Control The Mobile Conversation With Your Customers
By actively having a mobile marketing strategy for the holiday season prepares your business and your employees for those mobile savvy customers who use their mobile device to sniff out the best deal. Using techniques such as “Geo-conquesting” can help reach mobile shoppers in a different part of the buying cycle. With mobile technologies such as location based services and geo-targeted advertising you can control where your brand sits in the mobile conversation. The mobile conversation means your customers interaction with their mobile device to find the “better deal”. Mobile shoppers have been “showrooming” (comparing online pricing while in store) since the conception of the smartphone. It is only now that stores are actively trying to prevent or combat the customers urge to leave and make the purchase else where. One way to combat the bouncing mobile savvy shopper is to reach them with a reason to buy now or better yet leave an area competitor to come your way.
- Here are two examples of ways to beat the competition to the punch.
1. Geo-conquest customers with a better deal – Geo-conquesting is the ability to target your customers as they are near a competitors location. By using location based services in mobile applications or via SMS you can send a timely deal your customer’s way to engage them to not purchase the item because they can get it at a better price at your store.
For example a consumer electronics store knows that their main competitor is having a sale the upcoming weekend and they are a few miles away. The strategy would be to geofence the competitors location and passively engage a customer that maybe headed in for the sale by sending a message like this; “ABC Electronics: Shopping for a great deal on a TV or Tablet this weekend? If so, we have 20% all items and come buy today & get an extra 10% off purchase. Show MSG. Exp 12-1” By having a strategy and knowledge of your competitors you can help persuade a customer with the need for the better deal.
2. Initate the urge to buy with a Location Based Deal – Have you ever been walking out of a store and at the last second a special sale item caught your eye? This happens to us all and its called a “impulse buy” a deal to good to pass up. By sending out a location based deal or geo-targeted SMS you can create the urge of a deal “to good to pass up”.
For example, by geofencing an area with high foot traffic volume near your location you can catch those shoppers that never intended in stopping by your location by send a messaging like; “ABC Electronics: Trying to find that perfect present? How about new headphones for the music lover in your life? Stop in today for 30% off. Show Msg Exp. 12-1. This helps your customers with both a present idea and the knowledge of a deal to good to pass up. Rarely do customers come in to a store to get a particular deal and then pull out their smartphone to try to find another place to buy it.
By initiating the mobile conversation it helps you as the business owner to control it. Customers want to be rewarded for loyalty and when they opt-in in to receive deals they expect just that. For more information on creating your own mobile marketing strategy contact us today.