Mobile Marketing Factors

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A recent study was conducted on the types of behavior to expect from mobile users and how they are using their mobile devices. The 2012 Online User Behavior and Engagement Study, conducted by The Search Agency and Harris Interactive, shows that there are noticeable differences in the behavior of users by age groups as well how they are using mobile devices. There were also other dynamics such as disposable income and children which were found to influence consumer mobile device behavior.

Mike Solomon, Vice President of Marketing Strategy at The Search Agency, stated, “It’s no doubt that a plethora of smartphones and tablets are increasingly being used by consumers, so mobile marketers and advertisers need to think beyond the device when they’re providing content to the consumer.” Solomon continued, “The time of day, the device, their location, their age, and whether they’re single or married, all must be taken into account when serving content.”

Solomon also went on to point out that, “Marketers can now also map consumer intent, which is driven by a combination of device type, time of day and day of week; for example, a home buyer’s behavior is different on a smartphone during the weekday when they are researching than on the weekends when they are ‘in market.'”

“The number of resources and devices on which consumers perform research, communicate and shop is rapidly growing and mobile marketers need to understand each of these factors when creating their campaigns.”

One surprising fact drawn from the survey was that baby-boomers are actually a bit more tech savvy than people who are slightly younger than them because of their children pressuring them to use today’s new technology. The study also suggests that time of day and the closeness of mobile devices has an effect on when and how end users use these devices to shop, search, or socialize. Using this information, researchers are suggesting that advertisers and marketers need to focus on matching content with the time of day and specific devices to better reach end users.

Other significant findings were that 49% of single people own a smart phone, while only 43% of married couples own one. However, 45% of married couples own a tablet compared to 36% of single users who own a tablet. So it is apparent that married couples are more likely to be using a tablet while single people are more likely to be using a smart phone.

The statistics also point to consumers using their computers and mobile devices more to research products and services they see on television. Age was the most noteworthy aspect influencing the type of product or service they eventually chose.

Diving further into the numbers, it was found that 78% of all people go to their computers for information on products and services while 66% of tablet owners stick to their tablets. However, it is important to note that people ages 18-34 used their tablets 71% of the time to research while people ages 35-44 used their tablets 81% of the time. But remember, even though more married couples own tablets than single users, single people are more likely to use their tablets to research products and services (76%) than married couples (63%).

It is pretty clear that people are now turning to their mobile devices, regardless if there’s a computer close by or not, to get their information. Telling numbers are 59% of ALL people are using their smart phones when a computer is close by, while that number jumps up to 74% when only figuring in people ages 18-34.

Finally, one of the last major things found by the study is that younger people are much more likely to shop at work (53%) than their older counterparts (42%) who are 55 or older. It is also clear that younger people browse social networks at work more (52% of 18-34 year olds) than older people (41% of 35-44 year olds, and 30% of those 55 and older). So younger people are much more likely to multi-task at work than the older generation.

Mr. Solomon concluded, “This study is helping us learn a bit more on how usage on desktops to mobile is evolving, and it all depends on who you are, if you’re married, how old you are, or where you’re located.” Using these numbers, you should be able to get a glimpse of how your consumers are getting the information that they need, and how you can take advantage of these behaviors.

SMS Marketing vs. Email Marketing | What’s Better?

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At first glance, SMS marketing and email marketing are actually pretty similar concepts. Both of them are ways to obtain customers’ contact information and both are ways to market to your customer directly. They’re also great ways to build a database of clients and potential clients. Once you’ve made contact with the customer and have gotten a response through either a text message or email, you are already in the lead nurturing process, which means you are that much closer to making the sale and bringing you and your company money. However, the basic concepts of both mediums, building a client list and then marketing directly to them, is about all that SMS marketing and email marketing have in common.

