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Mobilize Your Business
Kim Dushinski
How Can I Help You? (and FAQ)Yearly Archives: 2011
3 Steps to Mobilize Your Business NOW
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Given that nearly everyone on the planet who is old enough to be a potential customer of yours (explored fully here) has a mobile phone, it is imperative that your business takes steps to mobilize now. If your customers haven’t already interacted with you on mobile, they will. Mobilizing simply means making it easy for your customers to interact with you via mobile and determining the best way to reach out to them via mobile with relevant information for them.
Let me start with why the first two steps I am going to share with you are not optional. It is quite simply because the choice to interact via mobile is not in your control, it is literally in the hands of your customer. It is their decision whether to visit your website using their phone, tablet or their desktop computer. If they choose to use their phone and your site is not mobile friendly, then you lose.
Same goes with checking email. If they happen to check email using mobile and your email is too big and bulky to be read easily on the small screen, then it is your email that is ignored. The choice of using mobile is theirs, not yours. Not optional, see what I mean?
Three Steps to Mobilize Your Business:
1. Mobilize your website.
Yes, you need to create a mobile version of your website even if you think that smartphones make mobile websites unnecessary. First of all, smartphones are not yet the majority of phones. In the US the smartphone adoption rate is only 35% as of the end of 2011. It is only 30% in Canada. (See Tomi Ahonen’s blog post about smartphone adoption rates for details.) If you do live somewhere where smartphone adoption is much higher, keep reading to see the second reason you need a mobile site.
Secondly, even though smartphone browsers are, for the most part, powerful enough to serve up a desktop site it doesn’t mean that these desktop sites are easy enough to see and/or use on a mobile screen. It is always smart to give mobile visitors an experience that is customized to their mobile device and the choice to use the desktop version if they would rather.
- Short paragraphs that make it easy to read
- The information that your visitors need when they are mobile (hours, location, etc.) prominently featured
- Small sized graphics that don’t take a long time to download
- Calls-to-action that work well on mobile (click-to-call, links that go to mobile commerce enabled pages, etc.)
- All of this powered by a mobile platform that detects when the visiting device is a mobile one and serves up the mobile site
BONUS STEP:
If your business has a physical location that customers visit in person (as opposed to being an online only business, like mine) a very smart step in mobilizing your business is to create a robust Google Places listing. With Google having a reported 98.29% market share of mobile search, it is an absolute no-brainer to use their free business listing service that serves up mobile search results.
2. Make your email marketing mobile friendly.
Quick poll: Do you ever check your email on your mobile phone? Yes, you do, I’m willing to bet on it. And so do your customers. Most of them probably do on a daily basis. Let me ask you this: what happens if the email you so carefully crafted and designed doesn’t even open on their phone? Or when it does it is unreadable?
You know as well as I do that people don’t have time to read their email twice, much less once. So your one chance at getting your email read is to have it opened and read the first time it is encountered. The best way to make sure that happens is to send every email out as if it will be opened on mobile.
A few tips about mobilizing your email:
- Don’t send multiple column HTML emails filled with lots of graphics
- Instead, keep your email design simple. Consider following the principles of “skinny email” as written about here.
- Remember that any calls to action you have in email should also work on mobile.
3. Build an opt-in SMS text messaging list.
If you are seeking a way to reach past your customers’ crowded email in boxes using a mobile technology that provides relevant value in a hyper timely fashion, you need to look no further than text messaging. Building an opt-in SMS list at this point in time is analogous to beginning an email list in the mid 1990s. The businesses that did it first and did it well reaped great rewards. You have that chance right now.
While email open rates plummet (ironically, even though we are all checking our email on mobile devices) SMS messages are seen instantly or nearly so. And because so few businesses have an SMS list built yet, you have the chance to be one of the few businesses with direct access to your customers wherever they are.
Since I am so avidly against mobile spam in all its forms, I have to say that it is important that you fully understand that any text messaging you send to customers must be done with explicit permission. This is not the post to go into this in detail, just know that it is critical to stay completely above board with text messaging.
A few thoughts about starting an SMS text messaging list:
- The only way to build a list is to launch a campaign that your customers will opt into.
- You must entice them to sign up with a compelling offer – a reason to sign up: a special discount, something for free, information they can only get via mobile, etc.
- When sending out your text messages you want to include a strong call to action, something worth their time and attention and all the details they need to move forward.
