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This report intends to educate the local businesspeople on the opportunities that they can exploit to market their local businesses through the most viral marketing method of recent times. This report is strongly recommended for businesspeople who want to experience the difference in the way customers respond to their marketing strategies. It will reveal you to you all the secrets of running a successful mobile marketing campaign and the way to win the hearts and wallets of customers as well as create the highest customer retention. This is the report every 21st-century businessman should read in order to understand the intricacies of mobile marketing. Take time to read this life-changing mobile marketing report and implement the advice in your own business. SOON YOU WILL SEE YOUR PROFITS SOAR TO INCREDIBLE HEIGHTS!

Good Luck

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

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Executive Summary …………………………………..2

Table of Contents …………………………………………..3

Introduction……………………………………………………4

Mobile Marketing Trends ……………………………….7

Benefits of Mobile Marketing …………………….….12

QR Codes ………………………………………………………15

SMS Marketing ……………………………………………..21

Mobile Websites.............................................27

Use of Yelp and City Search …………………………..32

Use of Google Places……………………………………..34

Social Media Mobile Marketing………………………38

Conclusion/ Recommendations......…………...39

TABLE OF CONTENTS

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Are you Serious about Marketing your Business Locally? This Phenomenal Mobile Marketing

Report Will Give You a Surefire Way to Market your business locally!

Regardless of what you are marketing locally, the use of mobile marketing is the ONLY guaranteed way to reach your clients and make millions in sales without spending a fortune for your local business advertisements. You probably have been looking for the best way to promote your business locally in the U.S. Maybe you have or have not contemplated using mobile marketing but you have not implemented the strategy. If you are looking for a good way to market your local business that really works, it is proven that the best method so far is mobile marketing. Please read this report carefully since this is the turning point for your local business revenues.

American local businesspeople are spending of millions of dollars each year on promoting their businesses, and very few are getting close to the projected results! You might even be one of them. Maybe you've tried all the marketing channels out there for your local business with little success. Then this report was written for you. Give your business a new breath of life by implementing these easy tactics that could get you the results you have dreamt of for years. Take time to read this report.

Mobile marketing is seemingly becoming the most cost-effective method for local businesses to reach out to their clients as well as advertise within a certain set group of clientele in a given society. Targeting a specific group of clients makes advertising easier because

Introduction

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you get the best and the quickest ROI since you understand the various needs of these clients, and you lay out your business objectives to address the local clients’ demand and guarantee them the best satisfaction.

You may have heard about how effective Internet marketing has been for the last decade, but the mobile marketing concept seems to be slowly overtaking any other traditional marketing method, and the future of mobile marketing is brighter than any other method of advertising. Since mobile marketing is the fastest-growing trend in marketing for various local businesses in the U.S., you need to know a few things that make this method the best for your business and the position you need to take for your local business to get the best out of mobile marketing strategies.

There are a number of success stories of local businesspeople who have reaped the immense benefits of mobile marketing for their local businesses. If you examine keenly the growing trend of the mobile marketing share in the market, you will definitely take advantage of this industry since it is in its infancy and your business can be the next beneficiary of the viral mobile marketing trend.

In the wake of increased numbers of people using mobile phones, you need to realize there is no other way a local business can reach their clients at the most personal level other than the use of the mobile phone and text messages. The method also comes at reasonably low advertising rates, making it very cost-effective for small, local, and growing businesses.

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Mobile Marketing Gives You the Competitive Advantage over your competitors in marketing

your Local Business

Mobile marketing definitely puts your local business ahead of your competitors for a number of things, besides being the cheapest, most effective approach for reaching out to a wide, specific clientele. As a local business owner, you stand to reap immense benefits if you adopt the mobile marketing strategies that will propel your business to unimaginable heights.

Most of the local businesses have not adopted the strategy of the use of mobile marketing in marketing their businesses. Therefore this poses the best opportunity that any local business owner may consider worth pursuing. Moreover, the increasing trend in the mobile gadgets proves that this is not a momentary trend but something that will continue in the future.

There are a number of things that, as a local business owner, you need to implement so that you start getting the benefits of mobile marketing for your local business. Before thinking of starting a mobile marketing campaign for your local business, take some time to learn a few things here. This report comprehensively covers the various benefits and things you need to know as a local business owner before you adopt mobile marketing as a way of marketing your business.