To look at the differences, you have to start with the numbers; and the numbers are absolutely staggering. Firstly, 90% of all emails are spam; the percentage of text messages that are spam? A paltry 1%. So it is no surprise that 98% of text messages are opened compared to email, which only has a 22% open rate. Knowing this, now you know customers and potential clients are clearly more likely to open up a text message you send them than an email. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed. So what about mobile use? Only 34% of people use their phones to email, while 72% of people use text messaging on their phones. You’re also one of few if you text them, with the average person receiving only 178 text messages a month compared to the 1,216 emails the average person receives. Obviously, most of those messages are spam. Did we also mention that 95% of text messages are opened within 15 minutes? Forget about people opening your email in 15 minutes, 20% of emails aren’t even opened ever. Think about what you do personally, are you more likely to read a text message that’s sent to you, or an email?

So, after looking at the numbers, it should be obvious that text message marketing is a much better route to go than email marketing. Using a mobile SMS campaign makes it easy for customers to sign up at any time. Mobile calls-to-action (CTAs) are easily integrated into print, radio, television, store signs, and online networks such as Twitter and Facebook. All they need to do is text your keyword to the shortcode. However, if you were to use email marketing, your customers would have to go to your company’s website and enter their contact information. This can be especially inconvenient for mobile users if your site isn’t mobile friendly yet.

Using SMS marketing, you can literally increase your sales the same day you sent out your messages. Because people respond so quickly to text messaging, it is possible for you to get sales through your doorwithin an hour after sending the messages. And if they’re not coming through your door, you can easily market to them through their phones now that you have their information. Either way, contact has been established. Remember, email marketing does work with mobile phones, but very, very few people read emails on their phones. A majority of people will just go to a computer to read an email; and if they do that they have to print off any offer you may have sent them. With SMS messaging, they can simply show you the text you sent them to receive the offer. It’s much quicker, much easier, and is much more likely to give you the return on investment you and your company desires.

So what are you waiting for? A laundry list of companies have already realized the information you’ve learned here, so NOW is the time to start planning and enacting an SMS mobile campaign for your company. DON’T WAIT, or you will be left behind!

25 Stats on the Future of Marketing [Infographic]

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Not sure where marketing is headed? Not sure if it’s for you, or if it would work for your company? Check out our infographic below and check out the stats for yourself. Originally posted by Hubspot, we took and compiled recent statistics and made a fancy infographic out of them to bring the information right to you.

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The main categories in these stats are: social media, personal and dynamic content, email marketing, analytics and integration, as well as mobile marketing and apps.

Why all this is important:
Let’s start with social media. Social media is becoming increasingly important in today’s marketing world because so many people use it on a day-to-day basis. Because of this, many more marketers are becoming active in social media. Gone are the days where a company just needs to have a page on a social media website, they actually need to be active on social media and working to engage their audiences. What the stats also show, though, is that marketers and CMOs are looking for one central place where they can do this–instead of having to hop from page to page and outlet to outlet, marketers would love to just have one go-to platform where they can do it all. Also, a need for good social media analytics is on the rise–marketers want to see how their clients are interacting via social outlets and how they can best harness these to work with their customers.

Onto personal and dynamic content, it’s becoming very clear that people want targeted content. They want what’s relevant to them, not a broad based advertisement–they want to see exactly what you can offer them as an individual. Because of this, so many consumers are willing to share personal information such as age and location in order to get more relevant content. Also, though, they don’t want information overload; they want just enough but not too much. Too much advertising is a cause of unsubscribing to or ignoring emails/content. These stats not only show these facts, but also that marketers are looking for a system to help them personalize their communications with customers and to help them to know when to send these communications.

Speaking of emails, let’s get on to email marketing and automation. From the personalization stats, it’s already clear that customization is something marketers need to do. Email marketing has somewhat fought against this, though, as marketers can just draft a base email with a broad advertisement and send it to all of their clientele. What the stats say marketers and advertisers are now looking for is a marketing platform that will help them divide their contact lists of customers into more segmented, customized lists. For example: customers who shop once a month, customers that shop a few times a month, and customers that shop weekly. The system would then help them send different personalized emails to each of these groups. Marketers are also wanting this system to help them send off marketing campaigns on a scheduled basis. Overall these stats show that email marketing today is all about finding what’s valuable to your customers and giving it to them in a way that helps benefit your business.

