Mobile Marketing & Online Customer Getting Solutions

Looking to grow your business? Most small business owners are. So here are the 7 trends which are hot in 2012.

Consider each carefully and even if you do only 1 or 2 you’ll still be way ahead of where you are now. So let’s get cranking.

A few of my favorites:

1. Social media – set an end goal before you begin and put a time limit on how long you (or your trusted employee) will spend toward this goal each day.

Social media can be a massive time suck when done incorrectly or haphazardly.

2. The Cloud – the ubiquitous cloud has lots of advantages. You don’t have to worry about maintaining and securing your own on-site servers. Also their experts keep your site and customer data live and accessible at all times.

So that worry’s out the window. Since it’s off your plate that part of your mind share is free to focus on growth and customers.

3. Mobile

This one’s a bit more complex because it’s new and has to be done right. Spamming rules are very strict. So consult me or another expert in mobile before dipping your toe in the water.

It’s very profitable when done correctly and will only be more profitable in the future. It’s how you insure the survival of your business going forward. Think future proofing.

From USA Today:

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So here are the seven trends happening now that you can’t afford to ignore:

1. The cloud. Although social media and mobile get more buzz, the great change-maker for small business comes from the cloud.

Using Internet-based applications to run your business rather than locating those applications on your servers or hard drives sounds pretty dull, doesn’t it?

But going to the cloud is transformative. Suddenly, you don’t have the headaches (and costs) of middle-of-the-night “my server’s down” problems, you gain powerful functionality, you can spend more of your time on your business and less on your infrastructure, and you can access your applications and data from virtually anywhere.

The cloud’s addictive, especially for small businesses. Once you move one or two key functions — like your customer contact management, email marketing and document storage — to the cloud, you’ll want more. I do.

2. Social media. Social media is hot right now, and small companies are entranced with the idea of it.

But they’re also a bit mystified. Social media offers the possibility of inexpensive ways to reach and interact with customers, but it seems like it takes up a lot of time with a very uncertain return on that investment.

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Small businesses see new tech tools and toys all the time. So what’s good for the budget?

1 big trend is cloud computing both for business and personal. You can do it all on 1 account (just don’t tell your accountant).

Print on demand can be customized to you. It’s not just a service anymore. With your smartphone always on you, you can carry your documents saved on your phone and when you get to the clients’ office (or a nearby Kinko’s) you can print.

This cuts down on carrying loads of stuff.

Touch screens are growing in importance. And they’re moving into uncharted desktop and laptop waters. These are the powerful machines businesses use and are now providing touch screen flexibility.

Here’s the top 10 trends from Entrepreneur:

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The Uncomputer
Tech-savvy companies that need more desktop computers but don’t want to spend big for the firepower should consider a different breed of machine: zero-client PCs. These cheap, small units are, quite frankly, weaklings on the processing front–until you network them to a full-power computer nearby. Zero-clients have been big-company tools for some time, but recent price drops mean that a shop with just a few seats can zero out its PCs.

“Sectors where data security, IT productivity and endpoint reliability are critical are a very good fit for zero-client computing–specifically, health care, financial services, hospitality and retail, along with local government and education,” says James Buzzard, vice president for marketing at Pano Logic, a zero-client PC manufacturer in Redwood City, Calif.

Speed Up
Innovations in wireless communications come and go, but with service providers investing heavily in blazingly fast Long Term Evolution (LTE) networks, it looks like the technology will be around for some time. Though Verizon Wireless was once the sole LTE provider, now players from AT&T to Google-backed startup Clearwire are stepping into the arena–which means several choices will soon exist for accessing the web while on the go as quickly as you can in the office.

“The emergence of LTE speeds has revolutionized the mobile experience for small businesses,” says Walt Rivenbark, area vice president for mobility applications consulting at AT&T Mobility. “Salespeople will benefit by being able to collaborate remotely with their peers, easily review and share large files and help prevent service technicians from making a second trip.”

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Local business info – provide consistent business info across local directories, on your own website, click to call functionality, and claim your business on the major local review sites like Yelp and CitySearch.

Simplify – have 1 marketing agency who handles your online presence. Preferably, they’ll handle your  offline marketing as well. Or at least they are the contact point to work with an offline marketing channel expert agency.

This way you have 1 company providing your reports and updates. And 1 company to hold accountable for your results.

Merge – marketing and your content online must be merged in a usable and trackable way. This could be a team of experts led by 1 main contact person.

Here’s Location 3′s take:

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This past week, one of our favorite local gurus, Mike Blumenthal, brought together his favorite local talking heads to provide their take on the themes that shaped 2011 in Loci 2011.  We’ve analyzed their observations to shape our predictions for local marketing tactics and shifts in the way the industry will approach geo-social over the next year.

Back to Basics

Provide information about your business.  The heart of local search remains the same. Give the searchers what they want-a great user experience and information about your business. David Mihm’s Local Search Ranking Factors lists 79 factors that may affect local business listings.  However, the themes throughout the ranking factors are similar:  provide robust, accurate, consistent, and local data to the search engines and your visibility will be positively influenced.

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