ACTION STEPS:
If you want to mobilize your business here are some additional resources for education and training:
• The Mobile Marketing Handbook
If you want to build your own mobile marketing business and help other businesses mobilize here are some additional resources:
• International Mobile Marketing Business Network
Why 67% Mobile Access is a Big Deal
Why 67% of the world’s population having mobile phone access is a BIG DEAL to your business.
Your business needs to market to reach customers. Plain and simple, without effective marketing your business will suffer. Effective marketing is being able to reach and be reached by the right customers at the right time with the right message. My stance is that no other marketing medium can help your business with effective marketing better than mobile marketing. Let’s explore this concept further.
This post is written based on data and analysis provided by Tomi Ahonen in his post “7 Billion People on the Planet – How Relates to Digital Divide?” My take on the data Tomi presents is about why mobile is such a powerful marketing medium and why every business needs to mobilize now. I am taking only tiny snippets from Tomi’s lengthy post so you should be sure to read the original in its full glory. As usual he has written a very insightful analysis.
First, let’s get to the bottom of the 67% figure. According to Tomi Ahonen’s research, there are 3.95 billion unique mobile phone users (“actual human beings who have at least one mobile phone account and at least one actual mobile phone handset in their pocket”) in the world. When family-shared mobile phones are accounted for, the total reach of mobile today is 4.7 billion unique users – or 67% of the planet.
Keep in mind that 27% of the global population is under age 15 (source: www.globalhealthfacts.org/). So, even though a fair number of those under 15 do have cell phones, it is still safe to say that a vast majority of all the people on the planet age 16 and over has mobile phone access. That’s right; close to everyone in the world who is old enough to be a possible customer for your business has access to a mobile phone. The same cannot be said of electricity, computer access, television, radio or sadly, running water.
As impressive as it is to conisder how many people have mobile access, it is important to note that this is only one aspect of effective marketing. Still to be factored into the equation are reaching and being reached by the right customers at the right time with the right message. Let’s see how mobile works on those accounts.
Being reached is all about having a mobile presence that is accessible when people are trying to find you via mobile. When you consider 14% of people perform mobile searches daily (and many more do mobile searching, just not daily) yet only 12% of small businesses (and 21% of medium businesses) have a mobile website, it is clear that businesses need to stay on top of mobilizing to keep up with consumers in adopting this technology.
Factor in the statistics AT&T released that showed that 43% of local searchers of mobile devices physically showed up at the business location they found in online mobile search results and that 22% of those users actually made a purchase! This means that customers are actively seeking businesses at which to spend money using their mobile phones. Being reachable via mobile is simply not optional at this point in time.
On the other side of that coin is reaching customers. Let’s look at how mobile can help businesses to reach out to customers. First, it is crucial to note that the ONLY WAY that anyone should ever be contacted on mobile from a business is with explicit permission. To do otherwise is mobile spam, pure and simple; it is not smart marketing and in many countries is illegal.
One method of reaching customers via mobile is through SMS text messaging. A business that builds an opt-in SMS list of customers can proactively contact these customers on a regular basis through a channel that is largely uncluttered and gets paid attention to. Since people have their phones with them and on most of the time, when a message arrives it is read within seconds or minutes. Unlike email that piles up in the in box or television commercials that get fast forwarded or paper coupons that arrive in the mail only to be forgotten at home at the critical time, SMS gets read and is with your customer all the time.
There are two ways that SMS can be associated with the ‘right time’ aspect of effective marketing. First, businesses can reach out when they need to in order to make their marketing efforts pay off in a timely manner. An example of this is a restaurant having a slow night. A simple mobile coupon sent out at the beginning of the evening can bring customers to the table (literally) within the same time frame the extra business is needed. No other marketing method can do this as effectively. Period.
From the customers’ perspective the ‘right time’ aspect of mobile marketing comes into play by being able to communicate with businesses as they wish, when they wish, via mobile. You know what that feels like yourself: Doing a mobile search and finding what you need, when you need it. Or grabbing your mobile phone to get ahead on email when you have a minute and opening email that is easy to read on your tiny screen.
As for the right message part of the effective marketing equation, it is important to note that mobile marketing is truly only effective when the right message is incorporated. Because mobile is such a personal medium (for the most part we each use our own phones exclusively and they are with us 24/7) it is critical to always provide relevant value to the customer. Do this by mobilizing your website with what people want when they are mobile; sending out targeted text messages to opt-in lists based on what customers want from your business and keeping your customers’ wants and needs in mind whenever doing anything in mobile marketing.