So if you’ve got content that’s well customized to your clients, how will you know it’s working? That’s where marketing analytics and integration comes in to play. Integration is a key part of marketing success. To be successful and to best create targeted, personalized content, marketers and advertisers need data! That data will help you know where to focus your marketing efforts. After initial data and statistics help target content, user and usage data helps to see how and where your content is working (or not working). Having a system that collects and analyses data will help make sure that your marketing budget is being used efficiently and effectively.

Another must-have for today’s customer is most certainly their mobile phone. In today’s world almost everyone has a phone, and of those that do have phones, a good number of those have smartphones. Many of these mobile users are seeing and interacting with advertisements via their mobile devices. Unfortunately, though, so many websites aren’t mobile friendly. A good customer experience is always a goal that should be kept in mind, especially on mobile. Marketers, though, are also looking for options to simplify the mobile experience. Having a mobile application that allows them to see their data analytics and automation software will help marketers see how their carefully planned out strategies are getting the job done. Having this sort of mobile app would let them stay up-to-date on how many leads are being generated and how many customers are being converted when they’re out and about.

So what exactly are all these stats saying? In order to meet needs, create ideas and personalize them, as well as get these all out to the customer, each of the different parts of marketing need to be brought together. From email marketing, social media, to mobile marketing, each of these has something special to offer, but could likely do it better if marketers were given a platform for each that would help them to know their clients and customize each type of content for them. Each of these can help the other to create an awesome, powerful marketing campaign.

These stats make it clear, though, that mobile marketing isn’t going anywhere but up. Need a little help with your mobile marketing? Give us a yell and let us help you get up and going.

 Click the image below to see the infographic!

25 Stats

Mobile Marketing Expert or Mobile Marketing Ninja

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Expert is defined as having authoritative knowledge or skill in a particular area.  Ninja is loosely defined as a skilled warrior, simply the best of the best.  It is said that bullets dodge ninjas and that in an average living room there are 1,242 objects ninjas could use to kill you, including the room itself.

I digress.  The question is which would you rather be considered; A Mobile Marketing Expert or A Mobile Marketing Ninja?

I prefer the latter but either way, I can help you with this.  The world of mobile is rapidly expanding at a rate almost equal to that of the known universe.  For this reason, the simple change velocity makes things like becoming an expert or ninja seem unattainable.  If you feel this way STOP.  The speed at which technology is evolving is creating niche expertise demand in many sectors, especially mobile!  We are talking about an industry that for all intensive purposes began in the US in 2007.  That means the playing field is pretty level.  At best the guy with more experience than you has 5 years on you.

Every major market in America has room for at least 10 mobile marketing experts.  Smaller markets outside the Nielson top 20 probably have room for 3-5 mobile marketing ninjas and itsy bitsy towns across the USA need at least two mobile marketing experts to create competition.  Kinda like having a Lowes and Home Depot across the street from one another, they create market and feed off each other.

So know you know there is room for you to do this and the best competition is only 5 years ahead of you, now how do you become an expert?

Start by interviewing vendors and asking lots of questions.  SMS providers, SMS aggregators, Mobile Ad Networks, Mobile Site Tools providers etc.  They have a ton of knowledge that they love to share with anyone that will listen and potentially buy from them.  Take notes, it will be like drinking from a fire hose.  You can go back and sift through it later.

Secondly subscribe to, participate in, and read the industry authority blogs and forums.  I recommend Mobile Marketer Daily, MMA Smartbrief, Mobile Marketing Watch and if I am going to recommend a Mobile Marketing Ninja to follow it would be Derek Johnson at the Tatango Blog, the kid knows his stuff and does a great job in sharing his knowledge and positioning himself as a thought leading ninja.

Then set up some Google Alerts for keywords like: “Mobile Marketing” “SMS Marketing” and “Mobile Friendly”.  This way, each day your email inbox is filled with the latest that Google finds regarding these topics.

Finally take Kim Dushanski’s Mobile Marketing Boot Camp course.  This will be several hundred dollars very well spent.  Kim has courses for those who are considering getting into mobile marketing and advanced courses for selling mobile marketing as a service.

Learn from doing.  Get out and find some businesses that need help and don’t know where to start.  Remember, some definitions of expert is merely knowing more about a topic than I. Implement mobile strategies for your customers.  Measure the ROI and the response.  Create mobile marketing case studies to show your new prospects.  Rinse and repeat.