Take time to read and learn more

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Understanding the trend of mobile marketing gives you the big picture of why you should not wait any longer to implement the mobile marketing strategy for your business. A close look at the statistics reveals an amazing growth in mobile phone usage which gives mobile marketing the best leverage to take over a large percentage of the market share. The mobile marketing statistics are a foolproof indicator of the strength of mobile marketing for your business.

According to the most recent statistics:

More than 250 million Americans carry mobile phones, which is about 80% of the population.Industry experts estimate that by 2012, approximately 10 trillion text messages will be sent and delivered all over the world.Out of every five teenagers, four of them carry a mobile phone, and a large number, about 57%, views their mobile phone as the key to their social life as they are able to connect with friends through social media platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, My Space, amongst others. The time people spend on their mobile phones is increasing at a very high rate compared to any other type of media. In reference to market experts’ analysis, it is expected that mobile marketing and advertising will skyrocket from just a few hundred million dollars in revenues seen in 2008 to three to five billion dollars by next year.In comparison with the Internet usage, the number of subscribers with mobile phones is continually growing by a large percentage, and it is projected that by next year, three-quarters of the world’s population will use mobile phones in one way or another, and this opens the best advertising avenue for mobile marketing enthusiasts.

Mobile Marketing Trends and Statistics

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Marketing using SMS or text messaging gets seven to 15 times the response rate of email marketing and also has an amazing 97% open rate. The speed with which an SMS or text message is opened and read is typically much faster than an email. The email may take a few days, but rarely will a text message take more than a few minutes

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to be opened.

SMS, or text messaging, has been proven to have a return on investment of over 20%. That is very high and likely to double when used for local business advertising. Honestly, there is no other media that has such a high return on investment like the mobile phone.Nearly everyone carries a mobile phone. There are five times as many people using mobile phones than those with access to the Internet. This makes the mobile marketing reach to be the most powerful media in the history of media marketing. In recent times various companies have developed the mobile phones, commonly called smartphones, that have amazing user-friendly applications. This has fueled the demand for use of mobile phones tenfold. In the recent past, most people wanted to own smartphones the like of Google’s Android or Apple’s iPhone. The advent of smartphones has seemingly provoked a

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skyrocketing use of mobile phones. As a smart local businessperson, you should take advantage of this voracious demand for smartphones to launch your mobile marketing strategies before the competition is too stiff!

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The use of social media on smartphones is so simplified, and most smartphones are developed with these features incorporated, and they are very easy to use. Considering the popularity of Facebook and the availability of Facebook on mobile phones, there is every reason why local business owners who dream of making it big should adopt the use of social media advertising platforms provided in the mobile marketing strategy for local businesses. The number of the mobile social networks is on the rise, and the future of marketing is in mobile marketing.

If you keenly look at these statistics, you will realize the immense benefits that a local business can get if they choose mobile marketing as their way of disseminating their advertising and other information to the relevant clients.

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Why Your Local Business Needs a Mobile Marketing Strategy

Every local business owner ought to know about and take measures to adopt a mobile marketing strategy since there are numerous opportunities and millions of dollars being lost on non-effective traditional marketing methods by a majority of local business owners who continually ignore the power of mobile marketing.

Whether you have a local burger shop, an auto garage, a grocery, or any other service business, the use of mobile marketing presents you with the ultimate choice to inform a wide local clientele on the various offers, changes in prices, and even new products that are coming soon.

When you adopt the right mobile marketing strategy, you will effectively create a campaign that can bring you a large number of mobile numbers that you will use for promotion and marketing of your business. You should understand the way mobile marketing works because you will effectively use these methods to create quicker ROI than any other businessperson in your niche. If you are looking for a less expensive yet dependable media to reach a wide range and a great number of people, mobile marketing creates a platform for you to implement your plan and get your projected ROI automatically.

Mobile marketing is presented as the most powerful marketing strategy of our times for the numerous benefits it has to offer, mostly to those persons running local businesses in a given area. What makes it even more interesting for those reading this report is that very few local businesspersons are thinking in this direction. The industry may be in its infancy, but in years to come you will not regret the decision to use mobile marketing as your local business marketing strategy. So what are these mobile marketing benefits to local businesses?

