Mobile and Local Marketing Integration

Today’s business owners are faced with an enormous problem. The search results are dominated by large corporations major chains, lack of knowledge to develop a web campaign let alone combine mobile marketing, belief from the small business owner that the small business owners cannot compete against the larger corporations and the inability to make the transition from traditional advertising mediums.

Times are changing and traditional advertising mediums are losing their effectiveness.

Phone Directory (last time you used one)
Newspapers (declining rapidly due to internet)
TV (TiVo and DVR fast forward commercials)
Telemarketing (Do Not Call List)
Direct Mail (1-2% Yield)
Print Ads (Rising costs)
E-Mail (Spam software)

Does your business fit into one or more of the mediums above? The statistics are amazing.

1 Trillion - Number of web sites in the world
50 - Percentage of small businesses NOT having a wed site
78 - Percentage households with 2 computers
82 - Percentage of local online searches that result in offline purchases
0 - Without a web presence, your business has 0 chance in connecting with local consumers performing online searches



Billions of dollars are spent in the US each year to drive awareness and purchase intent. At the bottom of the online funnel, before an online shopper becomes an offline buyer, that shopper will look up the business’s listing. Any successful advertiser needs the act of finding their store’s location to be as frictionless as possible. The business needs correct listing data, needs to be in control of messaging of their brand and needs visibility.

1 out of 5 business locations are not showing up properly. Can you imagine if 1 out of 5 stores had the wrong name on the sign out front? Or the wrong hours of operation on the window? Or the wrong promotion listed throughout the store? That’s what is happening online right now. Is this happening to you? You may be surprised.

Having a website is not enough. How do people find you? How do you drive traffic to your site and increase sales? Are you satisfied with your presence? Now, place running your business daily operations and you may be overwhelmed.

Consumers are talking about you all through the web on Facebook, Twitter, Yelp, Urban Spoon, Four Square, Citysearch and many more. If your business is not listed than it is not being searched and is not being profitable.

71% of all American adults use the Internet
91% of all Internet users use a search engine to find information
Over 50% of all purchases are preceded by an Internet search
30% of all search queries contain a city, state or zip code
There are 2.6 billion local searches a month



What does this have to do with you? If your online information is missing or incomplete it may cost you in online exposure and smaller profits. In today’s economic times, your business cannot afford to be behind the competition or your business will be left behind.

Integrating Mobile marketing into your business marketing model will increase your exposure and keep in constant touch with your clients. Imagine increasing your business when you want and how you want within a 24 hour period. No more email marketing, no more flyers, or other ancient forms of advertising which cost you money and low return on investment (ROI) for your advertising capital.

Below are some facts on Mobile marketing:

There are 5 billion plus cell phone user vs. only 1.8 billion Internet users (almost 3x in market size.)
Of these users, 51 Million use smart phones.
There is a fundamental shift in how people are communicating.
Text open up rates are 95% <= Very important
73% of new mobile phone buyers report that text messaging is the most important feature on their phone
The typical mobile phone user now sends more text messages than mobile phone calls
Gen Y and Z consider e-mail passé

The three things consumers grab are: Keys, Wallet and CELLPHONE.

To recap, combining Mobile marketing with online local listing will provide increase brand recognition, stay ahead of your competition, lower your advertising expenses, stay in touch with your clients, drive customers to your business within 24 hours and in short, you will be cutting edge and ahead of the competition.

A few questions to ask yourself: does your business stand out above the rest, do you know your online business profile and how you are presented in front of potential customers (web presence), how are you being competitive with other similar businesses, is your online information the same across the web (555-1212 not the same as 555.1212), are you using social branding (secret, Facebook only has 1/20th of the advertising compared to Google, hint), do you You tube to brand yourself, is your Google Places business page complete and verified, how about Yahoo, and we can go on and on. If you have any questions, please email or call and by the way, you can scan the QR code at the bottom with any barcode scanner on your smartphone and it will take you to a special place.

Anthony Papadopoulos, MBA

www.mobolocoadz.com

Be Listed - Be Found - Be Profitable