Mobile marketing campaigns are increasingly used by businesses, either as a part of a larger marketing and advertising solution or on their own, to attract new prospects while they’re on the go. This has of course been influenced by the now ubiquitous ownership of cell devices in North America (and elsewhere in the world). In particular, the more recent trend of mobile telephones that incorporate the client’s geo-location is dramatically boosting the use and interest in these sorts of campaigns.

One quite typical mobile marketing campaign approach is to supply a promotional product or service in return for the customer’s cellular phone number. Mobile coupons are texted to the consumer. This approach is very helpful in particular for localized organizations. Customers merely need to present the mobile coupons to the merchant for redemption when they’re ready. The client need only have their mobile telephone with them as opposed to having to keep track of a paper coupon.

Additionally, merchants will occasionally run a contest or other interactive means to receive cell numbers from consumers. Consider the following examples:

1. American Express was a sponsor of Wimbledon a short while ago. Amex ran a mobile contest for attendees to vote for the following day’s matches and who they believed the winners would be. Amex reported that during the tournament, they obtained a tremendous amount new credit card applications.
2. The television show American Idol enables viewers to text message (vote) for their preferred vocalist using their cellular telephones which is an integral element of the method in deciding who moves on in the competition. It enables the audience to participate much more significantly with the show and additionally supplies the cellular numbers of the followers to the show’s sponsors.

The potency of text message marketing in particular is starting to gain traction with organizations. So why is this? The major reason is that a large percentage of prospective buyers not only own mobile phones but basically have them by their side everywhere they go. The open rate for SMS text messages is spectacularly higher when compared with the open rates for some other earlier forms of communication such as e-mail. Coupled, this permits a company to get through to a potential client with well-timed promotions and incentives practically instantly.

Additionally, customer loyalty can be superior by being able to communicate notices about brand new product and service special deals as well as coming occasions like special sales.

Even better, mobile telephones provide two-way interaction, allowing a fantastic degree of connection between the business and the customer.

There is one warning to be mindful of however. Any kind of reputable campaign really should invariably run exclusively on an opt-in basis (and opt-out basis) and any business should really deliver clear expectations about what precisely the customer can expect by opting in. These particular expectations must then be honoured. Don’t make use of mobile telephone numbers acquired without the owner’s permission.

The focus of marketing is successfully reaching target audiences and mobile marketing trends open up an entirely brand new frontier for doing so, and really cost-effectively too. Secure an edge against your competitors for your organization now by understanding just how to broaden your current marketing plan to include mobile marketing.

If you are a local business owner, whether you currently do local internet marketing, print marketing, or both, consider this…

As a person in Western society, we have been conditioned that the more choices we have, the better. But there is a dark side to more choices which should be a reality check for consumers as well as business owners.

Is providing too many choices to your prospects and customer actually hurting your business? Psychologist Barry Schwartz suggests that choice has made us not freer but more paralyzed, not happier but more dissatisfied.

The human mind can only efficiently process up to seven pieces of new information at a time, plus or minus two. In the extreme, consider the 175 varieties of salad dressing that Barry refers to. How do you choose just one without taking the time to consider all of the options? Will you feel good about the choice you made if you don’t take the time? Will you just walk away because there are just too many options?

Consider your own business. Are you marketing to your own prospects? Are you trying to be all things to all people by offering a myriad of options? Or are you offering just a manageable number of options which will enable, rather than disable, your prospect’s buying decisions?

These considerations are relevant both offline and online. But arguably are even more important online because when your online prospect becomes overwhelmed, he or she is just a click away from leaving your site.

You need to be very clear about who your real prospect is. What is the conversation in their head? Write your copy to insert yourself into that conversation. Then keep your online visitor focused on what you want them to do next. One or two choices at a time, no more. If you can streamline your visitor’s experience in this way, you will be much more successful with your local internet marketing endeavours.

In the local online marketing world, the behavior of searchers who are looking for a local pizza shop is going to be pretty similar to that for a local auto repair shop isn’t it?  You might think so, but in fact, the following data demonstrates that there is a significant difference in how searchers go about finding a local merchant online in different industries.

Translation:

• IYP = Internet Yellow Pages sites (e.g., YellowPages.com, YellowPages.ca, etc.).
• Local = Local Search Sites.  These are sites that allow customers to add reviews about local businesses.  This includes sites like Google Local/Maps, Yahoo Local, MSN (now Bing) Local,  CitySearch etc..
• General = General searches through internet search engines (i.e., Google, Yahoo, Bing, etc.).