BENEFITS OF MOBILE MARKETING TO LOCAL BUSINESSES

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There are countless benefits you will get when you use mobile marketing. Among them are the following:

Large audience – due to the large number of mobile subscribers, mobile marketing works at a reasonably advantageous position since large numbers of people can get the marketing message as opposed to the other type of traditional methods where someone could miss a TV ad or a print advertisement.Most of the time people have their mobile phone so there is timely delivery of the marketing message. If you are advertising offers, most people will take too much time to get to their email and perhaps the offer is valid for only a few days, but on the mobile phone they will certainly get the offer the same day that it is announced, making mobile marketing once of the fastest ways to deliver a promotional message to a targeted group of clients. The mobile marketing strategy offers you limitless opportunities as well as multiple advertising modes in one package. This includes text messaging, paid search advertising, organic search advertising mobile display, click-to-call ads, application advertisements, click-to-map advertisements, amongst many other options that may be used to get the intended information to the target group for advertising campaigns. Relevance of the advertisement – While you are driving a marketing campaign on a mobile marketing platform, you have to target different groups depending on the relevance of the group in question. This helps you to narrow down your specific niche and achieve much more through your marketing since you only market to the relevant group of consumers. Diversity in the nature of the business type that is fit for mobile marketing – Most of the mobile marketing strategies work well across the board for all types of businesses, and they all get great returns on investments when they use mobile marketing.

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Your competitors are not doing mobile marketing. Mobile marketing gives you an edge over other players in the industry due to the fact that most business owners have not realized the power of mobile marketing. Be the first to experience this immense growth of your business revenue as a result of using mobile marketing as your new marketing strategy

What Kind of Local Businesses benefit from Mobile Marketing?

One of the serious concerns that most local business owners immediately have when they learn the power of mobile marketing is if their business type can benefit from this type of marketing. Many times during the mobile marketing seminars, many local businesspeople inquire about the suitability of mobile marketing to their type of business. Here is a list of local businesses that have experienced immense benefit and growth from the power of mobile marketing:

NightclubsRestaurantsRetail StoresReligious GroupsSocial GroupsConcert VenuesEvent Promoters

This list is just to cite a few examples and is not conclusive since mobile marketing comes with flexibility and may fit in any kind of business advertising whether you are looking for long-term or shorter leads for your business. In certain cases mobile marketing has even been used successfully by realtors and insurance agents, amongst many other types of businesses. This should not limit you from making use of mobile marketing.

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What are QR Codes?

Most people don’t know what QR codes are and their significance in mobile marketing strategy for local businesses. QR codes can be defined as barcodes that are used for encoding information in two- dimensional spaces such as magazines, advertisements, TV, and even websites. QR codes stands for Quick Response code, which is a readable code by most of the QR code readers, Smartphone, and in extreme cases, computers and webcams are able to read the QR codes.

If you keenly look at the picture above that represents a typical QR code, you will see it is made up of black modules that are arranged in a square pattern against a white background. In most cases the information that is encoded in this QR code includes the URL or any other data that may be necessary in the barcode.

QR –CODES USE IN MOBILE MARKETING

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What Makes QR code Different from Barcode?

The major distinguishing feature between the QR code and barcode is the manner in which the data is encoded. In the case of the barcode, the data is encoded in the horizontal plane only, but the QR codes encode data both horizontally and vertically, or in other words, a grid pattern. This creates room for the QR codes to accommodate more data as opposed to the barcodes in the same small space. The QR codes are also able to embed information in the code and read the information with special software that launches certain outcomes when the code is read, such as launching a website or downloading a file. Finally, the barcodes cannot be read from any angle while the QR codes can be read from any angle.

How can you make use of QR codes for Mobile Marketing of your Local Business?

QR codes are specially made for hastily and simply connecting to content on smartphones. QR codes are easily used in magazine advertisements that create a link to the website where the reader can learn about the specific content of the advertisement. One of the best ways to make use of QR codes as a mobile marketer is through the use of Android since they link directly to the Android marketplace. One practical example is in Bordeaux city where QR codes have been used in marking the city in order to track parking meters and guide visitors to the local shops or locations with the use of Google Maps. Google has collaboratively used QR codes to promote local businesses with the Google Places Business Directory that contains local businesses’ contact information, reviews, and local business coupons. This is why you should not ignore the use of mobile marketing.

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Using the QR codes to promote your Local Business

There are numerous applications in the iPhone store that can read QR codes. This is not limited to the iPhone only but also to Android and BlackBerry handsets. In the recent past, the newly developed Nokia phones also can read QR codes. The future of the use of QR codes is bright, and they will become popular in the years to come. The QR codes can be used to track inventory, and together with Google Maps, they can be a good way to direct people to your local business. QR codes also make your contact with your customers or clients more interactive and interesting. The best way to maximize on your mobile marketing efforts is to develop a mobile website that has a connection to your QR code so that anyone who scans your QR code will automatically be directed to your mobile website.