Most importantly be passionate.  Become knowledgeable and proclaim the Gospel of Mobile every where you go.  I use the term Gospel because Gospel means “Good News” and there has never been better news to marketers than the ability to engage their customers one on one 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

If you want to become a ninja, then begin by downloading some of our white papers.  Register for our Wisdom Center and get on the phone with one of our mobile marketing ninja masters today.

How To Use Mobile Marketing Effectively In Your Inbound Strategy

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In the old days of Mad Men Marketing and three Martini lunches, Television, the first screen, was king and it still remains a very powerful method of marketing today. Then Al Gore invented the internet (Lol JK) and a major shift began, the second screen was born. Just like that a new era of marketing was ushered in. The Martini’s got mixed with Red Bull and the ad world never looked back. From that second screen a new kind of marketing was conceived including SEO, Social Media, Online PR, Reputation management, Search Engine Marketing, Display Advertising and so on. Unfortunately, the rate of change, aka change velocity didn’t let us get comfortable too quickly as we suddenly found ourselves walking wire free with our heads down and our thumbs vigorously typing away on the next screen.

The era of mobile had begun. With this third screen came new incredibly personal opportunities and equally new marketing challenges. Most importantly, the third screen was the missing link we needed to really change consumer behavior and change the way we market

The Convergence

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Today we have a major convergence at hand. The convergence of three incredible technologies which is driving a complete paradigm shift in the world of marketing.

First you have Search Engines like Google, Yahoo and Bing. Next you have social media sites like Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Then you have the 3rd Screen, a powerful, portable, wireless device that allows you to access the aforementioned technologies from just about anywhere.

This convergence set off a nuclear bomb in the ad world. The power shifted away from the marketer and to the buyer. The power was given to them by the ability of almost every man, woman and child to conduct voice activated research projects right from the palm of their hand. The kind of research projects that in the Mad Men era would have only been attainable through a research company and cost thousands if not hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So now consumers, or in the case of B2B, the buyers are researching every single product or service before they make a decision to purchase. They are not just researching what product or service to buy, they are also researching which vendor to select to provide the product or service. They are SEARCHING for information, answers and solutions. They are then making Data Driven Decisions based on the results of their mini research projects. This is the very foundation of what we now know as INBOUND MARKETING. Inbound is all about providing quality content through multiple channels to position your company or brand as a thought leader, subject matter expert or just a hip company that loves to help people find quality answers and solutions without the intrusiveness of traditional outbound methods.

What is Inbound Marketing?

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Inbound summed up is creating quality, unique and actionable content that will drive more traffic to your site, more leads from your traffic and more sales from your leads. The only problem with Inbound Marketing is that most agencies seem to be forgetting that the vast majority of research is being done via mobile phones and tablets. That means that a large and rapidly growing amount of your “inbound” traffic is originating from a mobile device. For this reason you MUST consider the following:

Is your web site mobile friendly?

This should be your number one priority! Decide first to create a mobile strategy. Ask yourself: What do my prospects, leads, customers, vendors or employees NEED or WANT from my company when mobile delivers just that as simply as you can. Your mission is to create efficiency that make their lives better or their job at hand faster. Then decide how you want to proceed. Weigh the options of HTML5 and jQuery Mobile Web Apps which look and function like native apps but live on the web in place of your site. Or consider adaptive, reactive or responsive CSS which could be easily done using something as simple as a word press plug-in. You could opt to go hybrid and do a version of your site using both which is my preference. In other words have a mobile web app for a home page and key features with all your content navigable as responsive CSS.

Are you detecting mobile devices and redirecting them to a better mobile experience?

Checkout our recent blog about Mobile Browser Detection and Redirects:http://marketing.anchormobile.net/blog/bid/170765/Mobile-Browser-Detection-How-Does-It-Work

Is your landing page “thumb friendly”?

Whether you are driving traffic from Facebook or Google, an easy to use mobile landing page with a super easy form is a must!

Most marketing automation platforms are really lagging the change velocity here. I recommend using a mobile marketing automation platform that specializes in mobile friendly landing pages like ours, or, coding them yourself.

Are your email blasts easily read on mobile?

