People love their smartphones. Whether you’re walking on the sidewalk, grabbing a cup of coffee, or sitting in class, half the people around you are looking down at their phones. Today’s app savvy consumers want business information delivered to them on-the-go.
Because of the immense amount of internet-enabled mobile devices, you and your customers are now able to communicate from anywhere. Mobile marketing has become very popular and can be very beneficial to a small business. Here are 5 tips for how your business could start using mobile marketing.
1. Practice for yourself. Before you start mobile marketing for your business, you should practice how it works first. Grab your smartphone and check out all the apps that are available for you. Buy a product from your phone, check in on Foursquare or do Google searches to get comfortable with all that mobile marketing has to offer.
2. Set up your mobile website. After you’re comfortable using mobile marketing yourself, your next step is making your website mobile friendly. Your mobile website should be easily accessible for all users. There are many websites like GoDaddy or WordPress, that can essentially take your website content and auto-format it for a cellphone screen.
3. Use location-based platforms. Use websites like Foursquare or Facebook Places to gather customers to your business. If you are a restaurant owner, you can run a mobile promotion on Foursquare, where if customers check in to your restaurant, they can get a free coupon for an appetizer. To learn more about this strategy, check out how Chili’s uses their mobile campaign.
4. Use a QR code. QR codes are a great way to connect your consumers to your brand, especially when they’re on the go. QR codes can be used through sales, collecting payments and connecting audiences to content. They can also easily drive people to your webpage to learn more about you.
5. Invest in SMS marketing. Short messaging service marketing is basically sending text messages to customers. If you are a small business, this can be a very beneficial tool to use. You can send messages to your most loyal customers about coupons or alert them of upcoming sales that you are having. People are more likely to open a text message right away rather than an email resulting in SMS marketing being more effective. However, you do not want to abuse this form of marketing by sending messages daily or too frequent.
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