Mobile marketing-guide

Mobile Marketing Survival Guide 2013

1 LocalBizHelp.ca - Bringing Your Message Directly to Your Customers

Mobile Marketing Survival Guide

Everything You Need To Know To Get Started Today!

By: Ron Richardson

LocalBizHelp.ca

http://localbizhelp.ca/



Contents

Mobile Marketing: The Truth Behind The Wave ............................................................................ 3

Mobile Marketing Types: Learning The Lingo ................................................................................. 4

SMS .............................................................................................................................................. 5

QR Codes ..................................................................................................................................... 6

Mobile Design .............................................................................................................................. 8

Apps ............................................................................................................................................. 9

Which Mobile Is Right For My Business? ...................................................................................... 11

Who Is It For? ............................................................................................................................ 11

What Do They Want? ................................................................................................................ 11

What Is My Sales Process? ........................................................................................................ 12

Getting Mobile Right ..................................................................................................................... 12



Mobile Marketing: The Truth Behind The Wave

Marketing your business in this day and age can be extremely difficult. The internet is

having a massive impact on the way that traditional marketing is looked at and accepted by the

general population. Dying are the days of interruption marketing and “one-sized-fits-all”

branding messages.

Prospective customers today demand that you meet them in the middle. You must go

where they are, and interact with them on their terms. This customer centric revolution is not

something to be feared, but something to

be celebrated. For the first time in history

people are all too happy to share what

makes them tick, what their interests are

and how they want to be prospected to.

One massive advantage that we are

now experiencing in the marketing world is

the increase of statistical data surrounding

consumer behavior. Do a simple Google

search and you can find troves of

information relating to the things that your

prospects want and need in order to make

the transition from prospect to customer.

Some of the most impressive data

coming out of research today is that of mobile marketing. Did you know that there are over 5

billion cellphones in the world today? 27% of those are SMART phones and by 2014 accessing

the internet via a mobile device will overtake traditional means of internet access via desktop

computers. An astonishing 86% of people access their mobile device (tablet or SMART phone)

whilst watching TV. In other words, if you are pouring money into TV advertising, all of your

prospects are missing you because they are busy surfing the internet on their phones.

Mobile marketing isn’t a trend, it isn’t a fad and it isn’t going away anytime soon. The

entire landscape through which we access information is changing: it is going mobile.



This guide will walk you through the basics of mobile marketing and give you a better

idea of how to best approach this type of marketing within your own business. We encourage

you to explore and ask questions. We are here to help.

And consider these stats...

Mobile browsing is projected to surpass desktop browsing by 2014.

1/2 of local searches are now done on mobile devices.

Mobile is today's fastest growing marketplace.

A Mobile Website can increase the engagement of Smartphone users by 75%.

40% have turned to a competitors site after a bad mobile experience.

Mobile searches have quadrupled in the last year according to Google, for many items one in

seven searches are now mobile.

• 1 in 3 mobile searches are local. After looking up a local business on their smartphone, 61

percent of users called the business and 59 percent visited.

• 79 percent of smartphone users use their smartphones to help with shopping

• 71 percent of smartphone users that see TV, press or online ad, do a mobile search for more

information, but 79 percent of large online advertisers still do not have a mobile optimized site.



Mobile Marketing Types: Learning The Lingo

SMS

SMS is where it all began. The pioneers of mobile marketing recognized that accessing

people through their cell phones was a powerful marketing tactic worth exploring. People

always seem to be near their phones. Whether they are at work, on the go, or even relaxing at

home, their cell phones aren’t far off.

With the advent of the SMART phone, the cell phone obsession skyrocketed. What used

to be rare only ten years ago – seeing a cell phone that could fit in your pocket – is now

commonplace. Mothers arm their children with phones to keep in touch, employees constantly

check their emails via SMART phones, and even loved ones communicate primarily via texting

to keep each other updated.

