Most UK and Irish small businesses missed out on the eCommerce revolution. That’s not surprising because according to Google at their recent ‘Think Local’ event in London, 70% of small businesses don’t have a website yet!
The mobile marketing revolution is in hand and it’s all about driving offline sales, so it is an opportunity that local business owners should jump on!
There are some key figures every business owner should know:
- 90% of people use the internet to search for something that they then buy offline.
- 38% of UK phone owners have a smartphone. This figure is predicted to rise to 55% in 2012, 65% in 2013 and 71% in 2014.
- 45% of smartphone owners use their phone in the purchase process
- 1 in 3 mobile searches are local searches and of these searches:
- 42% visit a local business website
- 41% visit a local business
- 36% phone a local business
So now that you know that the mobile revolution is under way, how can you take advantage of it? Google says there are 4 keys:
1. Be Found
Claim and optimise your Google Places page. You can follow the instructions on how to claim your Google Places page here.
Other ways to expand your mobile presence is to create a Facebook page for your business and claim your Facebook Places page.
2. Be Relevant
Run AdWords ads specific to your location – Google AdWords gives you the ability to target customers based on location with serious accuracy. You should take advantage of this by creating an AdWords campaign targeted just at people local to your business.
The radius you choose will obviously depend on the nature of your business. Do you deliver or do people have to come into your place of business? Do you offer a product or service that people are willing to travel for? Or do you offer a very local service where proximity is a big factor? E.g. a specialist solicitor can reasonably target a larger area than a local dry cleaners.
It is also possible to create an AdWords campaign specifically for mobile users. Mobile ads with ‘click to call’ buttons can be very effective for local businesses – and like all AdWords ads, you only pay for results, so you only pay when someone calls you.
If you have more than one business location then you should read about the location extensions in Google AdWords here to find out how you can improve your ads.
3. Be Local
Localise your web pages and run ads with local-specific copy. What does that mean? Let me give you an example. Let’s say you are an accountant and you have an office in Ealing, West London and another office in Islington, North London.
Instead of just running an AdWords campaign that targets London, you should create two individual campaigns – one that targets Ealing specifically and one that targets Islington specifically.
We won’t stop at just targeting by location. You should also make the copy in your ads and the web page the ads link to specific to the location. E.g. your Ealing campaign might have an ad that says:
Ealing’s Leading Accountants
Click now to see what your
Ealing neighbours said about us!
www.yourwebsite.com/Ealing
This ad would link to a page on your website that talks specifically about the benefits you can offer to people in Ealing. And of course, right at the top of the page you would include testimonials and feedback from your Ealing clients (just as your ad promised). Your landing page should also include a strong ‘call to action’, i.e. tell them what to do next – call you or visit your business. Make it as easy as possible for them to take this action.
Whether we’re talking about local marketing or marketing in general, the power of making your message very specific to the group of potential customers you are targeting is not to be underestimated.
This ‘message to market match’ is extremely powerful as it forces (in the nicest possible sense of the word!) people to apply the benefits of your offering to themselves.
4. Be Mobile
The figures at the top of this page show that your customers are searching for you on mobile devices. So once you’ve taken the ‘Be Found’ steps, your customers will be viewing your website on their smartphones.
Here’s the question – have you viewed your website on a mobile phone? Do you know what experience your mobile customers have when they find you?
The easier it is to view and interact with your website on a mobile device, the more success you’ll have in the mobile revolution!
You can build a mobile version of your website that will automatically display on smartphones and other mobile devices. If you have a WordPress based website all you need to do is install a mobile theme for your site.
This is one of the many reasons that we build all our sites on WordPress!
Ready Get Involved In The Mobile Revolution?
Are you ready to take your business mobile? Implement the steps outlined in this article and you’ll be well on your way to mobile profits. If you have any questions as you put this stuff to use, just holler in the comments section below and I’ll help you out.
Want to get involved but doing all of this stuff sounds a bit too complicated? Worry not, that’s what we’re here for – contact us to talk about how you can get more customers using mobile marketing.
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