How To Grow In A Mobile Environment
Your traditional customer, the one you have had for years, is dead. They are never coming back. And the money they spent with you is gone too. What do you do?
Small and medium business owners often avoid making any changes in their marketing strategy because, “everyone knows me,” or “I don’t need to advertise.” These two phrases are the basis for killing your business. As a new generation of plugged-in informed consumers begins their search for you, their first move will be to grab their mobile device. Will they find you?
You are now competing not just with the shop down the street, but also with the business in another town, state, or even another country. According to Google, [1] 98 percent percent of customers shop digitally, and more than 75 percent of them start their research from a mobile device. Before a customer even walks into your store, or picked up the phone to call you, they are informed about the product, price, and have their own perceived value. In one Google example, a customer had more than 900 digital touches BEFORE she even walked onto the lot to make the purchase. The customer that you always saw may never even walk into your store, onto your lot, or browse your shelves.
So what do you do? How do you keep your business from going six-feet under? Better yet, how do you attract the lost sheep of your competition that are not evolving? In a mobile first world, you need to focus on three things:
- What Matters
- What’s Working
- What’s Possible
What Matters?
Find out what is REALLY important to your business, and then establish the best criteria to meet your goals.
What’s Working?
Is your strategy getting you where you need to be? Be confident in taking on a new process to achieve your goals.
What’s Possible?
Put your heads together. Get the team involved and try new experiments to see if your results meet expectations.
Answering these questions will enable you to tighten the gap between your traditional shopper and new mobile-ready consumer. You can then build value for your customers and develop a strategy that will put them in front of you.
When you partner with One Loyalty Network, the parent company behind IMAG, your brand is placed in front of consumers who are ready to buy. The IMAG system sends your customers text messages with images and video (MMS) when they are within a specific distance of your business. Furthermore, the MMS messages are opened within three minutes (that’s 97 percent faster than a traditional text message.)
Your customer sees an online offer, recognizes the value, the sense of urgency in taking advantage of the offer, and a purchase is made. You are building customer loyalty, and you can connect with your customers on their computer, tablet, or mobile phone.
Another benefit to the IMAG/OLN partnership? Collaboration. You can partner with other merchants in the area, have multiple locations with the IMAG Opt-In interface in their business, and everyone has access to the pool of customers. Now, a customer who opted to receive offers from the local frozen yogurt store will get in their car and see the offer for the nearby oil change business and be able to sign up for personal training lessons and a massage package … all from their mobile device, and all within feet of the business!
It’s no longer about who advertises the most on a radio station, or places billboards; it’s being in front of your customers at the right time, with an offer of value, and being the innovator. This is how business moves forward.
Click the link to learn more about One Loyalty Network.
Click here for the Think With Google article “How to Drive Growth in a Digital World.”
[i] “How to Drive Growth in a Mobile-First World.” Think with Google. Google, Aug. 2016. Web. 02 Sept. 2016.