Again, most platforms are really lagging here. What most are calling mobile friendly are not as robust and cross platform capable as they should be. Test, Test Test! Make sure to test your emails before being sent on iPhone, Android and various Tablets.

Are you including SMS Keywords

SMS keywords and SMS web widgets as a web born conversion tool just like your email signup? We have seen SMS Keyword Calls to Action increase conversion up to 10%!

Are you using SMS auto responders and SMS nurturing

SMS nurturing automation should be used with your mobile prospects.  If they came in via mobile, why not nurture them via mobile? On average it takes 90 minutes for an email to be opened while a text message only 90 seconds. Plus 91% of Americans are within 3 feet of their mobile device 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Make sure to use a trusted partner for your SMS marketing service and stay up to date on Federal TCPA Laws and Carrier Regulations.

Are you optimizing for mobile search?

Google is dominant here with a 95% market share. Google has a separate set of requirements for Mobile SEO. Read more at our 3 part Mobile SEO series here

Mobile SEO Part 1

Mobile SEO Part 2

Mobile SEO Part 3

Summary

In summary, if you are doing Inbound Marketing, you are doing the right thing and will reap the rewards of market share from it. However, if you are not focused on how mobile fits into your Inbound strategy, you could be sending the wrong signals with bad mobile experience that could harm your brand in the long run or you may just be leaving leads on the table by not using mobile conversion tools to their fullest potential. Either way, your action item should be this: Go to your analytics account. Click on Traffic Sources. Click on Mobile. Click on Devices. This will tell you what percentage of your overall inbound traffic is mobile originated and would be a great place to begin creating your mobile marketing strategy!

Push Notification Marketing, Good or Bad?

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With the onslaught of mobile technology developing quicker and faster each day, it is hard to keep up with all the new innovations, both from the marketer’s standpoint as well as the consumer’s standpoint. Among these new innovations, one has become particularly intriguing because of its uses for the consumer for news updates, weather updates, app updates, requests, and calls-to-action, as well as its uses for advertisers as a marketing tool. This new innovation we’re talking about is push notifications.

Push notifications are a way for app developers to share general news with their clients along with presenting new apps and new features. However, push notifications can have the tendency to become annoying or irritating to the consumer, because if they’re misused, they can put the user under a barrage of unwanted and invasive material. The fact is, consumers love push notifications when they’re useful, and they usually are if the user knows how to implement them, but if they’re being used to spam consumers or bombard them with advertising, many users do not know how to eliminate them, and eventually become unhappy with their notifications. This results in the consumer automatically disabling all future push notifications, even though they have the option to personalize their notification settings. The problem is a lot of consumers are not aware that they can do this.

The style that push notifications are presented to you in will depend on the type of smartphone you are using. The most prominent one, being the iPhone, allows you to customize your push settings, but you have to do it through the iOS settings, not within the actual app. iPhone users have the ability to go to the Settings on their phone, click on Notifications, and they will be shown a Notification Center with all the apps they’re receiving notifications from, as well as a separate list underneath it that shows the apps they aren’t receiving notifications from. Oftentimes, iPhone users attempt to adjust notification settings within the actual app, but depending on the app, this can be difficult to find sometimes or difficult to adjust, so customers grow frustrated, delete the entire app, and either re-upload it or simply never mess with it again.

The Android and Blackberry run off Android’s program, so their setup is similar. On both phones you can adjust the notification settings within the actual app pretty easily (much easier than the iPhone). You do not have to go to the actual phone settings to adjust notifications.

Knowing all this, there is still the debate whether or not push notifications are good or bad. It seems the value of the notification to the consumer depends on what it is. Consumers love push notifications when they are used for breaking news events, breaking weather events, sports events, and game notifications, such as notifying the user that it is their turn in the game. However, they become extremely turned off towards notifications when they turn into spam or are overzealous in their notifications. A user only wants a certain number of notifications, so when companies cross the line and use push notifications to advertise, or even simply send too many notifications for something that could’ve been sent in one notification, consumers become distraught and will probably eliminate either the notifications from the app, or the app altogether.

