‘Mobilegeddon’ is hear! Mobilize your Site By 4/21 or Disappear Never to Be Found

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April 21 Is Your Last Chance for Mobile Optimization Before ‘Mobilegeddon’

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Don’t panic, there is still time for us to help.

According to Google:

“Starting April 21, we will be expanding our use of mobile-friendliness as a ranking signal. This change will affect mobile searches in all languages worldwide and will have a significant impact in our search results.”

According to Entrepreneur  Magazine, Aside from a “mobile-friendly” tag associated with various sites in mobile search results, it hasn’t been entirely clear which factors Google considers when calculating mobile rankings or how many sites (or which ones) are currently affected. Because of this, many business owners have postponed or avoided optimizing their sites for mobile devices, and have survived to tell about it.

Starting April 21, that’s all going to change.

Scope of the update

If you’re aware that Google already considers mobile usability as part of its ranking calculations, you might wonder why this April 21 deadline, dubbed “mobilegeddon,” is important.

It’s true that many of Google’s “updates” are actually just data refreshes and tweaks that hold little bearing on existing search rankings. However, Zineb Ait Bahajji, a member of Google’s Webmaster Trends team, was quoted at SMX Munich as saying that the new mobile-friendly algorithm change will have more of an impact on search rankings than either Panda or Penguin, two of the largest and most impactful search algorithm updates Google has ever launched.

If you are concerned that this may negatively affect your pocket book and brand, contact us today for fast and affordable solutions.

Mobile Marketers Still Not TCPA Compliant As Deadline Draws Near

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With the new Telephone and Consumer Protection Act (TCPA) guidelines going into effect starting October 16th, 2013, several mobile marketers and SMS marketers are still not TCPA compliant. If you are not TCPA compliant by October 16th, you could be facing fines upwards of $1500 per unsolicited text. This means if you have not implemented an auditable consent for all of your customers in your mobile database, you are at risk of being fined by the TCPA.

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A recent review of 50 brands found that hardly any of them are TCPA compliant. They are compliant with the old guidelines, but they will still be exposing themselves to possible fines if they do not compile written consent from everyone in their exisiting opt-in database. To be more specific, if you currently have an existing database, you need to somehow get all of your subscribers to re-opt in to your database with written proof that they have read and agreed to the new TCPA disclaimer terms.

An important thing to note about the new guidelines is that they are applied retroactively. This means that if you do not have written consent from members of your existing database by October 16th, you can no longer continue to message those individuals legally. Excuses aren’t going to fly either since this deadline was announced over a year ago. Get compliant or get sued! It’s as simple as that.

Considering recent TCPA lawsuits have risen by 60% over the past year, we would advise you to immediately set the wheels in motion for compliance or you will be risking not only non-compliance, but exposing yourself and your company to significant legal action. Do the math; if you have thousands of people in your mobile database, and you illegally text all of them, that means you will be fined around $1500 per text. This can only mean a financial and legal disaster that could very well put any mobile marketing agency under. DON’T RISK IT!!!

How To Get Written Proof

If you are not currently compliant, read the following very closely. You can obtain the required written signature from your customers in a number of ways. You can get it through email, through a website form, a text message, a telephone key press, or through a voice recording. You will have to change your calls-to-action on anything related to your mobile marketing program to include the necessary language as required by the TCPA. The customers need to read and agree, in written form, to receive SMS messages from a particular brand on the mobile number they’ve provided. They also need to provide written proof that they understand that they are NOT required to give their consent as a condition of purchasing services or products. This needs to be clearly and concisely communicated through ALL calls-to-action. This includes any media promoting the mobile marketing campaign along with the SMS opt-in flow on your customers’ phones. You will also have to include a prompt to your customers to reply “Yes” to confirm that they understood all of this.

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For MMS, only one message will be required, however, with SMS, you may have to use 2 or more text messages to get all the information across. The bottom line is that ALL OF THE INFORMATION NEEDS TO BE IN THE MESSAGE.

