Small Business Should Start Using Text Messaging to Reach Customers

January 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

The advantages are far more than the costs. If you start using text messaging in your business your business will

1) Have a direct way to talk to customers with their permissions

Not like other marketing media, your customers will have demonstrated their confidence in your business, they trust your business and they believe your business adds value to their lives.

A great way to build a business with recurring customers.

Let us help. Call us 267-940-7504 for a 15 day SMS marketing Trial NOW

Amplify’d from www.mobilecommercedaily.com

But there are aspects of mobile – specifically, SMS text messaging – that have inherent value to a wide audience of consumers, which makes it a natural fit for all businesses.

Consider that SMS is a direct communications technology that millions of consumers across a wide range of demographic groups use every day.

Consider also the far greater potential reach of SMS – more than 270 million mobile devices nationwide – than mobile Web, applications or mobile advertising.

Finally consider that the costs for entry are relatively low, and the resources required to manage multiple successful programs can be low, too.

So how do small and midsize businesses leverage SMS effectively on a pragmatic day-to-day basis? How do they visibly affect customer relationships and drive bottom-line value?

Customer acquisition
• Use SMS to leverage existing offline media and promotional campaigns. Get more out of your campaigns and drive foot and online traffic with a convenient direct-response component

• Give customers the opportunity to opt-in for ongoing communications such as upcoming promotions, discounts and event notices

• Given up on event marketing? Instead of trying to capture email addresses, let consumers opt-in quickly and easily with their mobile phone and deliver instant value with a text message discount that they can use today

Recurring revenue
• Remember, 160 characters can dramatically affect a consumer’s impression of a brand or product, and SMS is ideal for providing laser-precise timing for offers and updates directed to your customers in a highly personal channel

• By simply using a handful of different key words you can create very simple lists targeting distinct audiences.

Think of the difference between families at sporting events and community fundraisers, as opposed to college students at a nearby campus. Now you can target the right information and offers to the right people at the right time. News flash: college students keep different hours and spending habits than families

• SMS is great way for encouraging customers to trial new products and visit new locations. If a customer likes a certain brand of clothing or soap, for example, send an SMS letting her know when you have new products that she might be interested in

Differentiated customer experience
• In-store SMS campaigns allow for on-demand access to information and savings. Provide the customer with an instant coupon for use in-store or simply allow the customer to receive more information about a product

• Provide alerts and reminders for key events such as payment dates, account balances and status, delivery status and appointment reminders

• Stimulate engagement with polls, surveys and simple games or trivia, and reward those who participate

The cost of entry is low, and the resources to manage successful programs are budget-friendly.

Read more at www.mobilecommercedaily.com
 
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January 11, 2011 By Leave a Comment

If you can learn from hard knocks, you can also learn from soft touches. Paul Martelli http://amplify.com/u/bld2h

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WIll Super Bowl Ads Help Grow Groupon?

January 11, 2011 By 1 Comment

Will the Super Bowl help Groupon grow. It will be fun to watch this online business start using offline advertising.

Amplify’d from adage.com

Groupon Makes Big Bid on Traditional TV, Buys Super Bowl Pregame

NEW YORK (AdAge.com) — Groupon may not need Google to grow. But it does need some good, old-fashioned advertising.

With a swift talk-to-the-($6 billion)-hand, Groupon turned down an acquisition offer from Google. But as it eyes more global markets and aims to connect with a wider swath of consumers — while also fending off mounting competition from the likes of Living Social and other daily-deal clones — Groupon is turning to Madison Avenue.

In the coming weeks, expect to see the social e-commerce trailblazer make its foray onto TV, including pregame spots in the Feb. 6 broadcast of Super Bowl XLV. You would have seen Groupon in the big game, according to two industry executives, but it was shut out: that inventory, which nets as much as $3 million a pop from advertisers, had sold out by October.