The truth is that there is a fine line between prompting the consumer with useful push notifications and bombarding them with spam. If you choose to use push notifications to advertise for your company, you have to be careful not to cross the line, or you will probably be more detrimental to your cause than helpful. The jury is still out on push notifications because consumers are still learning how to adjust the settings for their own personal use, and marketers are still learning how to advertise to consumers without going overboard. You can choose to use push notifications to promote your company or business, but your success will depend entirely on how well you toe the line between being useful to the consumer, and being annoying.

Mobile Marketing Statistics 2012

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Gone are the days of traditional marketing techniques as the only means of attracting clients and customers. Sure, traditional marketing still definitely has its place in the world, but marketing companies have seen huge growth in marketing by way of mobile marketing. Not so sure? Come check out our Mobile Marketing Statistics 2012 and see for yourself. Even if you’re not quite ready to take the jump into mobile marketing, these stats are sure to help you see just how big mobile marketing has gotten, and the fact that it’s not going anywhere but up.

According to Hubspot, almost half of all U.S. businesses (more specifically 45%) are using some form of mobile marketing. Of all marketing agencies out there, about 47% of them plan to step up their mobile game in 2013. The most common forms of mobile marketing are as follows: Mobile websites come in first at 70%, Mobile Applications come in second at 55%, and QR Codes come in a close third with 49%. Mobile marketing is expected to account for roughly 25% of overall E-commerce revenues by the end of 2017. By the year 2016, mobile marketing advertising revenue worldwide is expected to expand by over 3.5 times it’s current size.

So how does it work?
For starters, you’ve gotta have that little gadget that everyone is so attached to–that no one can leave home without : their cell phone. Of the four billion cell phones out there (yes, you read that right, four billion), over a quarter of these are smartphones. Of those one billion smartphones, roughly 75% of those are either iPhones or Android powered phones. Over 75% of those total phones have text messaging (sms messaging) enabled.

Think about that for a minute: over 3 billion people can send and receive SMS messages at any time, day or night. What that means for you: the marketing messages you’re trying to get out there could be sent to almost half the world in mere seconds. Another perk of SMS marketing is that those messages are going directly to your clients and customers instead of possibly being filtered off into a spam folder, tossed out, or ignored like some traditional advertising outlets can be.

So with four billion mobile phones out there, what are their owners doing with them? Aside from just talking on them, many cell phone users are browsing the web, checking email, and using apps and mobile codes to help them shop.

Mobile web usage is up almost 70% from where it was in 2010. In the United States, about 8% of all web traffic comes from mobile users, up from 4.7%. Specifically, 14.6% of that mobile internet traffic is from smartphones, and 5.6% is from other mobile devices, such as tablets. Worldwide, mobile web traffic is up to 10%, over 160% more than where it was in 2010.

Of all local searches performed today, about half are done via mobile. Customers also shop around using their phone–either by a search, or by a native application. They’re checking online reviews and doing price checks while in store. One in five smartphone users said they would scan product barcodes, one in eight uses an application to do price comparisons. 29% of mobile users said they would scan a mobile tag, text in a keyword, or scan a QR code to receive coupons or discounts from a company.

Speaking of QR codes: 50% of smartphone users said that they have scanned a QR code. 80% of Americans can identify a QR code when they see one. QR code scans are up to almost 20%, up from under 14% (where they were at in April of 2011) in the United States alone.

Any company can benefit from mobile marketing, and these stats definitely go to show that mobile is here to stay. Hopefully they showed you that you should consider adding mobile marketing to your marketing plans today!

Optimizing Your Site For Mobile

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Mobile, Mobile, Mobile

If you haven’t already learned this by now, mobile is important. Yet, even though a lot of people know this, a majority of websites are not mobile optimized. In fact, only 10 percent of all websites are mobile friendly, 16 percent of marketers have developed a strategy for mobile, and only 14 percent of that 16 percent stated that they were satisfied with how their mobile strategy is working.

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So why is this happening? Why are companies having trouble taking advantage of what is obviously the most important thing to marketing? Well, it seems that people are becoming overwhelmed with all this information and don’t even know where to start. Mobile marketing is still very new territory after all, so it’s a good idea to prioritize what’s important to you and your company before making any mobile marketing decisions. Because not only can taking on everything at once become overwhelming, but not all companies have the money and resources to do all of this at once.

