What is Mobile Marketing

People are asking, “what is mobile marketing” It is really pretty simple, mobile phones are the most loved devices on the planet and smartphones can connect to the Internet. As a small business owner, you cannot ignoring this.

Understanding mobile marketing is a requirement to small business success. People are using their mobile devices to access the Internet. 1 of out every 3 searches is from someone using a mobile device.

Within the next 12 months that number is expected to rise to 1 in 2. It is easy to see were mobile is going. If you do not embrace mobile marketing you will be losing out to half of your potential market, leaving those searchers to your competition.

If you are in business today, you cannot afford to miss out on this. But if you are like most businesses today, you probably do not know how to engage in mobile marketing yet.

Here, I will help you to understand the mobile landscape a bit better. The components to mobile marketing are: Mobile webpages QR Codes SMS messaging Ad Mob Apps Google Places NFC We will look at each one so you will have a better prospective of what mobile marketing is and what it can do for your business.

Mobile Webpages

It is not good enough to crunch down a regular web page for a mobile searcher. Mobile searchers are on the go and it is a very different experience viewing sites on a mobile device than it is sitting at a PC. The information needs to be condensed and easy to get the message out.

Every business will need to have a mobile site in the very near future and if you have one now, you can be an early adapter and you can be ahead of most business today.

SMS Messaging

SMS, text messaging works on every phone because it does not require the Internet and just about everyone knows how to text message.

You can set up a system that will allow your customers to receive SMS messages, and keep them updated. Through text messaging, you can offer text coupons, you can place links in text to take them to a place where they can get more information; you can even add a click to call inside of a text.

The open rates for text messages is 98% as opposed to email which is about 22% This is about reaching people where they are and people are on their phones.

QR Codes

This is a code that can be easily generated. You can put them anywhere, on your store window, on the menu, on your real estate sign on your car on a tee shirt. There is no limit to what you can do with a QR code.

A smart phone user can take a picture of a QR code to access whatever information you want them to have. Your specials, product information, coupons, videos, you can even put your Facebook Like button in a QR code and have people like your page right from the code. Let your creative juices flow.

Ad Mop by Google

This is the mobile version of pay per click. What most people do not know is that mobile ads are cheap and fast at the moment. The amount of traffic that can be offered with mobile ads is off the charts This is high quality traffic and lots of it.

Mobile Apps

Mobile apps are talked about a lot so that is why I have included it here. Mobile apps are pieces of software that people can access through a mobile app store. They can be very expensive to produce and probably should not be the first thing you do for a mobile marketing strategy. They are hard to market and they will probably not get used much by a consumer.

Google Places

Google Places allows you to make your spot on Places mobile friendly. You can enable your Google Place to include a map to your business that can be viewed on mobile devices.

You can also enable your Google Places to offer a click button that will allow customers to click on their screen and connect to your establishment.

NFC

NFC stands for Near Field Communications. It is not quite there yet, but since it is on the horizon, it is worth talking about here.

NFC is how we will be paying for everything in the future. Credit cards will be going the way of the vinyl record. Purchases will be made with a mobile phone. McDonalds and Starbucks are already NFC enabled, and soon, your business will need to be too.

Here are some interesting facts:

Statistics are showing that across all age ranges, the “likelihood” that someone will buy on a mobile device is 3 times higher than buyers on computers. According to Juniper research, mobile payments are poised to reach $200 billion by 2012 Mobile is twice as viral on the Internet. People on mobile devices share stuff with others. Mobile is the connecter and if you want to connect, you need to be mobile enabled.