It’s a decisive shift in marketing strategy for the Chicago-based company, which has been among the best case studies for the power of word-of-mouth marketing, having grown in 2010 from one country to 35, with nearly 400 million subscribers. But a little over two years into its existence, it seems Groupon thinks that “tell a friend” isn’t enough to grow as quickly as it intends.
As of last week, Groupon said it’s not yet ready to comment on any of its marketing plans. And agencies declined to speak with Ad Age as well.

In contrast, Groupon’s most formidable competitor, LivingSocial, told Ad Age it has no intentions of having a Super Bowl presence, let alone toying with broadcast anytime soon. Currently, it spends about 95% of its ad budget online. The Washington, D.C.-based group-buying site, which launched in 2009, has yet to hire an ad agency, and creative work it has featured thus far has been developed in-house. LivingSocial completed a major round of funding, including $175 million from Amazon, in December.

Other observers are less buoyant on Groupon’s plans to go from online to offline media. “To me, this smells of 1999, when there’s a lot of venture capital money being thrown at getting out there and getting known,” said Sucharita Mulpuru, an e-commerce analyst at Forrester Research. “That was a naïve mentality then. There’s a lot of expectation of the overnight reach you can get and it doesn’t always pan out in terms of quantifiable revenue.”

Ms. Mulpuru pointed to Facebook as a successful social brand that has acquired hundreds of millions of users without investing in offline media. “I’ve maintained all along that the biggest challenge Groupon has is to have consistently good deals, day after day and in market after market,” she said.
Asked for her predictions around how it might capitalize on the Super Bowl buzz, she speculated that Groupon is “a clever group, maybe they’ll come up with some crazy half-off offer for the entire country that will crash their servers.

“The offline marketing will get them some new names, broaden their reach and make them a part of the daily lexicon and get a lot of PR,” she said. “But PR does not always translate into sales and that’s important to keep in mind.”

Read more at adage.com
 
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Are Your Customers Heavy or Light Mobile Shoppers?

January 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

And do you know? This post is an adjunct to another post I made about knowing your customer. Consumers are changing their shopping habits and methods and the way they buy is changing rapidly.

The more you know about your customer the more likely you are to be in the places they shop. Bottomline, your customers want choice when shopping. They want to buy in your store, on your website and they want to use their mobile phone.

So knowing your customer and being where they are is becoming more and more important. Here is the point your customers shop from wherever they want. Are you there with them?

Amplify’d from www.mobilemarketer.com

Instead, there are many paths to purchase, said Arunabh Das Sharma, senior director at Whirlpool and Value Brands, on a panel that included mobile shopping research and insights from Leo Burnett sibling Arc Worldwide, a shopper marketing agency.

“People plan and shop differently and mobile is pushing this even further,” Mr. Das Sharma said. “Mobile shopping is spontaneous, fluid and iterative.

“People are shopping in ways and places they never did before,” he said. “The shoppers’ journey isn’t as predictable, linear or straightforward as it used to be.”

“You really need to understand these subgroups,” he said. “Also, you really need to understand the categories. Mobile has really blow up the model.”

Shoppers weigh in
Third, even though 50 percent of all mobile phone users are mobile shoppers, not all mobile shoppers are created equal.

Per Mr. Rosen, a small group – 10 percent – of heavy mobile shoppers is driving a majority most of the mobile shopping activity volume.

Heavies, as Arc Worldwide calls them, love their phone. They share photos, download music, check the news and are into shopping at home, on a computer or in-store.

“And they’re really into mobile shopping,” Mr. Rosen told a packed room of more than 300 retail executives. “They generate over 10 times the mobile shopping volume of light mobile shoppers.”

On the other hand, light mobile shoppers have a narrower outlook toward mobile shopping: a mini-portable computer to use primarily in the car and on the go.

In contrast, heavy mobile shoppers use mobile as a specialized tool for shopping.

