As a business owner, you know that one of the most important parts of your business is marketing and promotion.  Reaching people with the right message about what you do is crucial to getting prospects to try you and getting customers to come back to you.  In just the last two decades, there has been a dramatic shift from reaching people by newspapers, radio and broadcast television to reaching them on their personal computers.  That does not mean that the need to advertise in newspapers, radio and/or television has gone away entirely.  But it does mean that they take up a smaller percentage of what companies spend on promoting their business.

It is clear that people are spending more time than they used to, accessing the Internet from their mobile devices.  As a matter of fact, according to a report in E-Marketer, a leading marketing news and research company, as of mid 2011, people are on average spending at least one hour engaged on their mobile phones throughout the day.  In the United States, that is a 30% increase over the calendar year in 2010.  It is safe to say that for the near future, businesses will have to be intentional about what they do to reach consumers on their mobile devices. But that leads to the question, of being intentional with what? 

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What does it mean to do mobile marketing on purpose? More importantly, how can it bring a business more profits?

It may sound strange to hear that the website that you have is not enough to engage your customers and prospects.  For many businesses who have invested hundreds (sometimes thousands) of dollars in putting together a website that works, it almost sounds like 'hype' to say that you need a second website.  Although there are certain expenditures that are only 'hype', meaning that you could profit just as well without them, a mobile website is not one of them.

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You probably don't need a mountain of statistics to tell you that people are now spending more time on their mobile phones, than they have in years past.  You also know that the key factor that has changed all of that is internet accessibility...

The fact that people are spending more time using their mobile devices can be either an enormous opportunity, or an enormous headache, for your business.  The headache comes as a result of the new questions that mobile device use causes business owners to ask:

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1)         Will customers and prospects still visit my website? If so, how can they see it on that little screen?

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2)         If they are on the phone and not at their computer, will they read my emails?

Companies are now taking advantage of SMS Text Message marketing to build a more profitable business.  What text messaging offers the business is the ability to construct a contact database from the mobile telephone numbers of their patrons.   Of course, having a contact database is not significantly different from having an email or newsletter list, except for people's response to receiving text messages.  Currently, according to multiple research firms, SMS messages are opened and read at a rate of 90%, and this compares to average email open rates of 39%.  This means that when your business promotes itself using a text message, you can generally assume that the message has, at least, been read.

When we think of mobile marketing, we are usually thinking in terms of two primary areas of concern.

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1) We are thinking about whether a company has a mobile optimized website, and

2) We are thinking about whether or not the company is suited well for a text messaging campaign. 

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In the case of needing a mobile optimized website, it doesn't really matter what your business sells, your location will benefit on a local level from having a mobile optimized website. 

Business owners and managers must work to make sure that they are ready for the increasing number of people who now access the Internet from their mobile devices.  This shift has taken place over the last five years and is likely to continue.  In fact, it is expected that by 2014, that mobile Internet use, will overtake desktop internet use.  In some ways this may mean some dramatic changes in how businesses market themselves.  Websites will need to be optimized for a mobile experience, click to call campaigns will need to be utilized when possible and SMS text messaging will need to be creatively exploited in order to build a contact database or subscriber list. The move to mobile though does not mean that businesses can be less diligent in the key aspects of Internet marketing.  In fact, it is just the opposite. 

When customers' wallets seem to be tight in a slow economy, business owners have to be prudent with the dollars that they spend.  If they choose to spend on advertising, the returns need to be evident.  The connection between starting a new project and finding new revenues needs to be clear from the start.  There is always room for experimentation with new ideas; however, it should have an intended focus: more profits for the company.

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On one hand, you are developing systems to get prospective buyers into your location in the short run.  Even if you need to use a discount to attract them, your business needs more foot traffic into the location in order to make sales.  On the other hand, you are maintaining your systems so that you can get those customers back in the door (sooner rather than later) and help them to find more value at your business so that they can spend more...

There is no question that the mobile revolution is changing the way we live and communicate.  People are acquiring mobile devices at an increasing rate.  Nielsen, the television ratings company analyst, says that the growth of Apple's IPhone was at least 10 times faster than the growth of America Online.  This speaks to the rapid rate of adoption to this new technology.

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 And when consumers acquire them, they keep them close by; as 91%, according to Morgan Stanley, of all US citizens have their mobile device with them at all times.  Therefore, if you don't have all of the market share in a certain product or service area; those who have not tried your store or location can probably be reached on a mobile device.

In our last discussion, we talked about one of the fundamentals of the attraction process: search engine marketing.  Search engine marketing utilizes your understanding of the major search engines: Google, Yahoo and MSN Bing.  Your goal is to intercept prospective buyers who are looking for information before they make a purchase.  Of course this means that your website will need to show up on the first page of search results, when a searcher types in a keyword that defines the problem that your business solves.  

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Once visitors find your website, there are some considerations.  You will need to make sure that you have taken care of certain details on your website as you work on getting your website in position to intercept buyers.

In this series of lessons we have been discussing what a business will need to do to adjust to the landslide of people now accessing the Internet from their mobile device.  This is going to be essential to attracting new clients and integrating them into your marketing funnel.  Assuming that you have worked to optimize your website for SEO or search engine optimization; it is time to discuss what you will need to actually have as part of your website.

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If you recall, your website, was not originally conceived to display properly on a mobile device.  It was never intended for that purpose.  We asked you as business owners, to take a challenge and visit your own website.  Most of those who took the challenge found that not only did their website not display in a flattering way; it was probably difficult for a user to navigate it to find the information they wanted. 

Regardless of what your business sells, you are well served by having a list of people that you can keep in contact with about your products and services.  In fact, as it grows with an increasing number of targeted, interested buyers, your business is actually building a real asset.  Although your business may be good at acquiring new customers; it is difficult to maintain that way of doing business indefinitely.  In order to source a new client, market to them and then to attract them into your location all costs money.   Even when acquiring those new customer lead to a profitable week or month, it is, fairly expensive to grow your business in this way.