On the one end of the spectrum, the majority of people looking for auto services and home services (e.g., plumbing, HVAC, maid services, carpet cleaning, pest control, alarm installation, etc.) rely fairly heavily on internet yellow pages.  This may be due in part to many of these types of service providers not having a well-optimized web presence (or worse, having no web presence at all!).  Searchers may not expect to find what they are looking for through a general search.

It points to a significant market opportunity for these types of service providers to differentiate themselves by having a well-optimized site!

On the other end of the spectrum, most people looking for home improvement and banking & financial services go almost exclusively to general search to find what they are looking for, and few rely on IYP or local search.  Again this seems consistent with the relative weight of the investment required by buyers for these types of service providers.

Searchers are looking for more information than simple contact information before making their decision.

That said, it’s fascinating to me how online consumer behaviors are so different between industries.  Who would guess that searching behavior would be relatively similar between searching for a dentist and a pizza place, while being very different between searching for banking & financial services and insurance agencies?

The over-arching point here is that it is very important to understand how potential customers in your industry are searching for your business and to ensure that you can be easily found and provide the information they are looking for.

To be clear, this data should NOT be interpreted as indicating the single one channel should be utilized at the expense of the others for a given industry.  Rather, it suggests the relative importance or priority that should be given to each channel, but in the end, all channels should be covered appropriately to have the greatest chance of attracting your potential customers.

Still more compelling is the fairly recent development of the major search engines, most importantly Google, that now show universal search results AND business directory results AND geo-targeted paid ads and local results on the first page of results, and all without specifying a local search term.  This further underscores the importance of having a strong presence on each of these channels.

How well are you covering your bases right now for your local online marketing efforts?  Need help to do so?  Contact us…

Ever wondered what the intention of your potential customers is when they are searching online (and hopefully find your business rather than your competitor’s)?  If you knew, how would that inform your local search marketing efforts?

Comscore/TMP Directional Marketing released a study a few months ago with some very interesting data that provides insight into both of these questions.

Local Online Marketing Search Intent

I know…the legend requires a magnifying glass!  Here’s a summary of the four search intention categories in the order presented (top down):

1. “Looking for a particular business from which to buy from that I have already researched and identified.”
2. “Comparing competitor businesses that I have already researched and identified.”
3. “Looking for information about a specific product/service that I have already decided fulfills my needs.”
4. “Researching to help decide which product or service will fulfill my needs.”

The columns show the breakdown of these search intentions for 2007 and 2008, both online and offline.

The key messages that this data presents are the following:

• Your potential customers are increasingly going online to find information about available products or services in their local communities to address their problem (an 11% increase between 2007 and 2008 alone).
• Their need for information at this stage implies an opportunity to educate them about the problem itself and your solution.  This is a fantastic opportunity to help your future customer fully understand their problem and its implications, AND to introduce them to how your goods or services are the perfect solution to the problem.  The emphasis here is on solving their problem…not selling to them.
• By connecting with them initially, you have the beginnings of a relationship.  You can extend the initial connection to continue the dialogue and further the relationship over time.  They may not be ready to buy immediately.  And so whenever possible (and with their permission), you want to continue to send information to them that will be helpful to them to gain a better understanding of the problem and how to solve it.   The focus needs to stay on helping them to solve their problem, and not on getting your next sale.  But in the process, they come to know, like and trust you and become aware of how you can help them solve their problem.
• If you are successful in building a trusting relationship with them (and of course are able to solve their problem!), they are much less likely to spend time looking at your competitors, both online and offline, when it comes to making a purchase.
• If the customer doesn’t find your business in the early stages, it will be that much harder to intervene later, which may mean that a competitor with scoop the sale!

Consider these findings when you are looking at your organic local online marketing strategy.

The good news is that if you know your business (as you should!) in the first place, you are already a qualified expert to speak to your customers’ problems.  And there are lots of ways to leverage technology to easily deploy that knowledge and build these relationships without your ongoing intervention.  How cool is that!

:leadsnow:

Local marketing for small and medium-sized businesses (SME), that is marketing for SMEs that serve their local communities, still generally relies on the traditional marketing channels, even today. 

If a SME has a long-established presence in the community it serves, it may have the (unsustainable) luxury of depending heavily on its existing customer base and positive word of mouth from them for new business.  It may also have an advertisement in its local Yellow Pages and do periodic newspaper ads as well.  Seldom will a SME utilize radio or TV advertising because of the high costs associated with these channels.  Many will have their own web site (while others still don’t), but typically its content will be fairly static and not updated frequently (if ever…).  As a result, it’s not an information source that its existing customers rely on, nor is it a marketing source that new potential customers will rely on either, unless they know exactly how to navigate to it (through one of its other advertising channels).

