Mobile marketing guide for small businesses

This article was penned for Bytestart by Darren Daws, MD of txtlocal

Small and medium sized companies have long been missing out on the benefits of Mobile Marketing due to providers charging high prices for services that were biased towards bulk use by big businesses. Yet this marketing revolution no longer has to be restricted to bigger organisations.

With whispers that 2008 will see mobile marketing really take off, there are more cost-effective solutions out there for smaller firms. With consumers more savvy than ever before, evaluating your marketing techniques has never been so important and mobile marketing can be a great way to reach – and even interact with - your target consumers.

Mobile marketing ideal smaller businesses

Mobile marketing is ideal for smaller businesses such as nightclubs, take-away restaurants, hair salons, retailers and garages where they are able to offer news, offers or promotions to their consumers instantly via their mobile.

Yet it is not only retailers that can use mobile marketing effectively. There has been a huge surge in service industries such as GP surgeries and Dentists who have found this method successful in improving communication between medical practitioner and patient. Information and appointment reminders can be sent to a patient within seconds minimising costs of more traditional methods of mailing and phone calls, reducing missed appointments.

In fact, with over 65 million mobile phones in the UK where most people have a phone with them nearly all of the time, this method of marketing could be considered the most ‘mobile’ (no pun intended). Imagine a store sending a discount voucher to their target audience via mobile on a Saturday morning – they would be reaching their consumers at exactly the right time (as they shop!).

This, combined with the personal nature of the mobile phone, makes it the perfect media for certain types of communication. The interaction and personal aspect of Mobile marketing can play a huge part in helping small and medium sized businesses communicate well with their customers (especially with Short Code SMS text to win campaigns), giving the customer the feeling of individual contact.

One of our recent case studies for a small spa used an SMS campaign to remind their clients of appointments. Indeed, their appointment reminder service meant that the ‘no-show’ rate for appointments missed dropped by a fantastic 75% - no small amount for a small business.

Mobile marketing campaigns can be highly-targeted and cost-effective

The targeted campaigns that come from Mobile Marketing are especially ideal for small and medium sized businesses being extremely cost effective and avoiding wasting time and money on large campaigns that will be ignored by unwilling customers. In this sense mobile marketing delivers messages directly to the customers of your choice.

Mobile marketing can also help smaller organizations not only communicate with their consumers, but also their employees. One medium sized housing association recently used an SMS marketing campaign to advertise their upcoming sales conference to their employees. The campaign included text reminders, and a facility where employees could SMS in their attendance or any questions they could have and proved very successful with a much higher than average turnout for the firm.

Mobile Marketing is an ideal tool for the smaller business – whatever their aims - and is no longer as costly or confusing as it once was. There are a variety of tools SMEs can use including SMS reminders, SMS text to win competitions, MMS messages (e.g. a new bar wanting to send an offer along with an image of the bar to its prospective customers) and much more. These opportunities can offer real cost effective marketing solutions for SMEs whilst allowing them to keep the personal touch and interact with their customers.

Note: txtlocal offers no set up fees or monthly costs and has prices starting from just £8.00 which many smaller companies find ideal for testing the water.