For Any Local Mobile Marketing campaign businesses should always start with this question:
“What’s in it for your customer?”
SMS
All mobile phones supports text messaging, and with 600 billion text messages sent each year in the US, a majority of consumers are familiar with the technology.
Text messaging is inexpensive. Rates per message are as low as a few pennies each and most mobile carriers are now offering sms packages for free, so that cost to receive text messaging to your customer is now free in most cases.
Response rates can be tracked in real time. And you can see just which campaign strategies are working and which are not NOW so that you can make the changes needed to drive more costumers to your site.
SMS is Interactive – SMS is Personal – SMS is Immediate – SMS is Trackable – SMS is Almost New
2D Bar Code or QR codes
These codes are popping up just about everywhere even the grocery store. Check out the produce section and you may find that your watermelon has a QR code that if you take a picture of it, will tell you just where the watermelon came from.
This last holiday season shoppers used their mobile app’s and compared prices of items found in department stores for the best price and availability by just scanning the code with their phones.
Google sent out a sticker that brick and morter businesses could place on windows and doors to announce to their customers that they were listed in Google Places. The sticker showed the QR code of the Google Map location.
Placing a QR code of your web site in your print medium, on company vehicles and even your business card allows for instant connection to your website. No searching for a pencil and paper or trying to remember a phone number. Visitors just take a picture with their phone and your now connected.
Social Media
Have you heard about FourSquare or Gwalla?
FourSquare should be every marketers dream connection. It may have started out as a simple “check-in” game for young people, but rewarding those that play with discounts and offers you are collecting customers almost for free.
The way this works is that while out and about, someone comes to your store and they check in using their phone. After so many check in’s the game awards “titles” such as Mayor for the high number of visits. Now the business owner can step in and reward the mayor with a free drink or a coupon, by just having the customer show their badge on their phones at the counter.
How much does this cost you the business owner? A lot less than any campaign you could have tried in the past.
Mobile Coupons
Coupons have been around for a long time in the advertising game, but they have always had one draw back. Most people forget to take the physical coupon with them when they go out to shop.
Mobile coupons are delivered to a persons phone where they always have them within reach. It has been stated that most people keep their phone within arms reach 24 hours a day and they only turn off their phones for recharging.
Mobile Loyalty Programs
Building customer loyalty using punch cards can be a expensive. Customers lose the cards or forget to have them punched and you print more cards. But the bestest draw back is that you have no way of tracking the customer.
Using a mobile loyalty program allows the customer to check in each and every time they make a purchase. The business owner now has a system in place to track customer retention, and keep in touch with extra coupons and announcements that relate to your business.
Mobile Optimized Web Pages
Having a traditional web site that is content rich is a must have, but for those on the go you need a mobile optimized web site or pages.
The content needs to be targeted to the person on the go. Just what information are they really looking for. Directions? Hours of operation?
Keeping the mobile web simple and clean allows your customers to reach you where they are, on the go.
Mobile PPC Advertising
Mobile advertising is a cost effective way to reach new customers. The prices for this service is now where the old Google Adwords was ten years ago. Making this a avenue you may wish to investigate.
For all the above, remember to turn the advertising toward the customers point of view. Ask yourself (as the customer) “What’s in it for me?”
Remember to inergrate online, offline and mobile where-ever possible.