BY JEFF AND RICH SLOAN
MAIN STREET
businesses are in
a pitched battle
with e-commerce
mega sites. To
compete with the
allure of online shopping, local merchants
are exploiting every opportunity available
to drive in-store purchases.
Here are several ways small businesses
are using a rising tide of mobile marketing
solutions to attract foot traffic, and how you
can compete in this tech-driven world.
Showing up in local searches
According to a May ;;;; Google report,
Understanding Consumers’ Local Search
Behavior (
thinkwithgoogle.com; search
“How advertisers can extend their relevance
with search”), one in three local searches on
a smartphone happens just before consumers visit a store. That means people are out
and about, and looking for businesses like
yours. And that means opportunity.
Kent Dagnall, principal consultant at
Kent Dagnall Consultants, based in Atlanta,
says that Google decides which businesses
will appear in local results by looking at
three main factors: profile consistency,
content quality and GPS location. To get the
full benefit of this free form of mobile mar-
keting, ensure that your business’s name,
address and phone number are updated and
correct, and resist changing them, Dagnall
says, to avoid getting demoted in Google’s
mobile search results.
Another key to ranking higher in local
search results: Continually introduce fresh,
high-quality content to your website.
“Develop blog posts and articles around
phrases you know customers are searching
for, and make sure to use the names of your
neighborhood or part of town more often
than the city name,” Dagnall advises.
Mobile ads: worth considering
Build on your mobile search optimization efforts by adding paid mobile advertising to your marketing mix. Two specific
options work well.
Geofencing. Geofencing allows you to
create a marketing perimeter around your
business (for example, a ;-mile radius), so
your mobile ads pop up only for prospects
inside that “fence.” Just think how much
more likely people are to take action and
© GOHENGS / SHUTTERSTOCK
BUSINESSCONNECTION
Mobile
marketing
come through your door if you
hit them with a promotion when
they’re very close by. And it
shows in how frequently ads
served inside the fence get
clicked by mobile users.
“There is a convenience
chain in Texas that markets
through geofencing, with offers
that revolve around the time of
day—e.g., morning is for coffee
and breakfast items. On average,
the chain surpasses its targeted
mobile ad click-through rate of
;; percent,” says Rob Weisbord,
chief operating officer of Sinclair
Digital Group, which offers dig-
ital ad solutions through its
Compulse Integrated Marketing
brand. Advertising experts would
tell you, getting nearly one in five
individuals to click on your ad to
learn more is pretty impressive.
Tap into geofencing options
that might fit your needs by
doing a simple online search, or
reach out to a local digital advertising agency.
Paid ads on review sites and
apps. Bryan Clayton, CEO of
Clayton is a big fan of advertising on
review sites, partly because of the quality
of the traffic. “A visitor from Yelp is not the
same as a visitor from Google or Facebook,”
he says, “because when they come to you,
they are at the very bottom of the purchasing decision funnel. They have read your
reviews, they have read about your business
and they are qualified and ready to buy.”
It’s OK to be trendy
While optimization for mobile search
and mobile ads might be a longer-term
tactic, being opportunistic with trends may
be worth testing, too. The Pokémon Go
phenomenon, for example, took an interesting turn as marketers saw a potential
opportunity. The mobile app, which
attracted the under-;; set and millennials,
Leverage
the power
for your
business
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