a local business, this is a great opportunity for you to be very focused in effective in your marketing. First, you need to gather some basic information from your customers. Give your customers an incentive to sign up to receive text updates from your establishment. The incentive can be a discount that that can use on their current purchase. Most people cannot resist that and it is a good way to build up your subscriber base.



When you have a list of of subscribers, think about what kind of promotions you can send to them to drive them to your business. Let's say that you are a restaurant owner. You know that the peak lunch time is probably between 11:30am to 1:30pm. You can send out a text message that morning around 10 am with information about your daily lunch special and the discount code that they can use to get a special price. This will put the idea into your subscribers' heads, and they may just swing by your restaurant to have lunch that day. Promoting a special at a time when people can take advantage of it is a very effective way to draw them in.



You can also keep track of what percentage of clientele use your text message special discount. This will tell you how successful this approach is. If a good percentage of your clientele came to your business because of the text, you know you have found found a good way to bring in people.



People get a lot of text messages everyday, so make your messages short and to the point. Capture their attention by being very clear on what they can gain. Brief and helpful are the key to a successful message.



You can combine mobile marketing with your conventional way of marketing to your clientele. If you usually send out mailers to the residents in the neighborhood, include a code that they can text to to get discounts. This is just another example of how mobile marketing can be a major part of your overall marketing strategy.

Mobile Marketing Overview

 Even children have smartphones today, so there's no wonder mobile marketing is on the rise.



Mobile marketing has several branches, one of the oldest being SMS marketing. Many services we subscribe to use SMS to keep us posted with their newest offers and although such messages can be annoying at times, they are not too intrusive, therefore people accept them well. 



One of the latest smart inventions in mobile marketing are the QR codes. QR comes from Quick Response. These QR codes allow visiting a web page only by scanning the code with your smartphone's camera. There is an associated app which you need to install on your phone in order for this system to work. QR codes are gaining popularity especially in Europe. If you look at historic monuments or tourist attractions, you might notice such QR codes next to the name of the monument. If you scan it with your phone, you'll get information about the respective tourist attraction right on your phone. Collective discount websites also use such QR codes for their offers. After you get a coupon, you print it and you take it to the shop where you'll get what you paid for. The shop assistant will scan the QR code on your coupon and will know exactly what you ordered.



Another method of mobile marketing is advertising within mobile games. Many players would be happy to see some promotional messages and have the game for free instead of paying and getting it ad-free. Games are only an example. In fact, all kind of mobile apps host advertising in order to be able to support themselves financially, while staying free for the final consumer.



Mobile marketing communication has a great advantage: flexibility. It is possible to customize the messages according to the location of the viewer. This is how, if you are in a city center and log into a wireless network, you can get custom messages about places to visit nearby your hot spot, or events that are going to take place over the next few days. This type of marketing actually generates value for everybody. If you were a tourist you probably remember how avid for information you were when first arriving into a new location, be it a city or a touristic area. Sometimes the information is very hard to find, therefore getting some on your mobile surely helps you get started in your exploratory endeavor.



Creativity is at home in mobile marketing. With smart applications like Swipely, for instance, you can get your customers join your loyalty programs straight from their mobile, by simply sending you a text message. Everything is done automatically, they are entered into your database and their credit or debit cards will be smoothly integrated into the app, making everything very easy and hassle-free.



There are also mobile apps that allow businesses to exchange text messages with their customers. This is very useful for restaurants, for instance, because they can automatically send reminders to customers who booked tables for certain dates. 



Mobile marketing is part of our lives today, so we accepted and integrated it into our existence.

Mobile Marketing Methods For Beginners

 Are you thinking about launching a mobile marketing campaign? You should do more research on the different techniques you can apply to develop an efficient mobile marketing campaign. Take a few minutes to review the following article and learn more about mobile marketing.



Using the mobile marketing platform is a great way to reach out to your audience but keep in mind that not all your customers will be interested in mobile marketing. You should communicate with your customers to better understand their needs and habits before launching this new campaign.



Present your mobile marketing campaign as valuable and exciting. Your customers will sign up for these updates if they see your campaign as valuable and interesting. You could for instance give your subscribers a small discount or share exclusive content with them. Make sure you let your customers know about these incentives so they perceive this new campaign in a positive way. Get some feedback from your customers so you can improve the way you present your campaign.



You can get even more subscribers by making your mobile marketing campaign necessary. You could for instance offer additional discounts to the customers who sign up for your text alerts or use this campaign to give them access to exclusive content. If you are about to release a new product, encourage your customers to sign up for your mobile marketing campaign to receive exclusive information about the new product or even to get a chance to pre-order it.



Use text alerts to share time sensitive information. Text alerts are a great way to draw attention to flash sales, contests and other time sensitive promotional offers. You will be more likely to generate sales if you can get your recipients to take action immediately, for instance by visiting a link to redeem a coupon code or by filling out a registration form for a contest or a giveaway.



Developing a mobile site is a good way to share useful information with your customers. Mobile sites are a great addition to your mobile marketing campaign if your customers are likely to use their cell phones to go online. Use a quality mobile site building tool to create your mobile pages and test them with different devices. Update your website frequently so visitors have a reason to come back.



Creating some apps is another good way to make your mobile marketing campaign more interactive. You should consider learning how to code or hire a professional to help you create quality apps. You can also use app building tools if you want to create some very simple apps. Keep in mind that mobile apps are a great tool if your customers have devices that support apps. Try developing useful or entertaining apps your customers will use on a daily basis.



Apply these mobile marketing tips to develop your campaign. Do more research on other techniques you can use and get to know your audience better before you invest time and resources into this new campaign.