Mobile Marketing & Online Customer Getting Solutions

Online search is where it’s at for local businesses as well as all businesses. I’m not saying all buys are done through e-commerce.

But virtually all customers start their search online.

Most never do any off-line search.

Google is going to increasingly local results for its search. Even when a user doesn’t user doesn’t type in a local term in their their search Google still usually puts in spots 5 through 7 local results based on a user’s IP address.

A few musts for local business:

1. Claim — Google places business listing, Bing business portal listing, Yahoo local listing, Yelp listing, and Citysearch listing.

There’s certainly more out there. MerchantCircle, SuperPages and InsiderPages come to mind but the 5 listed above at least cover the basics for you. This stops overwhelm.

2. Tracking — Google analytics is free and gives you a wealth of information to make more money and improve your business.

3. Contact — put your phone number in your website header so it’s on every page of your site. Make sure your office address is also on every page of your site prominently featured.

Bottom line, don’t make customers “hunt and peck” to contact you or make their blood boil because they can’t find where to drive to your location to buy stuff from you.

Here’s a few more tips from software advice:

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6. Elevate Promotions and Specials on the Homepage

To grab the attention of visitors, place details of current and upcoming promotions on the homepage of your site, preferably high-up on the page where they are most likely to be noticed. These details could be the deciding factor between a visitor choosing your store over a competitor’s.

7. Connect with Locals through Social Networks and Newsletters

Even if new visitors to your site don’t buy from you today, you don’t want to miss an opportunity to connect with them in the future. Facebook, Twitter and email newsletters can alert local customers to specials, seasonal hours, new products and general news about your business. Provide links to your social media accounts and newsletter sign-up forms throughout your site.

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What results have you gotten by doing these things? If you haven’t done all of them what’s stopping you?

I pledge to read your comments and give you solutions in my responses.

For small business owners in the luxury market it’s been one of the few bright spots in the rough seas of the last 2 years economy. This follows the trend of history.

Throughout most economic turmoil, recessions, and depressions the luxury market is the 1 segment of the consumer buying space that holds up relatively well. The reason is because rich people will always be rich just a little bit less so in bad times.

So it’s a great and insulated market to be in as a local business owner.

And new ways to connect with luxury consumers are being employed by small business owners every day. This combination of new tech and low tech engagement communication channels includes:

1. Mobile marketing

2. Social media

3. Glossy print

4. E-mail (as old and stodgy as this is still it’s producing)

Probably the reason e-mail is still very effective is because most people in the luxury market are in the 45 to 65 age range. E-mail is still the primary communication tool they use.

It just goes to show you must know your demographics and psychographics.

Here’s more from luxury daily:

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What last year taught all luxury marketers is that a brand’s values are not worth diluting even when the global economy is not where it should be. Holding the price line is critical, but so is not resorting to desperate marketing measures.

One trend that began last year and may have legs in 2012 is the sale of independent luxury labels to luxury conglomerates.

Such consolidation is reshaping the notion of luxury, particularly in the high-end market where exclusivity and nonpareil quality were the key charms. How to translate that into mass sales without losing the luxury brand’s mystique in this day and age of social and mobile media will be the challenge du jour.

As readers will notice, Luxury Daily’s Luxury Marketing Outlook 2012 is quite optimistic on the future of luxury marketing for branding and customer acquisition, retention and reactivation.

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As a local business owner customer reviews are your best selling tool in today’s current environment. With the economy so bad and the amount of information on the Internet growing so rapidly you’ve gotta have powerful customer reviews.

People are going to the Internet first to find products and services. Despite this technological advance of mobile devices and the like the old word-of-mouth referral via customer reviews is still the most powerful.

In fact its power has actually strengthened as technology has grown.

Customers must have a way to cut through the absolute massive onslaught of information coming at them. Customer reviews are the way they do that.

Here’s a stat,

83% of people searching online are influenced by customer reviews.

It’s one of the first things they look at.

They’re either influenced positively or negatively.

If you don’t have any reviews at all they’re influenced negatively and usually move onto the next business owner who does have some.

Key points:

1. Highlight your best reviews

Take customer reviews which site-specific pieces of your product or service that you want online searchers to see. If they’ve got any big concerns or problems that some of your reviews talk about you solving those are the reviews to highlight.

2. Fresh reviews

Both online searchers and Google want to see fresh reviews. If your reviews are months or years old they’ll wonder if you’re still in business.

3. Authenticity

Sprinkle in some of the neutral or bad reviews. The most powerful thing about this is the response you give to those reviews. Customers want to see that you respond to problems, because they understand we don’t live in a perfect world.

Your response talking about how you handled the situation is of paramount importance.