How To Prioritize

The 5 choices you have to prioritize are mobile SEO, mobile site optimization, mobile email optimization, mobile applications, and SMS. The key to prioritizing these is remembering what you are trying to accomplish as an individual and as a company.

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The first option is prioritizing mobile SEO.
This is a great option to start with if people are in large part using search engines such as Google to find your site. This doesn’t always mean they are just looking for your specific company, but they can also be searching for a problem that your company can solve for them. The 3 main ways people search for content on the internet is through branded queries(the searcher knows your name, but they need more information to push them over the hump to make a transaction), interrogative queries (the searcher doesn’t know your name, but they want what your company is offering; this is why you want to show up first on Google), andtransactional queries (the searcher knows your name and knows what you offer, but they don’t know where to go or where to get it.) All 3 of these types of searches are reasons why you would want to optimize your mobile site’s SEO. Because if you’re showing up at the top of these search results, people are clicking on your site, your site traffic goes up, and you are generating more leads.

The next option is mobile site optimization.
This is a good option to prioritize if people are already visiting your site regularly without using a search engine to find you. You can measure this in the amount of direct traffic your site is generating. Direct traffic is anyone who is visiting your site without the assistance of a search engine. Usually companies who focus on mobile site optimization are 1 of 3 types. They are either an ecommerce company that primarily conducts its business through the internet, a company that sells event-based material such as movie and concert tickets, or a company that stores information on its site that people would want to access on the go. Examples of this would be banks (people like to check their balances on the go) or airline companies (people like to check their flight information.) Again, prioritizing mobile site optimization is best for companies that are already getting direct traffic on their sites.

The third option is mobile email optimization.
Mobile email optimization is for companies that already have their customers in the middle of the sales funnel. The customer has already visited your site and has probably done business with you in some shape or form. Now you want to nurture your lead by sending your customers emails to remind them of the products, services, and possibly event special events your company if offering. The key to optimizing your mobile email is to ensure that your emails look good across all mobile platforms (smartphones, tablets, etc.) You also want to keep your subject line at or under 20 characters, make sure the message is clear and interesting, it’s being sent in both plain text and HTML, there’s limited images in the email, and it doesn’t necessitate excessive scrolling and pinching to read it. You also want to remember if you are directing people to landing pages on your website, that these web pages are mobile friendly and easy to read on a mobile device.

The next option is mobile applications, or mobile apps for short.
Firstly, before you even think about focusing on this, make sure you have a good idea. It’s been proven that for every 4 apps downloaded on a mobile phone, only 1 will be used again after that initial use. Remember, the best and most useful apps are ones that help your current and potential clients do something better or easier. Examples of this would be placing orders for purchases, calculating common industry calculations, or getting alerts for problems or opportunities. Using “fun little ideas” for mobile apps is a waste of time and will not achieve the goals you and your company have set.

Another option to focus on is SMS.
SMS optimization is perfect if you are wanting to focus on optimizing your current customers’ experience. This isn’t a bad idea since so many companies focus so much on getting newleads that they forget the ones they already have. SMS optimization includes providing service alerts, reminders, making service sign-up quicker and easier, and communicating with active customers. If you are wanting to focus on any of these facets, then SMS optimization should be your priority.

Focusing In

Of course, it would be great if you could do all 5 of these at once, but most companies do not have the money or resources to do that. Focusing on one of these methods is a great place to start, especially if your company is at that particular stage in acquiring clients.

Mobile Marketing Trends & Ideas for Small Business

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Mobile Marketing on the Rise

A recent report shows that Mobile Marketing is increasingly being adopted by small business. It is for this reason that our company is experiencing incredible growth as marketing companies and consultants are seeking to quickly become Mobile Marketing Experts. They want to provide strategy, software and campaign support to the small businesses that rely on them for marketing and advertising guidance.

Mobile-Marketing-for-Small-Business

There are many ways a small business can increase traffic and sales using the mobile channel. These include SMS Marketing, QR Codes, Mobile Web Sites, Mobile Coupons, Apps and more. Each one brings it’s own unique benefits and challenges but together they create a mobile strategy that if tied to Social Media strategy is a very, very lucrative endevour.

