How Can Mobile Marketing Help Your Small Business?

Mobile marketing is one of the newest technologiesadvertising in the fact that it can overcome the two
used in advertising, but its popularity has grown overmost significant hurdles in classic advertising methods.
the past few years. Small businesses in particular can"Low perceived value" and "Limited effective reach".
experience a significant growth in sales after usingIt accomplishes this through the "Concept of choice"
this top notch marketing tool. SMS marketing hasand "Consistent with expectation messaging".
been proven a very effective tool to communicateAll customers who subscribe to a mobile marketing
with your customers through the benefit of discountscampaign do so by choice and by action. The
and consumer in store incentive programs.consumer makes the choice to text your particular
Growing consumer interest in mobile marketing andkeyword to your 5-digit number and gets an
customer loyalty programs has created a significantautomatic response with a thank-you message as
and largely untapped opportunity for small business'well as the option to opt out. The reply message
to connect with customers on their mobile devices.should contain a redeem offer or consumer incentive
There are two major parts in every mobile campaign.that provides instant value for the consumer.
The first one is to create your opt-in list byThe second annual HipCricket Mobile Marketing
promoting it by any possible mean. The second stepSurvey 2009 shows "That while 37 percent of
is to send relevant and interesting text offers to theconsumers would be interested in participating in a
list you created. The promotion is the part wheremobile customer loyalty program from a business
you have to let your imagination run wild and comethey trust, 83 percent say their favorite brand has
up with innovative ways of integrating youryet to market to them via their most personal
marketing materials with customer incentive anddevice, their mobile phone."
loyalty programs.Mobile marketing campaigns are becoming significantly
A great advantage of text marketing is that it allowsmore influential and effective, according to the
the business owner to communicate one on one withHipCricket survey, "HipCricket found that of those
his customer. A small business will not have toconsumers who have received mobile marketing
compete with stronger businesses on the mobileoffers, 47 percent have brand recall and 94 percent
channel. You can send your text offers to theof those remember the specific call to action."
subscribers every month or even weekly. TheStatistics say that text messages sent to people's
chances are very low for a customer to sign up formobile phones are read within 10 to 15 minutes and
more than one SMS program within the same niche.the average redemption rate is 20%, regardless of
For instance, if you own a coffee shop, people whothe business type, which is higher than many other
are subscribed to you will most likely not be in themarketing methods such as mail, radio, newspaper or
lists of your competitors.social media marketing.
Mobile marketing stands out from the rest of