Get More Customers with Mobile Marketing Charleston
Do you remember when the Yellow Pages section of the local telephone book was the primary medium for getting a business before the eyes of the local consumer? It was effective because businesses that could afford a display ad in the local Yellow Pages were the businesses that won the marketing game in that day. Although many businesses still use Yellow Page advertising, statistics reveal that the Yellow Pages “users” have steadily declined in numbers since the inception of the public Internet.
And, just as the Internet has taken huge bites out of the Yellow Pages advertising, mobile advertising media is chomping at the heels of standard Internet advertising venues, opening a vista of opportunity for businesses that engage in this new marketing medium.
Think 15 Years Ago
In the mid to late 1990’s businesses of all kind were presented with a new media: Internet advertising. Many businesses ignored the new advertising media, choosing to stay with traditional marketing venues such as Yellow pages, Newspaper ads and direct marketing. Those businesses who decided to accept the challenge of changing their marketing strategy to encompass branded websites and Internet advertising soon pulled ahead of the pack. Today, there are more businesses from the local beauty salon to bakeries that have an online presence. Why? Because they discovered that if they want to be “found” they needed to be where the people were looking — the Internet.
Today, media advertising is trending toward mobile advertising — specifically app branding.
With over 82 million Smartphone customers in the USA alone you don’t want to be left out of this market. In fact, by app branding your business, you are making it instantly accessible as your prospective client’s Smartphone is ALWAYS in their purse, their hand or their pocket.
BIA/Kelsey, a marketing research firm, says that mobile marketing will account for 70 billion phone calls to businesses in the U.S. by 2016 (right now the number is 20 billion calls from mobile devices). That’s a bunch of phone calls.
App real estate is very important and still growing as smart phone users are utilizing apps to search for various things to make their lives easier and more efficiently use their time. Just as owning a relevant domain is vital to a business, an “app brand” could mean the difference between success and failure for today’s business owner. Not only will having an app benefit a business local market, it will also give your business reach beyond the scope of what you can accomplish with traditional marketing methods. For example, a domain such as Charleston Real Estate.com may be selling out of reach for a local business, but you can still establish a presence on an app with the Charleston real estate brand, which may, in the long run have even more queries than a website.
The question for all small businesses is not “why do I need an app?”, rather “will my business be able to compete in today’s mobile society without one?”