According to mobile website statistics more than 50 % of customers are more likely to purchase from the mobile website than the Internet-based website. Are you taking advantage of this before your competitors get ahead of you? Secondly more than 70% of businesses are planning to invest in setting up a mobile website by the end of the year. Are you amongst these people who want to reap the maximum benefits of the most powerful means of advertising local businesses on the planet? If you are looking for a unique way to connect to your customers and clients, something I can assure you most or none of your competitors are doing, then mobile marketing is the way to go! In the mainstream media, QR codes have been generally accepted as a means of data capture. Most of the newly designed smartphones have QR codes as a standard with numerous companies offering to research on better methods of using the QR codes for promotion and marketing of the businesses. Mobile data capture is the strategic marketing of the present and future smart businesspeople.

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Most local businesses in the U.S. must accept the fact that QR codes are actually the best innovative way they will ever get to market their business in the 21st century.

Why QR codes are Ideal for Local Business Marketing?

Local businesspeople who rely on foot traffic for the sustenance of their businesses are set to benefit immensely from the use of QR codes. For example, a store owner may know most of his customers by name but have no means of connecting with them.

In cases of an urgent offer or sale, the local businessperson may rely on the fact that the customer may come knocking that day, or they may lose a sale to a competitor. This is where QR codes come in to bridge the gap between the store owner and the customer by effecting communication. So QR codes help since they capture the contact information when the customer scans the store QR codes. Once they scan the QR codes, they are redirected to a landing page where they opt-in to the store email list. The email list can be used to create membership from loyal customers that can be contacted from time to time when there is a quick offer and they are not aware of the existence of such an offer.

Just like Internet marketing the local business owner can start building a relationship with the customers in the email list, and this will help to create the customer retention and more sales from the customer. So long as the local business owner does not send too many emails to the customers, he can develop a meaningful relationship with them. This can create incredible increase in business sales and profits.

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Examples of Effective ways of promoting your Local Business with QR codes

Using QR code with Social Media Platforms

Owing to the rapid growth in social media as a tool of marketing businesses, QR codes can be used to direct potential customers to your social media page like a Facebook fan page or even your website or social media profiles such as Facebook. This creates product loyalty, and that automatically converts to increased sales and profits.

Using QR Code on Business Cards

One of the most effective ways you can have customers locate your business easily is adding your QR code on your business card. The QR codes direct the customers to the website, and they are able to learn more about your business and locate your business to purchase promotional offers. They can be customized for a given promotion to increase the sales and profits.

Using QR Code in Packaging Products

As a local businessperson, you stand to benefit when you brand your business with the aim of marketing your business. Example: A restaurant or a supermarket that regularly packages their goods, QR codes can be very useful in promoting the business if they are put on the package to direct the customers to the business website for offers and tips.

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Using QR Codes in Press Releases

One of the best ways to increase visibility of your business on the Internet is press releases. With the help of QR codes, you can amplify the visibility and increase the amount of people who are visiting your website. You can make the website more popular with traffic sent from the QR codes. If you are launching a new product or are opening a franchise shop, you can run a very effective mobile marketing campaign if you make use of QR codes sent to customers for opening offers from your website. You can also send the customers to the website for further details about the offers, thereby creating more popularity of your products or store.

Using QR Code on the Print Advertisements

QR codes present you with the best way to brand and promote your local business. In the recent past, most businesses have been using QR codes in print media such as flyers, T-shirts, mugs, postcards, and billboards. When the recipients of the gifts or the print media scan the QR code, they get information on your business, and they are possibly redirected to the website for further details on your business.

From this information, QR codes are very important, and this is the only way you will put your local business ahead of millions of other people competing for the same customers. The power of QR codes lies in their integration with the Web and the power to create great customer relationships as well as using Google Maps to give directions to your local business to potential customers. Make use of this great innovation to market your local business and stay ahead of your competition.

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The startling truth about the power of mobile marketing lies in the strategic marketing of local businesses using short messages. The inside information that you must know before you even embark on any mobile marketing campaign for your local business is here.