Additional Important Information

Note that any non-marketing related messages do not apply to this new rule. One-time transactions, along the lines of texting a keyword to a short code to receive a coupon, with no further messages, are also excluded from the new rule. Of course, if you are a marketer that already gathers express written consent from your subscribers, you should already be in good shape. However, if you are a smaller company that doesn’t pay particular mind to the rules, or even worse, you spam people, we can guarantee you that you are not currently TCPA compliant. If you are not compliant, you have about two weeks to get compliant, so we would advise you to not waste time on this. Yours and your company’s future could depend on it.

Mobile Marketing Software for Golf Courses

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Mobile marketing has so many uses that it is hard to know where to start. Restaurants, bars, clubs, car dealers, movie theaters, and many, many more have already started taking advantage of mobile marketing and how it can drive traffic to your site and customers through your doors. No other marketing medium gives advertisers the opportunity to communicate one-on-one with their customers and consumers. All you need to do is give them incentive to opt in to your database, and that’s easy.

When it comes to golf courses, the opportunities are endless. If you are the owner or manager of a golf course and you integrate mobile marketing into your overall marketing strategy, you WILL fill more tee times, you WILL get more people to the driving range, and you WILL sell more merchandise in your pro shop. Using mobile marketing, you will be able to build and maintain lasting relationships with your customers, and this customer loyalty will both reward you personally as well as your bottom line.

The first thing you can do, along with building up your SMS database, which we will get to here in a minute, is design a mobile website. This website will not only give vital info about your course such as location, contact info, etc., but it can also map out the entire course for golfers. Each hole will show up individually on their phones while they are golfing and give them information such as length of the hole, what par is, the hole number, and can even recommend the type of club to use for each shot!

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So how do you build up your SMS database?

  • Promote your campaign on your website.
  • Promote in your clubhouse and pro shop with signs and posters.
  • Put your campaign opt-in information on your scorecards and golf carts.
  • Use your Facebook page, Twitter page, or any other form of social media to alert people of your campaign and give opt-in information.
  • Promote through an email blast.
  • Use existing print and online ads and simply add your campaign and opt-in information.

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Most of these are very cheap to use, and a lot of them are completely FREE. But all of them are great places to get people to opt-in to your mobile marketing campaign. But that’s just the location. How are you supposed to make them WANT to opt-in?

  • You can form a mobile club and put this message on your signs and posters, “Join ABC Country Club’s Mobile Club and receive daily and weekly specials via text message! Text GOLF to 12345 to join today!”
  • Offer a starter special that reads like this, “Text GOLF to 12345 and save $10 on your round of golf today!”
  • You can also offer a prize giveaway along the lines of, “Enter the ABC Country Club Driver Giveaway and win a Calloway driver. Text GOLF to 12345 to enter now!”

Whatever you do, you just want to give the consumer incentive to join your database. Sometimes, simply explaining to the customer what the program is will be enough because of the simplicity and ease it takes to get deals. Everyone likes cheap stuff and everyone LOVES free stuff. Let them know that this is what they’ll be getting and they will most likely want to opt-in.

Of course, once they are opted-in to your service, you can send them almost anything you’d like. As long as you don’t bombard them with messages and are providing them with engaging content and value in each text, you will be golden.

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On any given day you can send out a text to everyone in your subscription database and offer anything you’d like. Maybe on a day where tee times aren’t filling up and business is slow, you can send out a text that reads, “Come in to ABC Country Club between 10AM and 3PM today and get $15 off a round of golf! Present this text to receive your discount.” Or you could offer contests with prizes, “Come up to ABC Country Club today and participate in our Long Drive Contest between 1-2PM. Person with the longest drive wins a brand new Callowat driver!”

So you can see the flexibility of SMS mobile marketing allows for golf course owners and managers to get creative. Whatever you think will entice people to come to the course when they normally wouldn’t is business you wouldn’t have had otherwise. So why are you waiting? Don’t lay up, go for the green with mobile marketing and hit a hole in one with your bottom line!