It is no wonder that marketers find this tool so useful. Being able to access people has

always been the great challenge of marketing. How do we get in front of people to share our

message? How do we stand out from the crowd and get noticed? SMS marketing offers

compelling answers to these questions and the low overhead required of such a campaign

leaves many business owners feeling a sense of relief that “finally” their marketing is paying off.

SMS marketing allows business owners and company decision makers the ability to

pinpoint demographics and promote their marketing message in such a way as to bypass all of

the common hang ups that other marketing methods have built around them. Telemarketers

struggle to get their prospects to pick up the phone. Direct mailers have come to accept 2%

open rates as normal and TV commercials are being replaced with Tivo and Netflix.

Recent studies have shown that texts, those sent by marketers, experience as much as a

40% open rate on a regular basis. If you have ever tried your hand at marketing, you know that

these numbers are powerful.

Now that we live in the age of SMART phones, that 40% is even more powerful than

before.

Why?



As more and more prospective customers switch to the SMART phone, marketers are

able to deliver their messages via SMS in different media formats. Imagine being able to send a

text that you know 40% of your list is going to open and beyond that, they will be able to click

on a link within that text and instantly watch a video online that you have created. If you craft

the video correctly, they will probably share it with friends. This is powerful marketing.

One of the main benefits of SMS marketing is the low cost. There are no mailers to

purchase, no TV time to buy and you don’t need to hire a large graphic design team to build you

a banner. It is as simple and cost effective as obtaining a list and sending out a few texts.

This low cost attracts many marketers to SMS marketing and many try to run their own

campaigns. If you have experience with copywriting and internet marketing, then this is a very

viable option for you. If not, then outsourcing this is going to be your best bet. When running

marketing campaigns like this you want to be able to squeeze every last conversion that you

can. Hiring professional SMS marketing providers will allow you to do just that.

QR Codes

QR codes are a new and unique way to market yourself, though they are often

misunderstood. Many marketers use QR codes more as a diversion to the marketing message

than as a means by which to pull people through your proven sales funnel. Let’s look at an

example:

Some companies will attend events, QR code in hand. When a prospect meets with the

company representative and establishes a relationship, often times that rep will then offer the

prospect a chance to claim some report or “more information” via a QR code scan.

While the prospect might appreciate the opportunity to use their mobile device,

chances are that the use of QR codes in this instance fell within the wrong part of the marketing

funnel.

Why?



In this instance, the company rep already has a relationship with the prospect, there is

no need to send this person through another hoop when all we want is for the prospect to take

action and make a purchase.

A better use of the QR code in this case would have been to have the prospect scan the

code to receive a coupon, or to be taken to a special registration page that you could only

access with your mobile device.

QR codes should be looked at as instruments to increase a prospect’s desire to take

action. One great use of QR codes can be found within the direct mail marketing world. Direct

mail marketers have spent large amounts of time and money trying to figure out how to get

their prospects to “do something”. They have found that if you can get them to do one thing –

you can get them to do to two things.

Direct mail marketers have

introduced the QR code into their mailings.

They will send out their regular mailings,

but now they will include the QR code piece

by incentivizing a scan.

A pizza company might, for example,

send out a mailing with a QR code that

enables recipients of the mailing to access a

coupon for 25% off their next order. When

the recipient of the mailing scans the QR

code, they are then asked to provide their

email in order to access the coupon. It is

this simple call to action that makes all the

difference.

This pizza company now knows that this person was interested enough in their offer to

want to redeem a 25% off coupon. Armed with this knowledge then can send out further emails

promoting various pizza deals, events, etc.

QR codes have proven to be the perfect marriage between offline events such as direct

mailings and online ones. The important thing to remember with setting up your own QR code

event is that you have a sales funnel in place to maximize whatever action you get the prospect

to complete using their smart phone.