You can easily use this revolutionary approach to marketing your business and get the surprising results that you can never get in any other form of advertising or marketing in the world today. If you take time to read these strategies, you will easily reinvent your local business marketing approach and in a short span double your sales and consequently triple your profits. So what is this SMS marketing strategy that has worked miracles for many local businesses in the U.S.?

Short messages are a powerful tool in marketing your local business, and they are very useful in creating an immediate mobile marketing campaign that is effective and works immediately. The creating of an SMS marketing campaign basically involves about six steps as explained below:

How to Create an SMS Marketing Campaign Step by Step

Step 1:

Create a Promotional Subscription Program for Your Business.

Since you are targeting customers you can use to build a list that you can use later for marketing, you can create a great promotion that is geared towards customer subscription.

Step 2:

Create a Subscribers List.

SMS MARKETING

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You can employ any of the following methods, or you can combine them for maximum effectiveness.

You can use a number of ways to make your customer opt in. You may use an in-store sign-up telling the customers about the program and the offers that are coming.

Texting a word to a short code or website. Branding the packaging with the call to action on all the packages

that the consumers take away. Promoting the program on the traditional marketing methods

such as billboards, TV, and radio advertising. QR code can direct the customers to a landing page where they

can opt in and fill out their information for the purposes of profiling.

It is an important consideration that as you promote your local business with these opt-in methods, you should have an incentive to drive the customers to signing up since they will not sign up unless there is an incentive. A good example of an incentive is where a restaurant offers some percentage off the bill for every sign-up.

Step 3:

Create Promotional SMS Campaigns.

When you have the list, you can now create promotional SMS campaigns targeted at meeting specific demands of the business or to cater to certain business objectives such as clearing of old stock, launching of new products, or increasing of sales on certain offers that are available for a limited period of time.

Step 4:

Choose a Subscriber Base for Your Campaign.

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From your subscriber list, decide on who should get a specific promotional message since the offers may be for different target groups depending on the kind of goods that are being sold. You can even group the offers depending on gender, age, and preference. The subscriber demographics obtained in the opt-in should be able to guide you on making the best decision regarding who suits or does not suit a certain client list.

Step 5:

Create Your SMS Message for Your Campaign.

You have finally arrived at the most important step of SMS marketing. You should be able to use the best copywriting skills to create a promotional short message that will compel the customers to take action, whether it is a purchase of commodity or taking a lead on a certain campaign. It is vital that as you design the short message you incorporate a promotional code for effective tracking of the results and effectiveness of the campaign as seen through the results of the sales volume.

Step 6:

Broadcast your Campaign.

This is the final stage of SMS marketing campaign execution, and it is very critical that you have the right timing of the broadcast to effectively maximize the ROI. If people are aware of the expected offer or new product release, the SMS marketing may serve to augment the sales volume and create the need for urgency. The right timing may also be very important since if you study the consumer behavior as far as expenditure is concerned, you may launch the campaign at a time when you think that the demand for your products will be optimum.

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Why You Should Use SMS Marketing for your Local Business

As described above, SMS marketing is one of the most effective marketing strategies that relates with the customer at personal level. It is, therefore, vital that you know the benefits your local business will get immediately when you start using SMS marketing as one of your mobile marketing strategies. Since mobile marketing is relatively a new concept or medium of marketing for local businesses, many local businesspeople may not have experienced the benefits of mobile marketing, so you should be able to implement these tactics in marketing your businesses and reap the following benefits from the use of SMS marketing:

SMS marketing creates a personalized approach to marketing instead of an abstract relationship with your customers. The advantage of this is the creation of customer loyalty to your products and services since from time to time you keep updating the customer about upcoming offers and new products launches. This allows you to communicate directly to the target market and narrow down a certain group in your niche instead of targeting the general audience like the traditional media.

Mobile phones are so popular, more than computers, especially with the young generation that spends considerable amounts of time on social media, therefore creating a very fast medium of conveying promotional messages and offers via SMS marketing.

In addition to these great advantages, SMS marketing provides fast deliverability of the marketing message. Nearly all text messages (studies show 97%) are read within minutes of receiving them. Therefore this is the ideal way to get your promotions across to your target market.

SMS marketing is more time-efficient when weighed against traditional advertising methods. Marketing SMS have to be short due to character limitations. Therefore writing your SMS

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marketing message takes just a few minutes so they are easy to come up with and execute over other traditional marketing methods.

