Mobile Marketing: What Local Businesses Should Know

In 2014, website visits from mobile devices continue to outpace all other forms of traffic. However, statistics indicate that many local businesses may still be behind the curve when it comes to taking advantage of mobile traffic. Here are some important statistics that you should be aware of if you still need to be convinced that mobile marketing is indeed important and should be one of the highest priority items in your marketing budget for 2014.

Customers Act Quickly
According to a Google Mobile Marketing Study, 88% percent of users that perform a search on a mobile device for a local business will reach out to a business in that industry within 24 hours. This means that your business could be losing out on a lot of inquiries if your site is not showing up in the results of those searches.

Many Customers Are Lazy
When it comes to local businesses, most customers tend to search for a business to patronize based on proximity to their own location. Many customers are lazy and won’t go out of their way to travel. Customers are less likely to search for a business that is further away and instead will search for the businesses that are coming up as the top results on their mobile devices based on their area.

Nearly 80% of Shoppers Have Used a Mobile Device to Shop
Mobile internet speeds are increasing rapidly and are even almost equivalent to most customers’ home broadband speeds. This means that it is more convenient than ever for customers to shop online using their mobile devices. More than 50 million users today use mobile devices to shop and this number is only likely to grow in the future.

So how can your business take advantage of these trends? If you are wondering what it will take in order to get your business to be patronized by shoppers using mobile devices then you need to rank highly on the websites and search engines that mobile customers are using.

Create a Mobile Site for Your Business
If your business does not already have a mobile-friendly site, then that is the absolute first step that you should take when deciding on how to take advantage of the mobile traffic. Your traditional website, unless it is already designed with responsive design, is not going to load quickly enough for mobile customers to do business effectively on your site. Also if your site is an e-commerce site, you will want to make sure that the mobile site for your business only has the features that mobile customers need in order to make purchase decisions quickly.

If your business does not have a mobile friendly site already, the first step to building one would be to hire a designer that can build a responsive website for you. A responsive website is the best option for building a site that is mobile friendly because a responsive website can utilize some if not all of the existing infrastructure for your site without having to replace it. In this way, you will save money down the line on updates and your customers will get a site that loads quickly and serves their needs on a mobile device.

Improve Your Presence on Local Sites
Sites like Google Local, FourSquare and Twitter are all sites that you can use to improve your presence in local search results. Start by opening accounts on these sites and to improve your results, you should start by posting information that is relevant to your business.

Do you need assistance with mobile marketing? Get in touch with Infintech Designs today and we’ll review your site and provide you with a comprehensive plan.