“SMS Mobile Marketing” began trending in only February 2007 and has has seen a sharp increase in demand since then!

Saying that SMS is the workhorse of mobile marketing, a title from a recent blog post, is entirely true.  At the core of every small business mobile strategy should be SMS.  A mobile strategy without text message marketing is like a social media campaign without a “LIKE” or “FOLLOW” button – Pretty useless!

Consumer mobile coupon use is also on the rise.  People WANT to use their phones as coupons.  People WANT to scan QR CODES and see ‘what’s on the other side”, and those same people EXPECT your website to be mobile friendly when they visit it on their smartphone. For these reasons, it is no surprise that Mobile Couponing and Developing Mobile Web Sites are on the top of the “to-do” list at most small businesses. People love convenience and most smartphone users would prefer coupons and offers at their fingertips, on a device that is constantly on their persons, rather than in a binder or an envelope that commonly gets forgotten on the kitchen counter.

Today, the buyer has the power.

It is the power of selective consumption and the power of data driven decision.  This power comes through the convergence of Social Media, Search Engines and Mobile Technology.  Small businesses need to get found and convert mobile customers.  Once they are customers, good customer service will make them “fans” of the business.  You know, that old 80/20 rule, where 80% of your business comes from 20% of your customers.  Those customers in the 20% are your “fans”.  They are the ones that will like you on Facebook, follow you on Twitter or subscribe to your SMS Keyword by texting it to a short code. These fans are loyalist and they love to be rewarded for their loyalty. And along with loyalty, they also offer word-of-mouth references to others who are looking for services or products like the ones your company offers. Once you prove yourself to one customer, you’re opening the door for them to pass your name along to their friends and family. How many times have you found an app you really like and when you hear someone else mention needing something like it, you give your personal testimony about the app and then they download it for themselves?

Not only do you want to GET followers, likes and fans, but you want to GIVE them something as well. Having mobile rewards programs, mobile coupons, SMS vouchers for FREE gifts, and other CRMs are all great ways to keep your top customers engaged and in love with your marketing.

So by opening your company up to Mobile Marketing, you are able to draw in more customers, who then use your products and services, spread the positive feedback and attract more customers. You’re giving customers what they want – easy access to your companies website, rewards and convenience at their fingertips! What are you waiting for? Join the movement and get started with mobile marketing today!

What is the difference between Adaptive, Reactive and HTML5 Mobile Sites?

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responsive-or-adaptive

When you finally decide to take your company website mobile, there are three types of mobile websites to choose from. There are adaptive mobile sites, reactive mobile sites, and HTML5 mobile sites. All of these are responsive web designs which are built to provide the most favorable viewing experience possible for the end user. They provide the user with easy reading and navigation of the site on mobile devices while reducing the need to resize, pan, slide, and scroll while visiting you site.

The first type of mobile site is the responsive design. Responsive design is the use of media queries to serve different Cascading Style Sheets (CSS), allowing the site to change its appearance when viewed on different size screens. This can be accomplished with just plain HTML5 and CSS.

The second type of mobile site is the adaptive design. Adaptive design includes the CSS media queries of responsive design, but it adds Javascript based enhancements to change the site’s HTML markup based off the capabilities of the device. This is also called “progressive enhancement.”

An HTML5 mobile site, or HTML5 web app, is essentially a mobile website created in HTML5 using Jquery. The end result is a mobile site that looks like a native app, functions like a native app, and can even be saved to a smart phone with a Favicon on the home screen just like a native app, much like Facebook or Twitter.

Some say the HTML5 mobile web app could be the death of native apps. This is in large part due to the availability of 3G, 4G, and Wifi networks with high bandwidth and fast smart phone processors.

All these different types of sites are basically the same when seeing them from the point of view of the end user. The differences lie in the way they are set up and how they adapt or respond to each particular mobile device. With so many people today using smart phones, tablets, and mobile devices in general, it has become imperative for companies to go mobile, and these sites are the three best ways to do it.

For more information regarding adaptive, responsive, and HTML5 mobile sites, visit anchormobile.net.