With SMS marketing, it’s also exceedingly easy to track and monitor the response of every message that you send out. You therefore have the upper hand in development of the campaign, and you are sure of the number of people who viewed the message and their response to the advertisement.

SMS marketing is the best way to retain your customers with a reasonably low advertising budget. The more you reach out to the customers, the more you create a good relationship with them and they are able to identify with your services, and they will come back again and again.

SMS marketing cuts across the age divide and social classes since you are able to reach all clients irrespective of their age and their location as well as their social status.

The Do’s and Don’ts of SMS Marketing

What you should always do when implementing SMS marketing.

You should learn how to apply objective and persuasive promotional copy in your SMS marketing to create raw magnetism of your products without spamming your customers. When you are learning it may be difficult, but when you get used to it, you will understand how to run an effective SMS marketing campaign.

You should make sure that you have the following in your message.

Call to action Reward for registering Customer retention incentives Referral system or place such as a mobile website or social media

page.

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You should avoid the following in your SMS marketing message.

Sending out too many messages that appear as spam Dishonesty (Whatever offers you promise you should be in a

capacity to offer to avoid creating negative publicity of your business.)

Use of bad business language. Your message should be copywritten as persuasive but not creating conflict or giving a bad image of your business. Understand each target group and send messages that are relevant to them.

The list of do’s and don’ts of SMS marketing above is not conclusive, but the best way to approach this is to take keen interest in understanding your target group and make the SMS as relevant as possible to these people. Besides these measures of SMS marketing, there are three cardinal necessities you should always have at the back of your mind as you run an SMS marketing campaign. These include:

Name of your business contact information, website, and also any directions to your store

Option to opt out of the list- This creates confidence that the customer may terminate receiving the promotional SMS at their own pleasure, therefore making them feel in control.

Call to action –This is what drive your SMS marketing strategy.

With these ideas you should be able to implement an SMS marketing campaign for your local business and win your way to the hearts and wallets of your customers and create the great relationship and loyalty with your customers.

Why Mobile Websites?

MOBILE WEBSITES

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So much has been said about the effectiveness of mobile marketing to local businesses, but there is one of the most overlooked things in mobile marketing that renders all efforts to promote local businesses futile. If you learn from the mistakes of others, you will achieve much more by correcting their mistakes.

From the previous chapters we have learned that mobile data capture is the future of business marketing. It is, therefore, imperative that as we make use of QR codes, we create an environment that has compatibility of the QR code data and the website where the customers are redirected. Most of the mobile campaigns have failed due to lack of a mobile website.

So what is a mobile website?

Most of the customers who scan QR codes are redirected to your store website; the consumer traffic volume remains completely ineffectual if the directed website is not mobile-compatible. In the past most of the mobile marketers made this fundamental mistake of not having a website that is compatible with the mobile gadgets.

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In the recent past there has been a need to have maximum benefits of mobile marketing by making a mobile website where the customer traffic is directed.

A mobile website is a website that is designed specifically to meet the limitations of mobile screen sizes and navigational control. It relieves the visitor of endless scrolling and constant eye strain. A mobile website should be designed within the compliance of the W3C website standards.

Why does your local business require a mobile website?

Your business requires a mobile website for you to run an effective mobile marketing campaign. If you don’t have a mobile website, the customers will be frustrated since the other website is not easily accessible with the mobile phones. The frustrated customers will definitely not get the right promotional message, and they will end up ignoring future mobile marketing leads.

You should avoid this by having your website designed to be mobile- compatible and easily accessible from different mobile gadgets that are developed day after day. No matter what business niche you are in, if you intend to use mobile marketing to increase your sales tenfold, a mobile website is a vital necessity. You should be aware that most of the traditional websites do not load on mobile phones, and if they do they are distorted. Take advantage since most local businesses do not have a mobile website. This could be a great way to start your mobile marketing campaign.

Benefits of a Mobile Website for Local Businesses

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There are a number of benefits a local business that has a mobile website stands to gain as far as mobile marketing is concerned.

Mobile Phones Portability and Accessibility

In comparison to a desktop and laptops, mobile phones are more portable and accessible, making mobile websites a good and effective communication tool. You will maximize on these benefits if you maintain the proper mobile presence. A mobile website is the ideal place to start.

Mobile Search

A good number of smartphones today are equipped with applications that assist in suitable online search resources such as Google and Yahoo! Your local business can easily be found when people search for products or services such as yours from their mobile devices, and it is more appropriate if you have a mobile website, since visibility is not effective if they visit your website and can’t find the information they need because you don’t have a mobile website.