For newer competitors who are trying to gain some traction in the same local area, how do they compete?  They could also take out Yellow Pages and local newspaper ads, but how do they really stand out against their well-established competitors there?  Fewer and fewer people actually use Yellow Pages or read their local newspaper anymore (do you?) so these channels are no longer particularly effective.  Seldom will they have the capital to invest in radio and TV ads especially when they are new and growing.  But even if they did have the capital, radio and TV are generally utilized much less than they used to be by customers.  They might rely on direct marketing or coupon mailers, but these types of ads often don’t get much attention anymore since many people don’t pay much attention to “junk” mail.

So what how does the smart SME leverage its advertising dollars to get the best exposure possible, regardless of whether they are new or long-established in their community?

The answer for both is local internet marketing, but each for different reasons.

“Only 26% [of small businesses] have invested in internet search marketing to promote their business, while 82% of consumers use search engines to find local businesses.” Source: Nielsen Online Custom Survey and WebVisible, Inc, 2008.

The up-and-comer looks to the internet for its local marketing efforts to run-around its long-established competitor and attract new customers from under their nose.  Afterall, they are able to present themselves at the very moment the potential customer is searching online for their services (or goods).

For the savvy long-established SME, they realize it is critical to re-calibrate their traditional marketing mix and leverage the internet, both to protect their business from hungry competitors and to exploit a very powerful new channel.

The exciting thing for both is that the internet continues to be game-changing and the local marketing spoils will go to whichever one claims and dominates their market’s search results.  It’s no longer about simply having a presence online.  The keys to the castle for any SME will be claimed by leveraging the internet to:

• be found by potential customers for search phrases that are purchase-relevant, and
• become the local authority for its goods or services in the community from a broader branding perspective.

And even better, unlike traditional marketing channels, local marketing online allows you to easily track what’s working, what’s not and what your return on investment is.

So the longer you wait, whether you sell your goods or services online or not, the harder it will be to catch your competitors…

ptin:

Small and medium-sized businesses used to be relegated to the relatively unknown, except for their loyal customer base.  local internet marketing has the power to change all of that (and quickly), and without having to dole out a huge amount of money to do it.

Why would you want to be the authority in your market?  Simple.  The more you are seen as the authority in your market, the greater the automatic transference of credibility and trust that will generally be given to you.  People buy from people they know, like and trust.  So greater visibility and authority translates into more leads and customers.

But what does having market authority really look like in the online world?  The following example will easily illustrate.

In the past, most small businesses would be delighted to be seen on the first page of Google when a potential customer searches for one of their relevant keywords.  Even if this occurs, the problem is that there can be up to nine (9) or more other sites that are vying for the searcher’s attention on the first page.  And this is only considering the free (“organic”) search results on the left hand side of the results page.  These account for approximately 70% of all clicks that will be made from the search results (with the other 30% show up on the right side which are paid advertisements).

And where you rank on the first page dramatically impacts the likelihood that the searcher will click through to your site.  The following shows the probability of a click-through for each result on a first page Google search:

So clearly, you will be rewarded with the most clicks (read “leads”) if you can show up on the first position of the search.  And this is where the traditional search engine optimization battle typically ended.

But here’s how you become the local market authority…

What if you were able to capture not only the first position but multiple positions on the first page?  This might be accomplished with listings that:

• are for your site specifically, or
• may be for other sites that are specifically about your business and link directly (and exclusively) to your site, or
• may be for local online business directories that include your business with a link directly to your site.

Your market authority could be bolstered further by including paid advertising in the right hand margin.

With all of these listings pointing to your business, you are able to push out the noise from other market competitors and make it very obvious who your potential customer should contact to fulfill their need.

To give you a sense of what this could look like for your business, take a look at the example below using the search term “new orleans chiropractor”.

There are no less than nine (9) listings that reference this one business on the first page results (note that there are two chiropractors who are affiliated through the same clinic and share the same phone number)!  Certainly in a city the size of New Orleans, there are plenty of chiropractors that one could choose from.  Not only do they have a very high profile for this specific search which has commercial intent (i.e., the searcher is likely searching to buy these services and not just browsing), but they have pushed out all but a few of their competitors as other options for the potential customer to investigate.

Imagine if you were in New Orleans and searching for a chiropractor…you would be hard-pressed not to call these folks wouldn’t you?

This is the power (and only the beginning) of being an authority in your market.  What impact could it have on your business if you were your market’s local authority…?

:leadsnow:

Seth Godin had a great post on his blog today which charts the correlation between bandwidth-synchronization when considering your marketing mix.  While the explanation is somewhat technical, it points to some interesting truths for local internet marketing.

