How long has it been since you used your cell phone to find a business? To make a reservation at a restaurant? Not long. Most of us use mobile devices to shop. But are you using any mobile marketing for your small business, to capture all those customers on their phones?
ure, the idea of "mobile marketing" seems daunting, especially for a small business. After all, how can you develop a smartphone application ("app") when you haven't even had time to update your webpage in six years?
Relax, you don't have to develop a gee-whiz app or use every mobile method available. Enter the world of mobile marketing slowly, and you can still improve business and your bottom line. The good news is many mobile marketing techniques are easy - and even FREE.
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First, acknowledge that mobile devices transform the way customers deal with small businesses, and some of those are your customers and prospects. After all, more than a third of Americans own a smartphone - equipped with data services such as Internet access and mobile applications, or "apps," according to the Pew Internet Project. Pew estimates that 11% of Americans now own a tablet device as well.
That's a lot of people looking at smartphones. Some are absolutely addicted to it.
Take my experience over Thanksgiving. Everywhere I went with my nephews - 24-year-old Seth and 32-year-old Aaron - the first thing they did was whip out their smartphones. They checked in on FourSquare, posted on Facebook, tweeted on Twitter. They weren't just checking in with friends. At one restaurant, Seth looked up which dishes others recommended on FourSquare; at another, he got a discount coupon on his phone. At yet another restaurant, Aaron ran his phone over a "QR" - Quick Response - code (one of those squiggly square graphics that take you to a website) pasted in the guest check folder to earn points toward a future meal or dessert.
So how can you get started with mobile marketing for your small business?
1. Get found. Let's say someone is in Chicago's North Side looking for a Thai restaurant. Their GPS-equipped mobile phone shows them which Thai restaurants are nearby. If you own a Thai restaurant in the neighborhood, you want to show up. Easy solutions? "Claim" your business on sites such as Yelp, Bing, Yahoo Local, Google Places, Foursquare. Free and easy.
2. Give coupons and deals. The easiest - and free - way to offer deals is to add a coupon to those sites listed above. But there are also business-oriented applications especially designed to present coupons to customers based on location, such as Yowza (getyowza.com) or CouponSherpa (couponsherpa.com) or DealChicken (dealchicken.com, owned by USA TODAY parent Gannett) as well as the daily deal sites like Groupon or LivingSocial.
3. Build relationships with customers. The easiest - and free - way is through social media sites such as Facebook or Twitter. Many people, especially younger consumers, check these on their phones continually. Posting once a day or a few times a week keeps your name in front of them. More powerful customer connection programs, like RewardMe, enable customers to receive rewards for coming back to you repeatedly.
4. Help shoppers find your location, hours, main products or services. I'm betting it's tough navigating your decades-old website on a tiny phone screen. Talk to your website designer or host about options for mobile versions of your web page. In any case, make sure your home page has the most critical info in highly readable type - large fonts, dark print - that doesn't require typing or moving away from the home page.
5. Accept payment. Maybe it's you - not your customer - who's mobile. In many mobile service businesses, such as plumbing and contracting, or if you sell at crafts fairs or farmers markets, you can accept payment right on your cell phone. Services like Square, (squareup.com) or Intuit GoPayment (gopayment.com) have little credit card swipers that attach to your cell phone. You pay a percent fee for every charge processed, but you get paid on the spot.
More mobile services for small businesses are being created every day. So whip out your phone and say hi to the new marketing powerhouse for your company.
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