Mobile Design

In a recent study done by an internet research company named comScore, internet

users were tracked throughout a single 24 hour period. During that time it was shown that

despite a small rise during the working hours, mobile devices outperformed PCs as the device of

choice by almost double. In other words:

People prefer mobile.

It shouldn’t come as any surprise that many internet users today prefer the quick and

easy access of mobile devices when compared to their PC counterparts. Instead of having to sit

down and stop everything that you are doing to find a bit of information, you can simply pull

out your smart phone or tablet and find everything that you need.

As the internet continues to become more socialized, this also means that people will be

making immediate purchasing decisions based off of their time using a mobile device. For

example:

Let’s imagine you are out on the town Friday night with friends. You have just finished

watching a fabulous show and now you all want to find somewhere to grab a late night snack.

What do you do? Do you drive home and turn on your PC to look up something that you

bookmarked months ago? Do you run to the nearest phone book to open up the Yellowpages?

No, of course not, if you are anything like the typical internet user today – you whip out your

smart phone and do a quick Google search.

Here is where things get tricky. As you go about your search you find a few restaurants

with late night menus that seem attractive. After reading about them on Yelp you decide to

take a look at their site to try and find a menu – and here is where things usually go bad.

Like most websites today, you click on the top ranked site. It takes forever to load on

your phone and is eating up data that you were hoping to use for other things (like looking at

cat videos). When it finally does load, you can only see about ¼ of the entire site and trying to

click on links quickly becomes a nightmare. So what do you do? You do what most mobile

device users do – you click the back button.

If you were the owner of this restaurant and it was your site that was the site in

question, you would have just lost a customer. When prospective customers make impulse

buying decisions like that – the kind of buying decisions that lead to lifelong customers – it can

be incredibly painful to the bottom line if you aren’t prepared to receive them.



This is why mobile design is so important. It has very little to do with aesthetic beauty

and absolutely everything to do with preventing situations like the one we outlined above.

Having your site redesigned to meet mobile design standards will automatically put your

business head and shoulders over those who aren’t currently meeting the high demand for

mobile ready sites.

If we jump back to the example that we were looking at earlier, we would see that once

you had hit the back button on the site NOT ready for mobile, you would have clicked on the

second or third site and easily navigated through their site, found their menu and became a

customer of their establishment.

Things like social media, SEO and even direct mail with links to your site are useless

unless your site is ready for the mobile age. If you are a business that is interested in going

where your customers are, then you must meet them in the world of mobile.

Apps

According to an analysis provided by Flurry Analytics in November of 2012, mobile users

spend 43% of their time playing games. This was the largest chunk of time spent doing any one

thing on their mobile device by almost 200%.

What does this mean and why should you care as a decision maker in business?

It means that if you are interested in getting eyeballs on offers, then the place that most

people are looking are online mobile apps. The best part is that getting into the mobile app

world doesn’t require that you necessarily

have to create and build the app yourself.

Many companies opt to outsource

their app creation, and if you have the

budget, go for it. Having your own

personally branded app that is available for

download at places like iTunes or the

Android app store allows you to leverage

the massive traffic that these sites already

have.

Creating your own app also allows you to

build a powerful brand – one that is

associated with daily interactions – and it



also allows you to get your brand into the

hands of people quickly. For example, many

running companies have started creating

run tracking apps to attract attention to

their brand and company.

Why?

It isn’t because they are making

money on the apps themselves – they

probably aren’t – they continue to develop

these apps because people continue to

carry their smart phones around with them.

Imagine if you were to use one of these

running apps for your own training. Every

single run that you went on you would be

exposed to the company brand. Each time you opened that app to start tracking your running,

you would see the company logo, perhaps see a short advertisement and eventually you would

start to associate this brand with deep psychological ties.

It is the perfect repetition marketing scenario.

Perhaps you don’t have the budget for creating your own app. That is ok – you aren’t

totally left out of the app marketing game. You can, and should, leverage the hard work of

others by marketing on the apps of companies that simply create apps as their business model.

