Local Mobile Marketing – 6 Tips for Small Business
Mobile marketing – it’s not just for big brands with few local roots any more. Mobile marketing has become the new standard in small business marketing, too. It’s great for securing business with local customers who’re on-the-go. Plus, it can save you a small fortune compared to other PR, promotions, and advertising channels. 
The small business marketing crowd increasingly is leveraging this reality: Customers aren’t sitting at a home computer any longer, searching for local businesses to patronize. If your Web presence is only geared toward traditional Internet surfers, you’re likely missing lots of business. To leverage the new wireless world, start fusing your local marketing with mobile marketing.
Snapshot: The Local Mobile Marketing Universe Any type of local business can benefit from mobile marketing, with the most searched mobile categories being: restaurants, retail shops, sports, weather, news, financial information, and events/concerts. You can use local mobile marketing to connect with consumers many ways. Small businesses use mobile channels for advertising, customer care / PR relationship management, and sales promotions.
But Keep an Eye on “Siri,” the SEO Game-changer
As plentiful as the small business marketing opportunities are, there’s always game-changing new technology to be mindful of. In the mobile marketing realm, it’s “Siri” – the buzz-worthy personal assistant app for Apple iPhone 4S.
Voice-activated, Siri can handle a multitude of tasks whenever the user gives a command. If you haven’t seen Siri in action, here’s a video demo:
While voice recognition exists on other mobile phones, Siri takes it to new heights. It sifts through all of the other apps on a user’s iPhone 4S to find and execute whatever the user requests.
In other words, Siri never uses a search engine. If your business is search-engine reliant, Siri will never discover and recommend you. Even those who’re up-to-speed on local mobile marketing techniques are planning for the possible shift
Siri App vs. Local Search Engine Traffic To be sure, Google Android, Blackberry, and others are working to develop similar non-SEO search technology. The implications for those concerned with small business marketing . . .
- Start rethinking your small business marketing mix . . . Fewer people will be typing your keywords into search engines. Instead, they’ll use Siri-like technology, which only recognizes businesses connected to some type of mobile app,
- Web-based pay-per-click (PPC) ad campaigns will generate fewer sales leads. With Siri making it unnecessary for users to use search engines, there’ll be fewer people viewing the PPC ads on the search results pages, and
- Having little to no mobile presence may cost you dearly. Diversify beyond desktops and SEO now, to both protect and grow your business.
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