Local Businesses

A mobile websites is the perfect way to help your local customers find your business. Mobile websites are fundamentally smaller than traditional websites, and therefore limit the amount of content that you can put in the website. This is beneficial since most of the website’s visitors are only looking for your phone number, directions to your business location, or the type and nature of services that your business offers. This makes a mobile website the most powerful communication tool of our times.

Sales Volume Increases with Low Budget

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A mobile website can increase the volume of sales rapidly while the budget of advertising is minimal since there is huge traffic to the website that consequently translates to physical traffic. This is because the mobile website gives your business wide exposure to the local community.

These are some of the reasons why you need the mobile website designed by a professional who will be able to make the necessary adjustments of the current website to fit in the screen sizes of the mobile gadgets. If you want to realize the power of mobile marketing, you must have a mobile website to which your clients or customers can be redirected.

Promoting your Mobile Website

Just like an ordinary website, a mobile website needs to be promoted by the correct optimization technique to enhance its page ranking in search engines. Though this is relatively new concept, it is paramount that as your designer designs the mobile website for you, they should also consider doing the necessary tasks of optimizing the website for it to be relevant to the search engines.

You may also consider having a mobile website that has cross-browser compatibility in different operating systems. In the recent past, the rate at which mobile phones and applications are developed is astounding. A close look at statistics should guide you on how to design and optimize your mobile website. There are a number of operating systems available for mobile phones and they have different market shares. This is an important consideration when you are choosing where to optimize your mobile website. The mobile website should be visible across all mobile operating systems.

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For you to achieve the best marketing results from your mobile website, you may consider having a mobile website that satisfies a certain criteria. Some of the things you should put into consideration include:

Improved user experience Faster download speeds if you are offering any downloads on

your mobile website User interactivity and engagement Brand identity creation

These are a few of the considerations you should have as you think about having a mobile website for your local business.

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One of the most reliable ways of making sure the customers trace your business is through the local business listing with the help of Google, Yelp, and City Search. If you have already created a mobile website for your mobile marketing campaign, you should be able to engage your potential customers through local business listings in such a way the customers can make use of Yelp and City Search to identify the precise location of your business.

Yelp is a god-sent opportunity for small and medium businesses to make the best use of mobile marketing and build their businesses in the future market. In the recent past, Yelp has released inspiring mobile numbers. Millions of mobile phone users flock to Yelp on a daily basis. According to recent statistics, Yelpers have called a local business every second through mobile applications, and 35% of all searches on Yelp come from mobile applications. Every other second a customer generates directions to a local business. A photo is uploaded every 30 seconds from a Yelp mobile application.

From these statistics you can see that Yelp is one of the most important considerations when you are launching a mobile marketing campaign. This is important because most Yelpers are engaged in searches for a certain purpose. Yelp may be a local business’s best friend. As a small- business owner you should exploit the enormous opportunity to appeal to motivated users and to use discounts or special offers to lower the barrier to conversion with the help of Yelp. By taking advantage of new Yelp features like check-in offers and better mobile tracking, you can reach out to customers at the exact moment they’re searching for you and get the intel you need to create better offers and incentives. It is therefore important that you put to consideration the involvement of

YELP AND CITY SEARCH

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Yelp and City Search in your mobile marketing campaign. This will also help you in creating a local search for your local business.

Some of the benefits of engaging your customer with City Search and Yelp include the creation of a progressive path to help you with future local search marketing services like consumer review management, citations, and QR code. Updating and maintaining your local business listings at multiple local listing websites is the key to turning local consumers searching for your business, products, and services into customers!

Google Places

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Google in the recent past has begun marketing campaigns that revolve around mobile phones. Some of the most significant services that involve the local business community include:

Google Local business listings Google Maps QR codes

The QR codes allow the customers to scan a code with their smartphones that are equipped with QR code readers, and they capture information on your local business. The program from Google started with 100,000 businesses across the U.S. and is expected to roll out to larger local business groups in the near future.

The local business owners stand to benefit from this program since they will be able to generate QR codes that can direct the customers or visitors looking for the services that they offer to their businesses.

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Local businesses are dependent upon the local market for sustenance. Google Places can be a dependable resource to increase the number of consumers to a local business. With the new, continuous increase in the usage of their mobile devices for local business products and services, this is the surest way to have a future in marketing your local business. It is important as a local business owner that you learn more about Google Places and how you can make the best use of it to market your local business.