Bottom Line:
Mobile marketing has the potential to be the most powerful marketing tool your business has ever used, but it must be utilized correctly and with effective marketing principles soundly in place.
ACTION STEPS:
If you want to mobilize your business here are some additional resources for education and training:
• The Mobile Marketing Handbook
If you want to build your own mobile marketing business and help other businesses mobilize here are some additional resources:
• International Mobile Marketing Business Network
• Mobile Marketing BOOTCAMP: SMS Business
• Mobile Marketing BOOTCAMP: Mobile Web
New Site Design
I am so excited to have a new design for my site and want to say that while the site is live, there are still quite a few tweaks and adjustments we are still making. If you see something strange or missing graphics or links that don’t work, please excuse our virtual dust. We’re sweeping up as fast as we can.
Today I will be mobilizing the site (watch for more about that whole process soon) and getting some more questions up on the FAQ page. If you have any mobile marketing questions, go ahead and submit them on the FAQ page.
Once I get my new slider graphics installed and all the loose ends tied up I will have a grand opening celebration and I’ll let you know all about it.
What a Load of BS, this is NOT Mobile Spam
If you know me at all you know how firm my stance is against mobile spam. I have been known to tell students in my courses and attendees at my speaking events, “Do not send mobile spam. If you do and I find out I will come kick you in the shins.” Yes, I have said those exact words and I mean them.
I have had heated, but friendly, dialogues with colleagues about how adamant I am that even being able to upload a list of cell phones which have (supposedly) been properly opted-in at another company is wrong. It is that “supposedly” part that gets me. What if they aren’t and consumers are being placed on a text message list without permission? That would be so wrong and it would be mobile spam in its purest form.
It is flat out safe to say that I am a huge opponent to any form of mobile spam.
Today’s article in Mobile Marketer reporting about a class action lawsuit against Twitter for violating SMS regulations has me fuming for an entirely different reason.
Two gentlemen, who I am assuming are the type of people who would sue a coffee place for serving too hot coffee or a knife company for selling sharp knives upon which they cut themselves due to their own negligence, have filed a class action lawsuit against Twitter.
The point of their complaint is the single message that Twitter sends when someone has successfully opted out of receiving SMS. The message simply confirms that the person has opted out and will receive no further messages from the Twitter account they had been following. Furthermore it gives information on how to opt out of all remaining SMS messages sent through Twitter.
In reality this confirmation message is helpful to the person who has opted out because now they know they will stop receiving messages from the individual account and if they want to take it a step further and unsubscribe from Twitter SMS all together they now know how. And can do it easily at that exact moment.
In this scenario Twitter did not send any message without permission. Twitter automatically and immediately opted people out of SMS messages upon request and even goes a step further to tell people how to opt-out all together.
THIS IS NOT MOBILE SPAM!
Here’s why this bothers me so much. We have bigger issues to fight. Real mobile spam. The kind that is truly, horrible and wrong. Like the $9.99 my husband was charged for My Mobile Love Alerts. He did nothing but reply STOP to a message that came into him out of the blue. (And yes, I know it came in out of the blue because I happened to be sitting right next to him when it did.)
By the time we noticed the $9.99 was billed to his account Sprint had already paid the slimy excuse of a company (My Mobile Love, Short Code 34095, Phone 877-382-4750, Powered by Open Market) that did this and refused to take it off his bill.
Now, THAT is mobile spam. It is wrong and it must be stopped.
If we, thanks to the plaintiffs in this frivolous lawsuit, spend our energy fighting off opt-out confirmation messages sent to consumers who granted permission in the first place we are missing out on fighting the true spammers – like My Mobile Love, which should have been shut down by the carriers and Open Market long ago.
Hello, Open Market…reading this? Or maybe the opportunistic plaintiffs rallying against Twitter will take up this real case of mobile spam.
Super Bowl XLV Mobile Commercials …or Not
In my third annual Super Bowl Mobile Hits and Mobile Misses analysis I am going to start with the mobile misses – pretty much all of the advertisers. I sat there watching each commercial with anticipation and my cell phone handy and ready to take action when directed and almost nothing happened. Really?!?
At first I was shocked. After three years of thinking this will finally be the year when the commercials start to use mobile as the effective direct response tool it can be; I had a huge realization. Super Bowl commercials are not wired for direct response at all. They are all about branding and impact and award winning and the water cooler effect. It is almost as if people laughing and talking is enough for these brands.