What do we mean?

Let’s use another example: Let’s say that you are a company that sells young adult

clothing to the male-teen demographic. What is the best way to reach these kids? Gaming.

Imagine if you were to contact a company that made gaming apps and worked out an

advertising deal with them. Every time they opened their smartphone to play their favorite

game they would see an ad tailored to their demographic for young adult fashion. You could

have all of the benefits of a high quality app without the massive expenses that come from

developing one yourself. You would benefit the app company by provided them early

monetization solutions before they even went to market.

Apps provide a rich and engaging way for you to engage with your prospective

customers.



Which Mobile Is Right For My Business?

One of the great things about mobile marketing is that it offers so many different

options for someone trying to create a large customer base. The problem with mobile

marketing is that it offers so many different options, custom tailored to your needs, that it can

be hard to decide which is right for you.

We highly recommend that you consult a professional mobile marketing company

before making any commitments, but the following sections of this guide will give you a better

understanding of what to consider when choosing your mobile marketing battle plan.

Who Is It For?

As with all marketing plans we have to first determine who this campaign will be for.

What is your demographic? What devices do they use? Where are they online? Asking yourself

these basic questions can already eliminate some of the more obvious choices.

For example, if you are trying to sell downloadable Kindle ebooks, then it would be safe

to assume that your target audience has access to a tablet. Running an SMS campaign to

promote your new book wouldn’t be nearly as effective as launching a new iPad app that allows

people to organize their books in a new and fun way.

To contrast that example, if you are a bar owner you aren’t likely to run into the late

night bar hopper running around town with using their iPad to find your establishment. You are

more likely to have a successful campaign if you were to utilize an SMS based offering. People

would check their phone while out on the town and make a buying decision based off of your

coupon offer or notification.

Learning about your demographic will be crucial in the success of any mobile campaign

that you might engage in.

What Do They Want?

Learning what type of media, information and “bribes” your customers want will be the

single most impactful activity that you can engage in when running a mobile marketing

campaign. For example: If you run a business that requires visual confirmation of any kind

(think car sales, or restaurant, or furniture sales etc.) then building a mobile ready site will

increase your sales.



How?

It isn’t the design of the site that

your customers are concerned with; it is the

ease with which you present the buying

decision. If you can provide them a mobile

ready site, with mobile ready media,

today’s customers will literally mute their

TVs during commercials and spend that

time surfing your site and moving closer to

that buying decision. All you have to do is

provide your customers with what they

want – mobile responsive media.

What Is My Sales Process?

It is important that you don’t market too fast. You could conjure up all the excitement in

the world through a high quality SMS campaign but if you can’t then take that excitement and

turn it into sales, your campaign has been a loss.

Setting up a high quality sales process is something that requires careful planning and an

honest look at what you offer and what resources you have at your disposal. Many mobile

marketing professionals are experts at building sales funnels.

A good sales funnel allows you to make sales even when you aren’t yourself putting

work into it directly. The internet offers a broad range of sales funnel options that allow you to

grow your business 24 hours a day and 7 days a week. These funnels, when combined with high

quality mobile marketing will turn your business into a perpetual sales machine all the while

freeing you up to be more productive in the areas of your business in which you are critical.

Getting Mobile Right

Mobile marketing is here to stay. It is more effective, both in terms of cost and

implementation, than traditional marketing methods are and it allows you to share your

marketing message with the customers that really matter.

You don’t have to spend an arm and a leg in order to maximize the affects that mobile

could have on your business. A simple, cost effective mobile site design would already put you

ahead of most of your competition.



Don’t hesitate to take this step into the future and maximize your company’s sales. Call

toll free today @ 1.855.432.6762 to speak with us or email us at [email protected]

and let us show you how mobile can increase your bottom line!

Thanks for reading and I hope you take action today!

Ron Richardson - LocalBizHelp.ca

mailto:[email protected]

http://localbizhelp.ca/

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