If you’re a business owner, you’ve no doubt heard a lot about mobile marketing. In the business world, there’s a lot of focus on mobile marketing, and for good reason. Today, nearly every adult in America has a mobile phone. More than 60% of mobile device owners in America have a smartphone. That means that millions of consumers can search for your business and interact with it on the internet no matter where they are or what they’re doing. Needless to say there’s pressure for business owners to reach out to these mobile consumers. While major corporations can afford to spend millions on mobile marketing efforts, most small business owners can’t afford the luxury of hiring a mobile marketing company to launch a marketing campaign. Fortunately, there is still a lot that small business owners can do to make their businesses more mobile friendly.

Some helpful tips

Here are a few tips that you can implement to keep your small business up to date in the mobile age:

• Are you ready for mobile? Before investing in mobile marketing you need to determine whether you’re ready. Before you launch any mobile marketing campaign you need to figure out what you want to achieve with your mobile marketing efforts. With goals in place you can begin working on your mobile marketing strategy
• Launch a mobile-friendly website. No one wants to pinch and zoom to view a website anymore. People were more forgiving in the early days of smartphones but no longer. If you don’t want your mobile audience to leave your website in frustration, invest in a mobile version of your website
• Look into responsive design. A new trend in mobile marketing is responsive design. Put simply, responsive design automatically adjusts the users experience on your website according to the device they are using to access it
• Target new device owners. Just after the holidays is when the number of new mobile device owners is highest. It’s common sense that those with new devices are going to be searching for ways to use it. Offer incentives to those new device owners to encourage them to make purchases from their new mobile device
• Keep it simple. Smartphone users prefer simplicity. It’s hard to navigate around too much on a 4-5 inch screen. Keep your mobile website simple an easy to navigate. The same rules apply if you choose to develop a mobile app
• Be smart about texting. If you’re going to use text message marketing, make every text count. Never disrupt your customers’ lives with unimportant texts
• Don’t forget social media. Today, many people are accessing social media via smartphones. Having social media profiles and keeping them up to date is a simple way to be mobile friendly. Plus it’s free
• Never stop fine tuning. The key to success with any mobile marketing effort is to measure it. If you’re not measuring success you don’t know what’s working and what isn’t. Constantly fine tune your mobile marketing strategy to make it more effective

Source:  CIO