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Google Places works perfectly with QR codes by engaging the local listing since the QR code retrieves the Google map of your business location, directions, and your business contact information.

It is important to know that the only way this works is when you have engaged the local listing. Incorporating local listings in your mobile marketing plan helps a great deal in making sure that your local customers get the coupons for any offers you are running. This serves the purpose of increasing sales as well as creating consumer loyalty. `

How Google Places Work for Your Business

Google Places works for your business since it puts your business online on the mobile map. This is very important. Your business needs to be put on the mobile map for effective mobile marketing.

According to Google reports, for at least every five searches, one search is correlated to location. This is the reason why Google developed Google Local that was further developed to Google Places. They have since developed the Google Local business directory.

The design of Google Places helps customers search out local businesses in a much similar way to the Yellow Pages. Google Places is better because it is available on the computer and also mobile gadgets. When customers are searching for your local business location using Google Places, they are able to do so with much ease since the businesses are divided according to various categories. This makes the search much easier, and customers are easily able to locate your business using their mobile phones, QR codes, and Google Places.

Creating your Business Profile on Google Places

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One of the easiest things you will ever do is create a Google Place page. It will take you a few minutes, and it is one of the most important phases of mobile marketing that every local business owner should think about implementing.

You are just supposed to add the vital information to your profile, and the information includes:

Business opening hours Business contact number Business address Business photo Business keywords Video about your business Areas served

You are also supposed to verify your profile via an SMS or a postcard. Make sure that your data is up-to-date to ensure that you give the right direction to your potential clients or customers. You may optimize your local business and reach out by adding the ‘areas served’ as a way to include all the areas within a 20-mile radius that your business serves.

Integrating Google with QR Codes

Additionally, Google offers you the ability to enhance your mobile marketing tactics by allowing you to make use of customized QR codes which are easily scanned with mobile gadgets to help people locate the local business. Additionally, the business owners can also update their place on the Google page, making it an effective way to market their local business and update on any available offers.

From this information it is apparent that Google Places plays a pivotal role in making sure that the mobile marketing strategy works by making it easier for customers to locate a local business.

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It is very important that as you plan your mobile marketing plan, you remember to create and update a Google Place page from time to time for an effective mobile marketing campaign.

The advent of social media marked a new era on how marketing is done on the Internet. While the contemporary social media platforms have created a lot of enthusiasm amongst the Internet marketers, there is a lot that needs to be done for local businesspeople to adopt social media as one of the easiest ways they can reach their customers in recent times.

Local businesses can make use of various social media platforms to advertise their business and make more sales. The social media mobile marketing is the most effective viral marketing method of our times since most of the populations of social media followers both on Facebook and Twitter use their mobile phones to create updates about their social media status. This creates a great platform where mobile marketing can be very effective for local businesses.

As a local businessperson you should have a Facebook fan page for your business that can be easily accessed from mobile gadgets for you to have the most effective viral marketing of recent times. The power of mobile social media marketing has been felt in the past by brands that performed exceedingly well when they were marketed on the social media platform.

As a local businessperson, take time to set up accounts with the various social media platforms where you may interact with your customers as well as have a platform for announcing to your large following about a new offer or product launch in your local business. In this modern day and age, social media mobile marketing is the most powerful marketing

SOCIAL MEDIA MOBILE MARKETING

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method that any businessperson cannot afford to ignore. Set up your social media mobile marketing platforms and see the difference in the increase in sales volume for your local business.

Recommendations

As a local business owner, make use of the following to promote your local business:

QR codes SMS marketing Yelp and City Search Google Places Mobile Website Social Media Mobile Marketing

Conclusion

STOP… and picture how much easier life will be when you use mobile marketing strategies to help you market your local business. Imagine increasing your sales volume and maximizing your profits as soon as you take advantage of mobile marketing strategies that are the marketing strategies of the future.

Think about all of the benefits that your business stands to gain as outlined in this report and you will realize how much you are losing by not marketing your local business through mobile marketing. If you are serious about marketing your business, then you simply cannot afford to be without these mobile marketing strategies. Your business needs this for survival.

CONCLUSION AND RECOMMENDATIONS

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Finally, since I have given you every conceivable reason to adopt mobile marketing as the new way of promoting your local business, take time to learn how you can do this through my guidance and help.