Mobile Marketing has surely been on your mind as a marketer, if it hasn’t you better get out from under the rock of denial and make it a priority in 2013 or as they say, your business will be left behind. Consumers are doing more and more on their smartphones and in a recent survey mobile savvy consumers were asked which shopping activities they have used or expect to use their mobile phones for when shopping.
Here is a list of the top 5 actions consumers are using or expect to use their smartphone for:
1. Find store location. It’s happened to all of us, you are driving down the road and one of the kids yells out I am hungry, so you pull out the old smartphone and see what restaurants are in the area and head over to a little Mexican joint to feed the troops. Or the wife needs to find those perfect shoes while you are out of town visiting family. Note to self: Smartphone plus shoe store equals happy wife.
2. Check to see if the product is in stock. After watching the Oscars you want to see what all the buzz is about regarding this year’s best picture Argo. So you pull out your mobile phone and to see if Best Buy has it available on Blu Ray.
3. Check competitive prices before going to/and while in the store. Best Buy does have Argo on Blu Ray, but you want to make sure you are getting the best possible price so real quick using your smartphone you find out that Target has it on sale for two bucks less.
4. Browse a retailer’s website. Before heading over to that shoe store for the wife, you double check the website only to find your first choice does NOT have a Mobile Friendly website – so you jump over to the next one that DOES have a Mobile Friendly site and you see they have a Buy One Get One Free sale going – you are the man in your wives eyes, at least for the moment. The bad news is that first shoe store lost a sale because their site wasn’t able to give you the information you wanted right then.
5. Check product reviews. Number 5 goes back to Number 1 – before heading over to that Mexican Restaurant you pull up all the reviews and are confident you can take the family there for a great meal.
While all these are great reasons, number 4 stands out to be the most important one as far as I am concerned – BUSINESS WAS LOST because they didn’t have a Mobile Friendly Website. Face it a Mobile Friendly site is going to be more valuable than your regular website with more and more people using their smartphones to make purchasing decisions.
Tim Somers
Bizarre Marketing
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