Maybe that is just the way it is always going to be. However, I think that is a crying shame. After all if you are going to spend millions of dollars why not ensure a measurable response? Why not have a text message call to action that stays on the screen the entire spot and get millions of opt-in subscribers for your mobile or email database?
This would effectively extend the reach of that ad well beyond the day or two of water cooler effect. By the end of this week the remembrance factor on these commercials will be nil. (OK, that Doritos finger sucking one will probably stick with us all for a lot longer than we want it to.)
But if there were a brand that could send out a text message coupon this coming Friday to millions of people who had opted in …that brand would be remembered. That brand would literally be in the palm of the hands of millions of Americans. They would be raking in measurable response days after everyone else’s commercial was a distant memory.
And that response could carry on ALL YEAR LONG. By the time Super Bowl XLVI was coming around they could even use that text message list to hype the new commercial. Oh my goodness, why do none of these advertisers grasp this?
Especially LivingSocial and Groupon! It seems to me that their businesses will live or die based on their opt-in lists. If their ads were better (not a burly guy turning into a cross dresser or a total slam on Tibet’s struggles) I propose it would have been possible for them to each grab at least a few million more email subscribers with a simple “Text your email address to this short code to sign up for daily offers” or “Sign up for daily deals now at m.domain.com.”
To quote my favorite movie of all time, The Princess Bride, it is INCONCEIVABLE to me that this was missed. How much more money would these companies be making today with their daily offer? Tomorrow? Next week? The Wall Street Journal asks, “Who Won The Super Bowl – Groupon Or LivingSocial?” and I say neither one. They both lost. The opportunity cost on missing out on using mobile to build their emails lists is huge.
What about all the car companies…what if dealers across the country had lists of people who wanted to test drive a car they saw on a commercial? All it would take is a simple “Text your email address and zip code to this short code and a list of nearby dealerships will be sent to you.” Following up with hot prospects is a lot better than sitting around waiting for someone to come into the dealership.
MOBILE HITS
OK, now on to the Mobile Hits. The big winner was the NFL – sort of. They had the most mobile calls to action in the whole game. They had a text call to action in the first half. By texting NFL to 8915 I would be able to get “News, Stats, Highlights and More.” This actually sounded exciting and compelling so I texted in.
Unfortunately, the only thing I got back was a message telling me that my message was sent using an invalid number of digits. I never got my news, stats highlights or more. Bummer. Wonder what happened with the short code. Was this a carrier specific campaign but not announced that way?
The NFL also did a very good job suggesting that logging in to www.nfl.com/mvp to vote for the MVP could be done via mobile. That was great. Even as I write that I am so sad that this is the best use of mobile in the whole Super Bowl.
Another mobile win was, again, Cars.com. In their funny “go first” ad they suggest that sometimes going first is not all it is cracked up to be. When choosing a car it is best to see what others have already found out. The person doing the finding out was standing in a showroom using his mobile device to access cars.com to see reviews. Smart ad. Good use of suggesting mobile.
Cars.com Go First Ad
A FEW MORE THOUGHTS
I feel compelled to mention the SalesForce chatter.com commercial. Essentially the whole point of this commercial was that using their software via mobile would increase productivity. However, the whole thing was muddled up by the “Baby Peas” concept which was so weird. These commercials even made the top three disliked commercials.
It gives me great pleasure that the sexist domain seller commercials are also on that list. I refuse to even name them since they seem happy to have any attention and count it as reason to keep running these insipid ads.
Completely unrelated to mobile in anyway, I have to say that Budweiser (my favorite beer of all time) let me down by not having any good Clydesdale commercials. A cameo appearance in one commercial is NOT enough of the beautiful horses. Come on Bud!
And E*Trade, too, was a disappointment. I expect a lot from that talking baby and didn’t even crack a smile this year. That is almost as sad as mobile being missed by practically all the advertisers.
Mobile Business Information
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Mobile Marketing Tools
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IMMBN
IMMBN
International Mobile Marketing Business Network
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BOOK
HANDBOOK
The Mobile Marketing Handbook by Kim Dushinski
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SMS BUSINESS
TEXT MSG BUSINESS
How to Start and Grow an SMS Text Messaging Business
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MOBILE WEB BIZ
MOBILE WEB
How to Start and Build a Mobile Website Building Business
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SPEAKING
SPEAKING
Invite Kim Dushinski to speak about mobile marketing