At the beginning of 2009 I was in the U.K. rubbing shoulders with all kinds of marketing minds and the topic of ‘mobile marketing’ kept on coming up. Everyone was talking about it and as embarassing as it is to admit now, I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.
I thought mobile marketing was placing signage on taxis or the back of rickshaws. That’s mobile, right?
Of course what they were actually talking about was getting marketing messages out through mobile devices. Even back then I saw the potential but I didn’t really get how it all worked. Fast forward two years later and I’m proud to say, “Dude. I get it. I REALLY get it.”
Let’s look at the facts first. When anyone over the age of sixteen leaves the house they bring three things – a wallet, keys and a cell phone. The cell phone is on 24 hours per day and on the person 18 of those 24 hours. There are approximately 2 billion Internet connected computers in the world but 5 billion cell phones. For every phone call a person under the age of 40 makes, she sends 5 text messages.
Speaking of text messages… While you would be lucky to get an open rate of 20% on an email campaign, 95% of all text messages get read and the majority of those messages are read within an hour of being sent.
It is also estimated that over 50% of all conversations taking place on social media (Facebook, Twitter, Four Square, etc.) are created on mobile devices. I don’t know of any business owner that still thinks he or she shouldn’t have at least some sort of social media presence.
You’re likely thinking, “Interesting stats but what does all this mean?”
Marketing goes where the eyeballs are. Look around at cell phone usage now. It is crazy. Everyone is texting, talking, sending pictures and videos and listening to music on cell phones or iPads. Personally, I think it is sad that everyone is isolating themselves from human contact but I also see the potential to reach anyone, anytime – as long as it is done in a way that doesn’t annoy or offend.
The point is to set up a mobile version of your site now. Get people to opt-in to your sms list and start rewarding them for doing so. Stop paying $5 per click on Adwords and pay $0.05 per click on a mobile network. Make it as easy as possible for mobile users to reach you. Click to call is ideal for this. It is lead generation on steroids.
Mark my words, we haven’t even scratched the service of what is going to happen to marketing over the next 3 years. Everything is going to go to mobile and on-demand. Traditional ad agencies are going to be scrambling while businesses that ‘get’ social media and how it can be leveraged through mobile devices are going to eat up everything.
Small and local businesses that get on it first will be poised to win. The restaurant owner with an SMS list of 1,000 customers doesn’t need to sit in his empty restaurant on a Tuesday night. One text saying, “Chef went crazy and made too many springrolls again. Free springrolls if you get here before they’re gone” will bring in customers at very minimal costs.
More importantly, if mobile marketing is done properly, we can actually provide a value-add service to consumers. I’m busy. I don’t want to search for stuff and I don’t want to think too much. Send me text specials or coupons to the movies on my phone. I’ll use them.
Get wireless, go mobile. Your customers already have.
With the end of the year just around the corner and the holiday rush almost upon us you might be thinking that there isn’t enough time left in the year to boost the search rankings of your website. That isn’t the case. Follow these five easy steps and watch the love Google will give your site.
Structure your site properly. Make sure all of the pages of your site are within two clicks of your home page. Include your keywords in title tags and descriptions and always link your pages together using your main keywords in your links. We geeks call this ‘anchor text’ and it is what Google uses to determine what that page is about.
Submit a sitemap to Google and the other search engines. It is shocking how many sites Google doesn’t even know about. If your site is built on WordPress or another major CMS system, this will be done automatically for you. If it isn’t you’ll have to submit your sitemap manually. Either way, make sure it is done.
Get more links to your site. The number and quality of other sites that link to you is the primary factor that Google looks at when ranking your website. It is important to get both a lot of links through social bookmarking, social networking sites and directories but also to get high authority sites to link to you. Press releases and guest blogging both work well for getting high quality links.
Get social. Many SEO services providers don’t believe that links from sites like Facebook and Twitter count for much but they’re wrong. All links to your site count and leveraging social media is smart. If one person with a large following likes your site it can be passed along through thousands of followers. This doesn’t only increase the number of links to your site but also immediately boost the direct traffic to your site.
Be helpful. Offer suggestions on forums and provide helpful comments on blogs. Drop in links to your site when they are relevant but provide value to the community first and foremost. Yes, links are important but you’ll be shocked to see your links and direct traffic soar as a result of just being nice.
At the end of the day, the Internet is called the Information Super Highway for a good reason. People are snooping around the web looking for answers to their problems, questions and concerns. When you provide the best solutions you’ll quickly become recognized as the expert in your particular area and guess what? People love to do business with experts. They will come to you and they’ll pay your asking price. They’ll pass around the information you provide to their friends and colleagues and all of this buzz will continue to increase the number of links back to your site. As a result, your search rankings will improve AND you’ll discover than helping people feels pretty darn good too.
It used to be that anyone thinking about doing business with you would first consult with their colleagues or friends to see if any of them had worked with you before. If not, they would likely turn to the Yellow Pages and give you a call. That would put you in a good position because you have total control of the information they receive about you and your company.
Five years ago, that same potential customer would get online and visit your website, learn about your products and services and contact you if they were interested. Again, a good situation for you to be in as you have total control over what appears on your website.
Today, things have changed. Social media sites like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc. have become so powerful that they constantly appear at the top of the search engine rankings. More importantly, consumers are more apt to trust the information found on these sites because they believe this information is posted by non-partisan people ie. your happy or disgruntled customers and it is more likely to provide them with an honest assessment of what you have to offer. (more…)
I often go on about Web 2.0 and how we should all be using social networking sites to help us promote ourselves or the products and/or services we’re selling.
I was even planning on making a video about this very topic but lo and behold, Perry beat me to it and he did such a great job, I’m passing it on to you.
This is a very clear explanation of the right way to use social media to generate buzz. Great stuff.
At the beginning of 2009 I was in the U.K. rubbing shoulders with all kinds of marketing minds and the topic of ‘mobile marketing’ kept on coming up. Everyone was talking about it and as embarassing as it is to admit now, I didn’t have a clue what they were talking about.
Save yourself $10 by entering your email address below to receive my latest guide. Alternatively, you can buy it on Amazon.com.
Facebook
Twitter