Mobile Marketing

Mobile marketing can seem redundant for a lot of businesses. After all, you've already spent time and money to build a website, why should you spend more time and money to build a mobile website?

The simplest answer is that a mobile website reduces frustration and makes life easier for consumers. When consumers are not frustrated, they are more likely to become leads, and if they can make purchases from their phone, they are more likely to become customers. But that's not the only reason to consider using mobile marketing. Mobile marketing can be used for 5 basic things:

• Branding- Allows you to build awareness for your brand and provides an outlet for connecting with customers.
• E-commerce- Your mobile marketing campaigns should lead to a landing page that facilitates the conversion of leads to customers. Mobile sites help with this because they are easier to navigate on your phone than a traditional web page. If a customer wants to buy your product while they are on their phone, make it as easy as possible for them to do so.
• Research- You can use mobile marketing to generate feedback from customers. Polls and comm ents fields that are optimized  for mobile use will help facilitate your research.
• Customer retention- Mobile sites make it easier for your customers to reach out to you to contact you, ask questions, brag about your services and products, and report problems swiftly. It's faster and easier to Tweet or leave a Facebook comment than to type out a formal email.
• Lead generation- A mobile si te is a good way to generate leads. So often you hear about a business or see something about a new service when you are not at your home computer. Being able to access their site and contact them from a mobile source can be the difference between becoming a customer or not. For example, a consumer hears about a restaurant from a friend and wants to find out their hours. If the restaurant has a mobile sit e, the process is quick and easy and results in the consumer becoming a customer. If the restaurant doesn't have a mobile site, the consumer gets frustrated with having to zoom in and out and does not become a customer.

The restaurant example may seem to be simplistic, but so often this really is the case. The next time you have a couple minutes free, start browsing some of your favorite businesses. See if you can find their hours of operation, contact information, and specifics about a product or service they offer. It is amazing how swiftly you become frustrated and annoyed trying to find simple information on a website if it is a traditional web page and not a mobile optimized site.