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Mobile Marketing – Are You Ancient History?

Is your business Mobilized yet or are you still fiddling around, being indecisive and holding onto old, outdated marketing? Well, I will tell you that now is not the time to be putting off these important decisions about mobile, because mobile marketing is on a role and there are billions of humans helping that roll pick up steam.

Mark my words that this mobile revolution and evolution will catch up with you sooner or later, whether you like it or not. I mean 77% of the world population has a mobile device and according to recent research, it’s expected that over 1 Billion people will have Smart phones by 2016!

Not to date myself but I’ve been around since the
beginning of the mobile rise in the 1980’s. Yep, yours truly had the grand pappy of cell phones, an original brick phone, circa 1988.

Ancient Mobile Marketing Device
Ancient Mobile Marketing Device

Now it goes back a year before this when I had my first EF Johnson ‘car phone’ and boy was it a robust setup!

The picture to the right is of a Motorola 8900 Ultra Classic II that I used for several years in the 1990’s and believe it or not I went back to this after having a Microtac flip phone.

Boy those were the days and technology was changing at a fast pace but not as fast as today. But this is where it all started for the land of mobile.

And you could even say it started with pagers and yes I had a few of those, even one that  allowed anyone to leave me recorded message that played back over a little speaker on the pager. Hi-tech, eh? Well, it was for 1987 and we used this technology until the mid 1990’s.

So all this ancient tech history leads me to today and where we are currently at with mobile and your business. Yes, your business and mobile marketing.

In my article about mobile marketing on November 15th I mentioned that mobile traffic had surpassed the 10% mark and with billions and billions of people already mobilized, this should tell you something.

Now whether you arrived at this article though our mobile site, a tablet or desktop, it makes no difference, but know this my loyal reader…

If you are still lugging around old technology(and marketing baggage) like the Motorola bricks(they might only work in a very, very remote area) , you best take a hard look at the world of mobile and engaging your target audience. Because mobile is here to stay. It’s growing by leaps and bounds and it’s over taking the desk top world very fast.

From mobile & responsive websites, to mobile apps, SMS texting, QR codes, Games and the marketing that drives it all so your mobile experience is as good or better than the desktop.

So stay tuned here at Click and Mortar Blog because we’ll be keeping tabs on the world of mobile and maybe we’ll even bring back some more history about the ancients.

Get mobilized!

Dave Krygier
Publisher

PS – Have you seen this mobile marketing solutions video from our friends over at Small Biz Mechanix.

 

 

 

 

Mobile Marketing & Your Small Business

Mobile marketing is becoming a force to be reckoned with and I hope your small business is riding this technological wave to bring you more leads and customers.

Marketing online is shifting to the mobile platforms and those businesses that are taking advantage of this shift are, and will see both traffic and conversions if they know how to adapt, attract and capture.

This past October Mobile web traffic passed the 10% mark for the first time ever.

Mobile accounted for 10.3% of total web traffic in October 2012. Believe it or not this figure is about double the 5.6% at the same time in 2011. This total does include both mobile devices and tablets.

Now with that said, The Big G still owns 89 percent of the Mobile Search Market but Apple fans still represent 60% of the mobile web browsers, whileThe Big G’s handsets make up 26%. This leaves Blackberry, Opera Mini, Symbian, Msoft IE with the balance of the mobile browsing out there. This last group is a small percentage and who would have thought that Blackberry would be in the back of the pack, considering they were one of the first to the party.

Ok – enough with the stats.

My questions to you about mobile are these…

1. Is your business mobilized? Meaning, is it ready to attract and capture searchers in the mobile environment?

2. If Your Small Business is ready and you are mobile enabled, then are you staying on top of what to do next and maximizing all your opportunities.

So this leads me back to the question; What does it mean to be mobile?

Here are the simple answers:

1. Your site needs to display properly on a mobile device. And this means that it needs to be simple and fast to navigate, which only a mobile site or fully responsive website can do. Two, three or four simple touches. Or maybe more if you are ordering takeout or a double tall frap with no whip and extra hot. 🙂

2. You need to show up in the search engines and especially when a mobile user is searching for your business. Keep it simple and do the work so your business is listed on all the search engines, directories and citation sites.

3. You need to be actively utilizing marketing avenues like ads on mobile devices and mobile apps that stay planted on your prospects and customers mobile device screen top. I would say desktop but that just doesn’t make sense does it?

So if you find yourself stuck in the mobile mud and need some help getting unstuck, then contact the Mobile Marketing Mechanic and his team will pull out the gear to get you mobile in a jiffy.

To your mobile marketing success,

Dave Krygier
Publisher

PS – The stats I mentioned above were not pulled out of a hat but are quoted from Netmarketshare. So they get the stat gathering credit.


Local Internet Marketing – 3 Tips You Can Use in Your Small Business

When it comes to Local Internet marketing is your business running on all eight cylinders or does it seem like you’re fighting an uphill battle with webmasters and specialists who promise the moon?

Whether you have a stand alone physical business that needs foot traffic, a remote office that requires in bound calls or a virtual office that handles emails, texts, calls and social interaction – Local Internet Marketing may be just what you need to increase sales and profits.

Notice in that last paragraph that I said May. Because in certain cases Local Internet Marketing may not be what your business needs. Like the one I was running out of a home office many years ago in the Wenatchee Valley (in Central Washington), where it’s a smaller community with a population hovering around 40,000 people.

When I lived there the local paper was just starting to market online but it was all so new and 56K dialup was very frustrating. Working out of this satellite office we helped run our Seattle based operations for The Tiny Store, plus I communicated, serviced and sold products to people all over the planet. This was in the late 1990’s before cable or DSL. A matter of fact, we had the first residential 115K ISDN line installed and it took three GTE techs to get it all working and operational.

What’s my point here?

It’s this – Local Internet Marketing would not have had the ROI for us had I implemented what I’m going to share below. Why you ask? Because this particular market was really small and our niche was too narrow.  Note: remember, it’s always about results and ROI.

Even though Local Internet Marketing is much easier today than it was 10 and 15 years ago, you still need to understand and be able to navigate through the landscape or hardscape. If you do, you can really help your business and maybe even your wallet.

With all the advancements in technology in the last 10 years, one can pinpoint and target market like never before. Let’s say you own a local service business in the Spokane area, Spokane Valley or Post Falls/ Coeur d’Alene and desire to connect with local and maybe even regional prospects. Marketing via the web using localized methods can make all the difference.

So let’s dig in and go over Three Local Internet Marketing Tips that you can use in your business right now to attract more prospects:

  1. The first tip is to Setup a Separate Mobile Website. This is different than just enabling your site to be visible on mobile devices like the iphone, Blackberry or Android. In most cases this mobile website will make it easier for searchers to view your business and connect immediately. This mobile website helps to eliminate long load times and having to scroll or crawl through menus and content to find the information he or she is seeking.
  2. The second tip is to Become Visible and Register your business with all the local online directories. This tactic can give you a broader reach than just your existing website and can create visibility through credible online sources.
  3. The third tip of the day is to Develop and Cultivate testimonials and positive reviews that you can use in all of your marketing. These testimonials can make the difference, so work to collect and gather as many as you can, making sure to abide by an laws and regulations.

No matter where your small business is located – Spokane, Wenatchee, Richland, or a big metropolitan area like Seattle, if you desire to reach the local community, then no better  time to do it than the present.

Get started now and do the work unless you need someone like The SmallBiz Mechanic to help along the way.

To your local internet marketing success,

Dave Krygier
Publisher