Heavy mobile shoppers trend younger, male and with higher income, while light mobile shoppers skew slighter older, female and with the same income level.

“They are a bit handicapped by technology and are less likely to have an iPhone,” Mr. Rosen said about light mobile shoppers.

“Their view on how to integrate the phone into shopping is limited and the benefits aren’t as apparent,” he said. “They don’t trust the phone for shopping.”

Light’s on
Arc Worldwide found that from the 40 percent of light mobile shoppers there is a small group of consumers who have the most potential to become heavy mobile shoppers.

These light shoppers often are not aware that many of their favorite mobile sites are available as applications. It does not help that the most popular app store, the Apple App Store, fails to list applications under a shopping category.

Read more at www.mobilemarketer.com
 
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KLM adds a Party Flight to Miami Because of Twitter

January 10, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This is the first example of crowdbuying that I have seen and demonstrates the power of social media. As a result of a bet, KLM adds a party flight to Miami because of Twitter. Imagine the power of this tactic for your business. Imagine the power and connection, your customers actually tell you what they want, your provide it and then they buy it. Sweeeeet,

Amplify’d from www.springwise.com

On a bet, party people fill KLM flight to Miami using Twitter

DJs, promoters, label reps and ‘professional party people’ from the Netherlands have persuaded Dutch airline KLM to add an extra flight to its roster. In a new twist on crowd-buying, the initiators of Fly2Miami made a bet with KLM on Twitter to organize a non-stop flight from Amsterdam to Miami.

If Fly2Miami could get 351 seats reserved before December 6th, KLM would add a flight to its schedule on 21 March 2011, specifically for people attending the Ultra Music Festival and related parties. The initiative was prompted by a Dutch filmmaker tweeting about the lack of a direct flight from Amsterdam to Miami, a query that the airline’s Twitter team rapidly responded to with a wager. Exceeding everyone’s expectations, the flight was fully booked within five hours. “We can rightly call it a first — the first time KLM will deploy an aircraft following a request on Twitter”, said Martijn van der Zee, vice president of e-commerce at KLM. “Social media are becoming more and more important to KLM to offer information and service to our customers.”

From Carrotmob‘s crowds rewarding positive environmental change, to Groupon’s daily deals for groups, crowd clout — turbo-charged by social media — provides companies across industries with new opportunities to empower consumers while improving their bottom line, or at the very least, their brand image. (Related: Furniture shopping with the crowds — Broker creates local groups for collective solar purchasing — Travel agents bid on consumers’ dream trips — Crowd clout for social and political change.)

Read more at www.springwise.com
 
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2011 Predictions for How Small Business Use Technology

January 7, 2011 By Leave a Comment

I could not be happier. As a consumer when i go to a small business website I mostly find the site useless. Basically just a brochure, not much information about how the business can help me solve a problem or pain I have. Mostly I have to search for contact information and the site hasn’t changed since 1990.

As a mobile phone user small business websites are even worse.

Here is a tip. If you are spending money to create a new website DON’T. Don’t spend a dime until you have developed a more comprehensive inbound and mobile marketing strategy that attracts customers to your business.

The strategy should include your website, your social media marketing as well as a mobile strategy that is easy for you to use and update. A strategy that mets your marketing goals and helps grow your business.

Dedicated to your success.

If you need help, click here to schedule a time to talk. https://tungle.me/bottomline

Amplify’d from mashable.com

5 Predictions for Small Business in 2011

1. Increased Spending on Websites

The importance of being easily findable on the Internet (Internet) has still not been fully recognized by small businesses, but increasingly, smart entrepreneurs are taking notice. Next year will be marked with increased spending on website development, lifting small business sites from their current iterations as online brochures to more prominent positions as useful resources for customers.

Small businesses are predicted to increase online marketing spending, with websites taking the front seat, according to a recent survey. The survey found that 54% of respondents indicated that their businesses currently have websites. Unfortunately, most of those websites contain nothing more than general information, and less than half of them incorporate customer service features.