Here’s a cool article which shows you how and where to feature these customer reviews for maximum impact for getting customers online and raising your Google Places business listing to the top of Google:

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47% of adults say they rely most on the internet to get news and information about local businesses.With that many people searching online before making a purchase decision, business owners have to focus on their online reputation and put effort into featuring user-generated content about their business to differentiate from their competitors.
Here are some tips for featuring your online content:

Just one look: A killer first page
When most people search for a local business online, they are looking for customer reviews. If you don’t have any, it’s time to start collecting some. If you already have reviews, make sure that the first page of your reviews is your best marketing tool because many of your prospects won’t get past the first page. Think about what you really want your prospects to know about your business and make sure you feature reviews that touch on those specific details. Also, if your service extends to several different geographical areas in the state or country, a great way to show this is by featuring a good mix of reviews from customers in a variety of areas. Finally, consider including comments that you posted in response to the reviewer because your prospects will want to see how you interact with and address your customers.

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To recap:

- you’ve gotta have reviews

- they’ve gotta be recent customer reviews

- you’ve gotta show both sides of the equation, responding to the negative reviews.

How are you using customer reviews in your local business? Comment here because I pledge to read and respond to your comments.

If you’re not up on the basics of local search as a small business owner you’re losing out. It’s still amazing to me how so many local businesses don’t even have a website.

But you’re one of the smart ones who’s had a website for a while. Now what’s the next step to actually get customers from your website?

Local search is the easiest and quickest way. It’s better to hire a professional, I’ve got a couple of client spots available, than it is to spend tons of time learning the quirky local search game.

Like anything else it’s an acquired expertise over time and investing your energy studying.

If you have plenty of extra time for study then by all means feel free to dive much deeper into local search optimization.

Basically, at its core we’re talking about when users are searching from mobile devices or searching from their desktops or laptops at work and at home for a search like “plumber Atlanta Georgia”.

You’ll notice how they’re looking for a plumber but obviously they don’t want one in San Diego California. So they typed in the city and state qualifier after the type of business they were looking for.

There’s a specific set of rules to moving your website to the top position for the very best key words that people in your local area are typing in to potentially find you.

One of them is the authority of your website which is based on a number of factors including:

1. relevancy of your content
2. number and quality of links coming into your site
3. your office location
4. whether you’ve got plenty of images and videos on YouTube.

The other big thing is to claim your listing and fill it out as completely as possible. Google likes to see 10 images and 5 YouTube videos.

Basic rule of thumb is “the more complete your listing is the more likely you’ll be positioned higher in the rankings than any of your competitors”.

Your local business search listing is highly optimized for searches done from mobile devices meaning you can win the mobile game without any technical knowledge.

Also as speech to text software, like Apple’s Siri, on smart phones gets more accurate this is driving more local search queries. Apple’s IOS software for their iPhone is increasingly pulling data from local search results as well as from Yelp.

Hint: if your business isn’t listed on Yelp.com get on there immediately. It doesn’t cost any cash it only costs a little bit of time outlay. And you don’t even have to do it yourself, you can assign one of your employees to do it.

Here’s more from Internet Marketing Ninjas:

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How do I start?

Start with each of the three major search engines. Using a variety of keywords and phrases, search for your business. Try those you optimize your website for and others you might not yet use. Think of broader category terms rather than your specific business branding (although product & service branding terms are perfectly valid). You want to see where your website falls in the pack. Try this test while logged on and logged off of your search engine accounts in the browser. You’ll likely get different local results, as identifying the exact location of logged off users is harder to do, so you’ll want to see how those users fare when searching for your line of business.

If you find your business listed, look for a link that goes to the local search business profile, not the company website (you might try clicking the map pushpin or a link for directions).

Note: If after trying several search terms and you can’t find your business, go directly to the local search tools – Google Places, Bing Business Portal, and Yahoo! Local – and create a profile pronto!

Examine the existing default profile; surely there is something there that you can update, add to, and optimize. Look for a link in the local search profile with the anchor text “Business owner?”, “Claim this business” or something similar to begin the process of capturing the profile so you can edit it. This will make it an owner-verified listing – and that’s a good thing!

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Make sure you copy and paste your business info to all these various places. The format of your address and phone number should be the exact same on Google places, Bing local, Yahoo local, Yelp.com, Citysearch.com and all the other local directories.

Adding the exact same info increases the trust that search engines have in your data being accurate. That’s the biggest thing they want from local businesses is accurate up to date information which gives searchers your correct phone number and office address.

Doing this means you’ll likely be positioned higher than your competitors.

Extra Resources:

MapQuest

http://listings.mapquest.com/apps/listing#places

Google +
https://plus.google.com/ there will be a link to “create business page” or similar in the lower right side of your screen.

What other questions are stirring in your mind about what you can do to get better rankings?

Ask those in the comments below because I promise to respond.