Use Mobile Marketing to Put Your Business in Your Customers' Pockets

The newest and best way to reach your target audience is mobile marketing. To learn how to market your business on mobile devices, which will reach more people than ever, read the tips and advice presented here.

Don’t just send messages to your customers out of the blue. If you contact your customers, make sure you are contacting them with a purpose. You do not want to fail because you send random messages. Customers want information, not funny texts that they would normally get from a lose friend.

Make your point but keep it short when it comes to mobile content. Avoid long-winded product descriptions or complicated pages filled with links. Be sure your message gives the user a chance to take an action, and make that action simple. Short and sweet is what you are going for. This is a fast-paced world, and time is money!

Enlist the help of your friends and family to help with your mobile marketing campaign. To get an opinion that is not biased, you could hire a tester.

Be aware of how the competition is using social media to market their products. Do what it takes to differentiate yourself from the competition.

Keep in mind that there can be different levels of mobile customers because of various outside influences; also note that once the entire market changes then customer base changes as well. Older technology can turn away potential customers, so you will need to be informed on all new technologies in order to compete.

You will see a good rise in profits with mobile marketing. Increasing numbers of people are going mobile and using devices like smartphones to access social networks and buy apps. These are both great new areas that you can expand your marketing strategies into. It is a must that you deliver your marketing efforts to the customer.

As a user of mobile marketing campaigns, you need to understand how mobile devices show advertisements so that you can properly configure and design your sites and advertisements. Try out a variety of mobile devices so you can gauge how your site and communications look to different customers.

Mobile Apps are really easy to make. You already know that giving your customers free apps is a good idea, but did you realize you could be giving away your own custom-built app? When your business offers a specialized app, your mobile marketing efforts will really take off. Your application could offer a number of features.

Dedicated short code is the best choice. You will pay more, but your brand will be protected. This can provide you with legal coverage as well.

Finding ways to add feedback when people receive your marketing ads is great for finding out how they like what you’re doing, possibly making them a customer too. Customer input is valuable to any business. Even if the feedback is negative and customers tell you what is wrong with your advertisements or product, you learn where you can improve.

Read More

Why Restaurants Should need a Mobile App?

If you think that mobile apps are solely for big name brands like Walmart, Amazon, Flipkart and Food Panda, you are wrong. More and more small and midsize businesses are following the mobile trend, understanding that an effective mobile strategy involves more than just a mobile-friendly website.

In fact, these days you’ll notice that many small businesses you interact with in your everyday life have their own dedicated mobile app — be it the corner coffee shop or the beauty spa downtown. These companies are ahead of the game when it comes to taking their marketing to the next level.

In case you are still not sure why anyone would want to build their own mobile platform, here are the top seven benefits of going down this path sooner rather than later.

 
1. Be Visible to Customers at All Times

Statistics show that the average American spends more than two hours a day (!) on his or her mobile device. While probably only a handful of applications make up the bulk of this total usage, it doesn’t change the fact that each user has to unlock, scroll, and scan their device for the apps they’re looking for. Being “in the way” can be an advantage to your company, as our mind unconsciously does record every image and text (or well-designed app icon!) it comes across — even if it happens unnoticed.

2. Create a Direct Marketing Channel
 
Apps serve many functions: they can provide general info, prices, booking forms, search features, user accounts, messengers, news feeds, and much more.

One of the biggest benefits of having a mobile app is that all the information you’d like to provide to your customers – including special sales and promotions – is right at their fingertips. Through push notifications you’re getting even closer to a direct interaction, and can easily remind customers about your products and services whenever it makes sense.

3. Provide Value to Your Customers

Talking about on-hand information, how about digitalizing that loyalty program you have in place? Instead of sticking to the old point-collection card, make it possible for your customers to collect their rewards via your mobile app. The result? More downloads and more return customers. (Check out PunchMe, a service that lets you create smartphone-based loyalty programs.)


4. Build Brand and Recognition

A mobile app for restaurant can greatly contribute to your brand awareness. I’d like to break this topic down into two aspects, the combination of which will make your app a true winner:

Brand. A mobile app is like a blank billboard sign. You can do what you want with it; you can make it stylish, hip, functional, shocking, or informative. But what you really want to do is create an app that has features your customers will love, while at the same time is well branded and beautifully designed.
Recognition. The more often you can get customers involved with your app, the sooner they will be inclined to buy your product and/or service. In advertising this is called the “effective frequency”: as a rule of thumb, hearing and/or seeing your brand approximately 20 times is what will get you truly noticed.

5. Improve Customer Engagement

No matter whether you are selling flowers or spa services, your customers need a way to reach you. Having a messaging (or help desk) feature within your app can really make a difference in the way you communicate with your customers. Think about it: OpenTable, for example, built its entire business model around this principle. Instead of calling a restaurant for a table, you can book it with less than five clicks on their platform. Now think about it: How many customers would prefer to communicate with you via text than via phone?

Read More

Benefits of mobile apps for small Business

Apps are useful as a company’s mouthpiece. They are functional in providing information to customers regarding general customer profile, prices, promotions, news feed, product information and a lot more. Considering that Indian smartphone users spend mostly time on their phones, the idea of apps seems indispensable. All this with the simple functions of unlock, tap and scroll. But are apps only for huge business houses? Are they beneficial for small and mid-sized business enterprises too? If you have these queries in your mind then a quick view on the benefits of mobile apps will help you scale your small scale business to the next level.

 
• Connect with customers – According to Vserv’s report ‘Smartphone User Persona Report (SUPR) 2015’ the Indian smartphone base is growing at 26% CAGR from 2013 to 2017. The reason for this growth being Indians under the age of 25 years and a whopping 63% fall in that age group. So, if you want to target that age bracket, the best target would be – that’s right – apps.

• Know your customers well – Apps are a reliable way of knowing your customers’ likes, dislikes, budget constraints, age and lots more. This would help you strategize your marketing plan and save time and money too in devising advertising and marketing strategy.

• Builds customer relations – Mobile apps would help your business build customer loyalty over a period of time as well. You would grab eyeballs among clutter and build up a customer base by making a consumer connect, like promotions, special loyalty programs or any information. Plus, being just a tap away from the customer, 24×7 always helps.

So, you now have the benefits of mobile apps. However, be aware that developing the right kind of app tailor-made to suit and fulfill your specific requirement would involve specialized skills, time and resources mobilization. Thankfully, with sites like www.apponlease.com you needn’t panic. AppOnLease offers you the additional advantage of affordability so that you can divert the money saved into securing your business. And that too, with market research. So why wait? Get app-ready!

Read More