Those making valuable upgrades to their online presences will increase functionalities revolving around e-commerce, reservation systems, corporate blogs and social media integration. Furthermore, we may see increased attention on better web design.

Read more at mashable.com
 
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January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

African Proverb – Before shooting, one must aim. http://amplify.com/u/bks5h

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How to Market Your Service Business Using Inbound Marketing

January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

 

This post is the first in a series of posts designed to help service business owners start the process of using  Inbound Marketing to find customers and grow profits. 
 
There are a few definitions of Inbound Marketing but my definition is simple,  Inbound Marketing means 'helping customers solve a problem' on the media where they are most likely to look" marketing.
 
Make sense, help your prospect solve a problem.
 
Here is what I mean as I wrote in a post a few days ago about my experience with a clogged sink.  Christmas Day after dinner my kitchen sink clogged. I went to Google (on my iPhone) and typed in "How to unclog a sink" looking for help from a local plumber. To my surprise there was not one local search result. 
 
So since I'm writing this post to help business owners discover how to grow their business with Inbound Marketing, I decided to dedicate myself to writing these tips. Look for them to come about once every other day.
 
I find that many business owners have a hard time with this first tip. My experience with business owners is that when asked "WHo is your customer?", the typical answer is "Anyone" and that just ain't so. No business has the resources to market to "Everyone". So it helps to 
 
  • Know Your Customer – try to clearly define your customers and ensure that they have the following qualities
  • They want what you are selling. To Craig Garber, one of my mentors "if you're selling bass fishing equipment but you have people who fish on the ocean as your prospects, you're going to have a hard time selling anything". So its important that you fish in a river  of biting fish. The customer can pay you. Your is only valuable to the people that can pay you and EVERYBODY can't necessarily pay you. So to keep the fishing metaphor going "fish in a river of fish with money"
 
For example, I work with a contractor and he (we) are very clear about our customer. This contractor ONLY works with real estate investors and the  customer is almost always a  real estate investor that has purchased his first investment property and gotten burned by another contractor. That's our customer, notice that the definition is very specific and targeted and this definition helps tremendously with marketing the business and winning clients.
 
If you want help defining your customer, give me a call to schedule a free consultation or click on the this SCHEDULE link
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Small Business Owners Are Using Multiple Phones. What is the Fix?

January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This article is about how many business owners are using multiple mobile phones. Like many business owners I had two mobile phones, one for business and one for home (I used a smart phone and a dumb one) but I always forgot one or the other. The way I fixed the issue was Google Voice. I got a Google Voice account for my phone number and linked it to my phone (the smart one), I added all of my friends and family as contacts in groups.

My phone now rings and if its a friend or family member, I can tell. That was how I solved the problem.

BTW
There is an important marketing potential. How many of those business owners that are carrying two phones actually use mobile marketing to market their business. What a waste.

Amplify’d from www.bnet.com

According to office supplies retailer Staples, the most noteworthy fact the 5th Annual National Staples Small Business Survey revealed was that 60 percent of small business owners spend more time holding mobile devices than the hands of their significant others. Staples notes that this finding may not be all bad, but fails to note that it’s utterly irrelevant.

What is noteworthy about the survey is this: 68 percent of small business owners who own mobile devices say they use just one device for personal and business purposes. In other words, their business phone calls, emails, texts and other messages will follow them home and anywhere else they take their phones. And that’s not good.

Perhaps the best approach would be to have a single device that has a switch to make it either a personal or business phone. This would allow us to receive business calls during business hours, and personal calls during personal hours, without non-essential overlap. Ideally, such a device could also be configured to handle both personal and business communications, when that setup is desirable.

Read more at www.bnet.com
 
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Microsoft Surface is Now Thinner, Smarter & Cheaper [PICS]

January 6, 2011 By Leave a Comment

This sounds like a great table fo rmy den or office

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