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Mobile Marketing Update

As the mobile marketing wave continues to grow, it seems like more and more small businesses are finally beginning to see the picture and jump on the bandwagon. And this is a bandwagon that you do not want to get left off of.

The world of mobile is much more than just your iphone, Android phone or Blackberry. It’s a world full of phone enabled devices along with tablets and mini-tablets that searchers keep with them from dawn until after dark.

No longer is the mobile phone the device of preference. It seems that the land of tablets is taking over and slowly but surely making it’s way into each and every business and household.

      It’s an ever growing list of both devices and marketing that seems to have no end in site.

Here’s the overview list if you haven’t been keeping up.

Mobile Websites are the first step for most small businesses. This simple step can mean the difference of being seen and clickable versus being somewhat seen and kind of clickable. Having a mobile site for most small businesses will make the difference in visibility.

Mobile Responsive Sites can make all the difference in the world for a business or organization that needs to be seen in the world of mobile. These sites respond and resize for the device that calls them. It’s a great way to be seen and not have to maintain multiple sites to get the job done.

SMS Texting has grown ever so popular with restaurants, doctors, dentists, sports organizations and service businesses that book appointments in advance. This mobile marketing tool may or may not be for your small business, but be on the look out for how you can text your way to increasing sales.

Mobile Apps are fantastic for the business or organization that has a repeat clientele or needs to have constant contact with its prospects and existing customers.

Mobile Advertising is one area that we’ll be seeing more and more of. It’s growing leaps and bounds while newspaper sales continue to plummet and lose ground. Capture your searcher while he or she is in the market and you might find your newest customer arriving at the front door tapping on his or her tablet.

Now you could be far along in this mobile game and have your act together with a mobile site or even a mobile app and maybe you even have tested some mobile ads on different search engines or networks and seen results.

No matter, even if you are just getting your feet wet with mobile, take it one day at a time and just be glad you got started.

To your mobile marketing success,

Dave Krygier
Publisher 

For more on mobile marketing and to see if you website is mobile compatible, the Small Biz Mechanic is offering mobile check ups. You can get yours by going here.

 

 

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