The chart lays out a number of popular (and once popular) modes of communication. Where they are placed is based on the density level of information communicated (i.e., “bandwidth” – high bandwidth indicates an information-dense medium) and how synchronized in real time the medium is (i.e., a mode that allows immediate feedback is highly synchronized).  Together, these two aspects suggest the relative quality of each mode of communication.

So on the one extreme, mediums like IM (instant messaging) and Twitter are highly synchronous since you can interact very quickly in real time, but do not communicate much information at any one time.  On the other hand, a full-length movie communicates a tremendous amount of information, but is asynchronous in terms of the direct exchange of information between those who produce the movie and those who consume it.

While a medium that delivers rich content (high bandwidth) with immediate exchange (highly synchronous) would be the ultimate goal, this is often prohibitively expensive to deliver and therefore is only typically available to  a select audience.

This chart explains much about the exploding popularity of online video right now (note: the chart reflects YouTube, but can be interpreted to include all streaming video distribution sites) for online marketing in general and for local internet marketing in particular.  Why?  Online video is a relatively dense medium, albeit not long in duration, is delivered easily to a potentially vast audience, is somewhat synchronous (can receive feedback from viewers in a short timeframe) and is very cost effective for distribution (zero cost for the producer).

You’re probably aware of the explosion of online video consumption in the past couple of years.  But you may not be aware of the dramatic increase in the number of searches that are occurring on sites like YouTube.  This dramatic growth is making these sites very powerful search engines in their own right (did you know YouTube is now the second largest search engine?).

So in the context of small and medium-sized businesses (SEM), what does this all mean?

1. These three criteria (i.e., bandwidth, interaction, cost) should be considered when selecting the marketing mix for your business.
2. Video is the most powerful medium available right now when considering these criteria.
3. More and more people are searching on online video sites for the information they need.  You need to be there to meet them.
4. Part of video’s appeal for SEMs is that it lets your potential customers see, hear and “touch/feel” you which are all important ways that we learn about you and your business.  Video allows your potential customers to learn in all three ways, providing a rich, near-live experience for them.

So, what might you do differently based on this information in terms of your local internet marketing strategy going forward?  Tell us below…we’d love to hear!

ptin:

If you own a local small or medium-sized business and are serious about being found through local search marketing, optimizing your site for the right keywords is absolutely critical.

Keywords are the descriptive phrases that online searchers use to find something.  Sometimes the uninitiated will think they need to think these keywords up themselves.  “What would I type in to find my business?”.  Big mistake.

While it is fine to use your own ideas are a starting point, this should never displace solid keyword research based on hard historical data.

If you have never done keyword research before, you’d be amazed at how quickly you can put a keyword list of hundreds, if not thousands, of keywords together, most of which you would never have thought of yourself.  But all of these keywords are not created equally.  You will need to identify the keywords which are used steadily (unless your business is seasonal) and reasonably often AND that have relatively low levels of competition.

In the first case, there is little point in choosing keywords that are only going to be used infrequently.  This is fairly obvious.  You want to choose keywords that consistently get good levels of traffic.  And in the second case, remember your end game here…your objective is to get your site showing up on the first page results of the search engines.  Therefore, your second cut at choosing your keywords is to select those that have moderate levels of traffic and which you have a reasonable chance of ranking well for over a near to moderately near timeframe.

In addition to that, you also want to select keywords that have high commercial intent.  In other words, you want to find those keywords that indicate the searcher is likely looking to buy rather than just browsing.

In the offline world, think of how a salesperson reads your buying readiness.  If you come into an electronics store and say you are interested in TVs, you are not going to be as close to making a buying decision as if you come in asking about the Samsung LN52B750 1080p LCD HDTV.  You get the point…if you know the details of what you’re looking for, you’ve already done the research and are pretty much ready to buy.

A heads-up here…you’ll have a big head start if you have prior data that is specific to your site.  This might be in the form of a paid advertising campaign you’ve had running on Google for instance, or through analytics data that shows how visitors have been finding your site to date.

But not to worry if you don’t…available broad historical data and good judgment will satisfactorily guide you in choosing the best keywords to use.

And finally, for local businesses, you want to add greater relevance by modifying your keywords by local modifiers.  These modifiers will make it easier to rank well for your geo-modified keywords (less competition) and will at the same time attract the visitors who could actually be your future customers because they are in your area already.

For businesses that may have both a bricks-and-mortar AND online operation, you may choose a different set of keywords for each, with the most notable difference being the inclusion or exclusion of geo-modifiers.

Keyword selection is really the foundation for all other local search marketing activity.  Dismiss it at your own peril.  If you’re serious about starting on the right foot, get in touch with us today…we’re here to help you!