{"id":741,"date":"2013-06-25T14:02:17","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T14:02:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/?p=741"},"modified":"2013-06-25T14:02:17","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T14:02:17","slug":"why-mobile-marketing-matters-to-small-business","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/why-mobile-marketing-matters-to-small-business\/","title":{"rendered":"Why mobile marketing matters to small business"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"smb-tech-trends\"<\/a>\u201cAmerica is not just a connected country now, but a mobile connected country, says Mike Vorhaus, president of research-based strategy consulting firm Magid Advisors.\u00a0 Research from the 2013 Magid Media Futures study<\/a> indicates that smartphone ownership has broken the majority barrier at 61 percent of online users;\u00a0 44 percent of the population owns a tablet, up from 30 percent last year.<\/p>\n

With the U.S. population increasingly connected on the go, many small business owners are reaching out to customers and prospects through mobile marketing. The recently released AT&T Small Business Technology Poll<\/a>, which surveyed 1,000 small businesses nationwide, found that 66 percent of small businesses plan to invest as much or more in digital marketing \u2013 websites, social media and online advertisements \u2013 as they did last year.<\/p>\n

Among the small business owners polled, investment in mobile marketing solutions is a factor, with 71 percent indicating they are \u201csomewhat\u201d or \u201cvery likely\u201d to increase budgets for marketing via mobile devices<\/a>. Nearly one-third currently use \u201cmobile-friendly\u201d websites to engage with customers.<\/p>\n

Get started with mobile marketing<\/strong><\/p>\n

The first step of your mobile marketing effort should include creating a mobile website as an complement to the one you already have for computer access. Mobile websites, which consist of browser-based HTML pages that are accessed from the Internet,\u00a0 display content, images, video and data \u2014 all of it optimized for the smaller displays and for a touch-screen interface.<\/p>\n

Expand mobile marketing <\/strong><\/p>\n

Once you\u2019ve got your mobile website up and running, there are several mobile marketing activities that are not difficult to implement and generally cost effective.<\/p>\n

Mobile directories: <\/strong>Make sure your new mobile site is included in mobile business directories, such as Yelp for Mobile<\/a> or Google Places<\/a>. Craft a simple description of your small business products or services and include your hours of operation, phone number and address and a link to your website.<\/p>\n

Text Messaging:<\/strong> Plain text SMS and multimedia rich MMS are the more popular delivery channels today for mobile marketing. \u00a0Mogreet, a company specializing in text and video messaging, says that text messaging has a 95 percent open rate and is accessible to 98 percent \u00a0of all mobile consumers<\/a>. It is a convenient and effective technology to alert customers and prospects to your small business announcements \u2013 new products or services, special promotions or events. \u00a0Keep in mind that regulations require recipients must agree to opt in to your messages before you can send them any.<\/p>\n

Mobile advertising:<\/strong>\u00a0 Mobile ads download to consumers\u2019 smartphones or tablets when they download games, apps or ring tones.\u00a0 They can be especially effective \"smartphone<\/a>when you add a special offer. Also consider mobile banner ads, which like traditional banners take users to a specific offer or advertisement on a site once they click on an image.<\/p>\n

Mobile coupons:<\/strong> Mobile coupons are more cost effective and convenient to send than paper coupons. Consumers benefit because the coupons are available on their mobile devices so there\u2019s no need to clip them and no risk of leaving them at home. Plus they enable some small business owners \u2013 restaurant owners or retailers, for example\u00a0 – \u00a0to boost traffic on demand when things slowdown.<\/p>\n

Mobile email:<\/b> Optimize your emails for mobile. A report<\/a> issued in February from data and digital messaging solutions provider Knotice estimates that the share of commercial emails opened on mobile devices will surpass 50 percent in the next six to 12 months. Currently, 41 percent of commercial emails are opened on mobile devices, up from a 27 percent mobile email open rate a year earlier.<\/p>\n

When it comes to reach, mobile marketing enables you to communicate with buyers anywhere in the globe at any time. The question is no longer why mobile marketing for your small business but when.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cAmerica is not just a connected country now, but a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[510],"tags":[636,637,938],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=741"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/741\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.poly.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}