Tagged: Mobile Marketing

Marketing As a New Business Marketing

Geo-Marketing (or Geographic Marketing) is a new method of marketing a business and its website through web searches, mobile searches and social media. As you can see, the geo-marketing tools being used are digital and through the Internet or Mobile devices.

While geo-marketing’s definition is the association of data and maps in the traditional sense, the added convergence of local business listings, mobile marketing, and social media makes this method of marketing more powerful than ever before. This marketing tool is no longer just a large business marketing tool, but is available to small and medium size businesses too.

We should define what we mean by local business. A local business is any sized business dependent on the local consumer for its revenue. This means you could be a national company like Home Depot, U-Haul, or Best Buy or you could be a local florist or independent store only known to your local geography.

From a technical standpoint an Internet user’s IP address is tied to GPS data, like longitudes and latitudes, which are mapped with technology to geographies around the world down to the city and street level. While all this data may seem overwhelming, the good news is that most businesses do not need to concern themselves with this part of geo-marketing. Many of the tools already have all of this information built into their software or hardware technology so we can stay focused on how we will use geo-marketing tools.

The difficulty with any new marketing tool is a business’s inability to adopt the methodology early. When it comes to technologies and the Internet, in the past, by the time most businesses are ready to adopt a marketing tool, the industry has already moved on to something new. Being an early or at least an earlier adopter of marketing methods on the Internet and through digital devices can only benefit the business.

We have seen many signs over the past two years regarding the evolution of geographic marketing. When companies like Google, Apple, and the investment community of Wall Street start to put $100 million and more behind a technology it will become part of our daily lives whether a business wants it or not. Consumers have and will be using more of these geo-marketing tools to find businesses, services or products near them.

Let’s take a look at the three main tools that consumers are using to find businesses, products or services close to their geography.

1. Web searches are the first and most obvious, however, these are web searches in which a map displays with targets the businesses that match the search criteria. Unlike the traditional yellow pages, these geo-listings (a.k.a. Local Business Listings) can be claimed and updated with your business marketing information in order to meet these search criteria.

While this may sound relatively easy, geo-listings also include: consumer reviews that need to be managed; the clean-up of duplicate listings; coupons; offers; discounts; videos; photos; citations; QR bar codes; and, hyper local websites. Understanding what to start with and how to strategically use these components can be done by a professional marketing firm that specializes in this area. You can read more about these components in one of our previous articles on our blog.

2. Mobile Marketing is the next most significant geo-marketing tool in which SMS Texting, Mobile Applications, Mobile version of your website, and Mobile advertising are your key components. The starting point in this process will be with SMS Texting to get your alerts out to customers that subscribe to your short bursts of information. The reason why this is your starting point is that it will take time to build your list of subscribers.

3. Social Media Marketing continues to evolve and is, also, geographic in its targeting ability. Consumers are using Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Wiki sites, Four Square, Instant Messaging and other social community tools on their mobile devices. While they use it mostly to find businesses, products and services, in the social communities they are seeking recommendations from their friends (near and far). They are, also, using these social communities to post their experiences with a business, product or service. For this reason you have to monitor the social communities in order to embrace any potential problem situations and work with them.

These three geo-marketing components are important to any business size – large or small – and each have their own sub-components that need to be well understood in order to succeed. Understanding the strategy amongst them; the acceptance and embracing them early; and, finally planning on a 3-year return will put you on the right path of geo-marketing.

Certainly your time resources are limited and Geo-Marketing Services are provided by SmartFinds Internet Marketing. You will find this to be of great benefit to your time resources and the low cost service may eliminate your yellow page ad costs. Let the experts of over 16 years Internet marketing experience help you use this local business marketing tool properly and prevent brand security issues from occurring.

Mobile Marketing for Auto Dealers

Our lives have changed for the better because of the introduction of various technologies. The first revolution was brought in by the computers and now, the mobile phones and the mobile based applications are all set to make a major impact on our lives.

Although the economic slowdown is doing its best to retard auto sales, tech savvy auto dealers are turning to mobile marketing and mobile advertising to liven things up a bit. As the consumers always have their cell phones handy, they are always within the auto dealers’ reach to receive their text promotion.

