As a small business owner, I am sure you know that it can be very difficult to find new, affordable ways to advertise and gain more customers. In this article, I am going to show you how to gain more customers with an affordable, five step digital marketing system that could take your company to next level.
With digital marketing, it’s possible that you can expand your reach and dramatically increase your conversions while spending less than $150 per month!
So you see, online marketing doesn’t have to break the bank!
The key to this powerful marketing system is all about MOBILE!
There’s a revolution going on in America and it’s called MOBILE. It‘s been said by Forbes that mobile is the future of everything.
Others, like Search Engine Land, have called this new phenomenon – Mobilegeddon!
One thing is for sure – mobile technology isn’t only the future – it is the now!
In January of 2014, for the first time in history, Americans used mobile devices more than desktops to access the Internet. On April 21, 2015, Google changed it’s search engine algorithm to favor mobile websites when the search originates on a mobile device.
Google has about 65% of search engine market share, so this is very important for you as a local business owner to consider. Here are a few other facts that you should be aware of.
95% of smartphone users have looked for local information.
88% of these users take action within a day, indicating their immediate need.
61% have called a business.
So you see, mobile users convert many times better than other consumers.
Now, all you need are ways to reach mobile users in your local area without spending a fortune! That brings us to step one of the five step system.
Step 1 – Make sure your website is mobile friendly!
When a consumer searches for local services from their smartphone, they want a mobile friendly website or they very quickly leave and search your competitor who has a mobile friendly website.
According to a study done by Google, "nearly 2 in 3 users are unlikely to return to a mobile site where they had trouble and 40% said they would rather visit a competitors mobile site instead". That explains why Google now gives preference to mobile websites. They want to provide the best results for their customers.
You can test your website for mobile friendliness using the Google Mobile Friendly website tool.
Steps 2, 3, 4, and 5 can be performed in any order depending on your immediate goal and your budget.
Step 2 – Offer loyalty rewards to keep customers coming back.
After you are mobile friendly, but before spending money to generate more business, I would suggest that you incorporate a loyalty rewards program.
Everyone is offering loyalty rewards these days because they work! Gas stations, grocery stores, office supply stores, restaurants, auto parts retailers, even major department stores – all offer loyalty rewards because they work!
What happens if you start a mobile advertising campaign and it’s a great success? Don’t you want to make sure all those new (and existing) customers keep coming back? A loyalty rewards program is easy to implement, affordable and will help secure your customer base.
Step 3 – Hyper-Local Advertising
So now you’re mobile friendly and you have a mobile rewards program in place. How about generating more customers by mobile display advertising?
If you want very targeted advertising go with hyper-local ads. With hyper-local, you’re ad is seen only by consumers, 1) who are on smartphones, and 2) who are in your area. That is a great target to shoot for!
According to a recent Cisco survey,
44% of consumers say that they would like brands to deliver deals and coupons to their mobile devices.
46 percent of respondents said they wanted personalized promotions delivered via a touchscreen or smartphone.
And according to several marketing studies, SMS text messages have an open rate of 98 percent! (Compare that to your print media!)
Step 4 – Affordable Social Media
You may be thinking, “social media is too time consuming – I am not very creative and I don’t have time to post stuff every day“. Well, now there are new social media technologies that will help you to automate the process. So if you have an hour or so per week, you can sit down and write several short posts then schedule your posts to go live on different days of the week.
The best social media platforms will even allow you to choose content from other sources so you never need to write anything yourself! If you still don’t feel that you have enough time, ask one of your “socially literate” employees if they would be interested in becoming your “in-house social media manager“.
You can even merge your social media with your loyalty rewards to offer digital coupons and special deals for Facebook fans and Facebook likes.
Step 5 – Generate free leads!
Step 5 may actually be the first step that you’ll want to take after getting your website mobile optimized. Step 5 entails getting free leads from giant search engines like: Google, Yahoo, and Bing, as well as getting more business from business directories and review sites like: Yelp, Merchant Circle, Citysearch, YellowPages.com, Local.com, and more!
In order get these free leads, you need to get listed and verified on these giant search engines and business directories. Unfortunately, getting listed and verified on big search engines and business directories can be a time-consuming, very tedious chore.
Many companies provide this service for $300/per month and more! But be advised, you don’t need to pay nearly that much!
Now let’s summarize. When you're done with the five step system…
1 – Your website is mobile friendly,
2 – You’re keeping customers loyal and sending out digital deals and special offers,
3 – You’re advertising to serious buyers via hyper-local mobile advertising.
4 – Your social media is helping spread the word about your business because customers are sharing their experience at your business.
5 – You’re generating free leads from Google, Yahoo, Bing, and all of the other search engines. You’re also getting more business from big business directories and review sites like: Yelp, Merchant Circle, Citysearch, YellowPages.com, Local.com, and more!
I hope this information was helpful.
Written by Carl Hartman of www.drmwebgroup.com
Mobile Website Designer & Mobile Marketing Expert
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