Using a small business loan for creating a solid marketing strategy is imperative for companies. Without effective marketing, enterprises will have trouble attracting and retaining customers. If there are not new customers choosing your company and then remaining loyal, it can be next to impossible to grow the company or expand into new markets.
One of the most crucial forms of marketing is the mobile channel. Increasingly, more customers are using their smartphones and other mobile devices not only for watching videos and checking their social network feeds, but they’re also shopping and looking for new deals. According to a study by comScore, mobile usage is growing at a steady pace, and it already accounts for 60 percent of U.S. users’ time spent on digital media. Meanwhile, TradeMob noted that, on a daily average, Americans use their mobile devices a total of three hours and 40 minutes, a 35 percent year-over-year surge. Small business owners can take advantage of these significant usage times by ensuring their company not only has a mobile-friendly website but also by creating a mobile app specifically for the business.
Here are five ways small business owners can boost their mobile marketing strategy:
Make your page lean and functional
Since mobile devices and smartphones tend to have much smaller screens than traditional PCs, small business owners need to ensure their mobile-enabled web pages are lean and functional. Having too much information can make it difficult for consumers to navigate the website, while adding graphics and features that are too flashy or take up too much bandwidth can cause the web page to take too long to load, thereby making it unattractive to mobile users.
Create a mobile app
While having a mobile-friendly website is important, creating a mobile app can be even better for your company. Mobile apps set you apart from the competition and provide the company a dedicated channel for selling their products or services. When a customer downloads your app, it’s there on the phone acting as a constant reminder anytime the person flips through their screen. This keeps your company top of mind while also ensuring you maintain a solid digital presence. In addition, customers would rather use mobile apps too. According to SmallBizTrends, 85 percent of customers feel more comfortable using a mobile app than a mobile-enabled website.
Many apps, such as FourSquare, Facebook or Google+ allow customers to check-in when they’re shopping at a particular store. By offering incentives for individuals to do so, such as a coupon, deal or prize, it shows up on these customers’ social network feeds and provides free word-of-mouth publicity for the company, since everyone on the feeds will see that the person check-in there.
Embrace text marketing
Much like an email marketing campaign, using text messages allows companies to directly reach out to individual shoppers via one of their most preferred communication methods. Having customers opt-in to the texting campaign to receive special alerts, rewards or unique messages from the company allows you to speak directly to them without any intermediaries.
Build a database for future marketing
Creating a mobile app allows you to collect, analyze and further use a significant amount of consumer data that you can use for future marketing campaigns. According to MarTech Advisor, deeper insight into customers’ purchasing habits and spending abilities allows small business owners the ability to tailor their sales and promotions directly to individuals, and ideally pitch the precise product a particular customer is seeking.