Benefits of mobile marketing to auto dealers

Mobile advertising such as text message sweepstakes, text message voting, premium SMS, bulk SMS, etc. puts a dealer’s brand in the hands of their potential consumers. Research shows that over 90% of consumers that get text messages read them. A simple SMS or bulk SMS help auto dealers get into a one-to-one relationship with the consumer. No other form of advertising receives a response as high as mobile marketing. A recent study has indicated that the response to mobile advertising is as high as 50%.

Mobile advertising can be tracked very easily and therefore, allows auto dealers to evaluate results and check return on investment for every advertising promotion. Mobile advertising is a perfect solution for:

* Recording the phone numbers of consumers for future promotions
* Promoting new dealership campaigns
* Real-time response to gauge the effectiveness of promotions
* Targeting the younger generation
* Building a database for future campaigns
* Advertising additional services
* Increasing the overall sales of cars, and service returns.

Benefits of mobile advertising to consumers

With mobile advertising, consumers can reply to the advertisement the moment they see it. Consumers sign up for a particular auto dealer’s program because they want to receive their promotions. So they won’t mind receiving text messages or premium SMS from dealership even though they have to pay to receive the promotions.

Speaking directly with an auto salesperson can be irritating for some consumers, and they would rather prefer responding to text message promotions. It is also very convenient for the consumers to get details about a particular vehicle via text messages. Mobile advertising is great for consumers because:

* They can get information on the vehicles even after the working hours of the dealership and also on weekends and Sundays when the dealership is not open.
* It’s very convenient for the consumers as they do not have to cut out coupons from the newspaper. To redeem the offer, they just need to show the message to the dealer or provide the short code that the dealership included in his promotion.
* Consumers can get access to used as well as new vehicle listings, complete with the vehicle pictures, rates, and vehicle condition report.
* By entering a keyword and a short code, consumers can get complete information about the dealership contact details and directions to the showroom.

The present economic slowdown is the perfect opportunity for mobile marketing to shine, and indeed mobile marketing is driving the car sales for auto dealers.

Text Message Marketing for Radio Stations

What do you take with you when you walk out of your house in the morning? Definitely, a cell phone! In the US, cell phones have now surpassed internet connections. Getting in touch with people via emails is now a thing of the past. Today, almost 50% of written communication is done via text messaging.

The biggest advantage of mobile marketing is that you can always stay connected with your audience. Text messaging has become one of the most popular ways of communication as it is quick, easy and doesn’t cost too much. So if any radio station does not facilitate text messaging service, then they are perhaps missing out on the most influential medium of advertising. When people are commuting or are not at their office desks, then radio and cell phone are the only means to reaching these people.

Radio listeners send text messages to the radio stations to request songs, gain entry into some contests, and get the play lists from the station. Now listeners no more have to dial any number and wait frustratingly in queues, only to get disconnected. With text messaging, listeners can quickly gain entry into the contest held by a radio station. Mobile marketing or mobile advertising gives listeners a new way to communicate with the radio station anytime, anywhere.

Benefits of mobile marketing to the radio stations

* A contest can be run where listeners can text a short code for a chance to win free gifts
* Allows two-way communication with the listener
* Send bulk SMS to listeners offering free entry to important events and appearances
* Give away tickets to contests
* Send traffic updates to listeners
* Create database for your advertisers
* The DJ’s receive listeners request in real time as they are texted in
* Allow listeners to vote and choose the next song in the list or choose a discussion topic by text message voting
* Send mobile coupons offering some discount or rebate on particular items
* Send premium SMS and text message sweepstakes to listeners to get donations for a charity event.

Benefits of mobile advertising to the listeners

* No more hold time, as listeners can send text messages and enter into a contest quickly
* With text messaging, communication is quicker and without having to talk to anyone
* Sending text messages to radio stations is very convenient while travelling
* Mobile marketing is an interactive marketing that allows two-way communication and thus gives a personalized experience to the listener.

Text message marketing for radio stations is the biggest single category for mobile marketing. No other form of communication can make this claim. As a matter of fact, radio station sales teams are now up-selling their customers with text messaging programs. Mobile marketing which was once just a promotional tool has now become a sales and revenue generation tool.