MyFanMachine

Making Your Business Social

Is Your Small Business a Candidate for the New Foursquare Ads?

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Foursquare ad example
How Ads Look on Foursquare

Mashable is reporting that location based social networking company Foursquare is currently testing a new advertising platform intended for small business, by letting large advertisers like Burger King, Gap and Starwood Hotels to test promote themselves with the platform. These listings appear in Foursquare when a customer gets close to a business’ physical location. Small businesses already had the capability to offer discounts when a user checked in to a location, but now Foursquare is providing them with a way to attract geographically close customers by showing an image ad and/or review by a previous Foursquare user.

Why this may be a good idea for Foursquare

Foursquare is a location-based social networking site for mobile devices, such as smartphones. Typically its users “check in” at various venues using a mobile website, text messaging or a device-specific app. Their specific location is available through the GPS in their mobile device. Foursquare has up to now been a means for consumers to promote their favorite bars, hangouts and restaurants. Now, those places will be able to promote themselves directly to consumers. While Foursquare has gathered some 25 million registered users, they made just $2 million dollars last year, according to The Wall Street Journal. They are clearly searching for ways to pump up the earnings.

How the new ads work

The way this works is the ad platform targets Foursquare users determined by their locations and check-in histories. Merchants will and do have a chance to target nearby consumers with particular tastes – a predilection for fine dining, for instance, or customers who had previously checked-in to their store. Merchants in this program have the capability to turn off and on their Foursquare promotions when needed, and are charged similar to a pay per click model, that is, they are going to be charged only on a “per action” basis (when a user actually taps on a promoted listing instead of merely viewing it). So far, Foursquare is charging $0.50 to $3 per action, but that’s likely to change when it is introduced to the masses. Foursquare CRO Steven Rosenblatt said, “Small businesses are willing to pay for local advertising if it makes sense.”

Are Bellingham Businesses Losing Mobile Customers?

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Have you taken a look lately at the mobile website of your favorite Bellingham businesses on your smartphone? If you have, chances are you didn’t have a great experience.

Our favorite shops have been a bit behind in getting up to speed with their customers. But is it really their fault?

The number of people using their mobile phones to shop online, find local restaurants, and make purchase decisions has grown faster than most business owners are keeping track of. In 2013, over half of all people using mobile phones will be on a smart phone.

U.S. cell phone users: percentage of smartphone users 2010-2016
You will find more statistics at Statista

Personally, I know many people who use their phone or tablet as their primary device for accessing the Internet. When they get to a non-mobile website that is hard to read, they move on to another choice that may be easier to get around. This trend is not going away and we will see it increase further in 2013.

When you think about it, you really don’t expect local business owners to be on top of every trend. Especially trends that grow this quickly. They need to focus on provided a great product and service.

Unfortunately, this often means they can be losing out on growth and profits because they are not found where their customers are looking.

Most businesses will benefit from having a mobile friendly site. The amount it will benefit a business depends on their customers, products and services. The only way to know for sure is to start tracking where website visitors come from. There are ways to check this and find out how many are coming to a website from a mobile device.

If you would like to set that up for you (at no charge) be sure to get in touch with us and mention this blog post.

What businesses do you think could benefit the most from a mobile friendly site?

Mobile Restaurant Websites – Should There Be More?

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Have you ever been out and about when you realize you’re going to have to grab something to eat soon? Or maybe you’re out with friends and you want to try something new.

Chances are you whipped out your smart phone and tried to look up some options.

And more likely than not, you came across a restaurant’s website that was pretty much unusable on your phone. You might think that a mobile restaurant website would be more common. Unfortunately, it’s not.

And it’s not just a problem in Bellingham and Whatcom County. Back in April TechCrunch publshed this article: Study: 95% Of Independent Restaurants Don’t Have Mobile Sites, Only 40% Have Online Menus

Basically, restaurants are losing business by not letting people see what they have to offer when it makes the most sense: when people are out and thinking of somewhere to eat.

For those who think it may not be that important, here’s an example: The Big Fat Fish Co. is a great seafood restaurant in Bellingham. I think the food is great and I enjoy going there. But if I didn’t know the place, heard about it while I was out in town and wanted to try it out for dinner, I would be hard pressed to see exactly what they serve.

mobile restaurant website big fat fish co
A great restaurant. Not so great experience on mobile.
On the other hand, if someone told me that El Gitano has great Mexican food, I would see this when I looked it up on my smart phone:
mobile restaurant website - smartphone friendly
An easy to navigate mobile restaurant site.
See the difference? In the video above I show how you can easily navigate the El Gitano site and get a really good idea of what they offer and the pricing. Great for customers, right?
Eventually the restaurants will come around to having mobile friendly sites, just as most have managed to put up websites. But for now, the ones that get mobile first are most likely to be the winners.
[Disclosure: the El Gitano site mentioned was developed by the staff here at MyFanMachine. Interested in something like this for your own business? Get in touch!]

How Will You Handle Social and Mobile in 2012?

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Businesses who listen to their customers should be making plans for mobile and social marketing in 2012. Businesses who ignore what’s going on in these areas risk becoming out of touch and losing their customers to other businesses who “get it”.

Just the other day I was looking up information on where to get a Valentine’s Day gift for my wife. I had limited time and I was away from my computer so I used my phone to look up the hours for a local chocolate shop.

The website barely worked on my phone. It took several minutes on scrolling around and trying to tap on buttons to get to the information I was looking for. What was this elusive piece of information? Simple: their business hours.

That goes to a two-fold problem: proper website design (putting most requested information front and center) and a technology issue (getting the website to work correctly on mobile).

Fortunately for them, this is a business I go to often and I like the people there. But if I was new to the area or didn’t know them, I might leave a negative review on a social review site and their Google page, and maybe talk about my experience on Facebook.

None of this is good for the business. And it can all be avoided with just a bit of planning.

By thinking about how their customers behave, and how they get found, businesses can avoid nasty surprises and get ahead of the curve when it comes to social networks and mobile websites.

Social and mobile are not going away.

This article on SocialMediaToday does a good job of going into how people are using social sites and their mobile phones. It also shows how this usage is growing and how people are getting more comfortable making purchases right from their phones.

Businesses can go ahead and keep doing what they’re doing. Everything will seem fine for the time being. But when the other businesses in a market start taking advantage of what social and mobile can do for them, it may be too late for the other businesses to catch up.

Here’s a question: if you don’t own or run a business, what would you like to see on the mobile version of your favorite local business’ website?

If you run a local business, what do you think about social and mobile and how it relates to your business?

Three Simple Concepts of SMS Messaging for Business

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As local businesses discover the power of text messaging to their customers, they need to treat this new technology responsibly. So far they have been responsible about it (for the most part). If SMS messages keep delivering value to customers, businesses will continue to see excellent returns. But if a business abuses the inbox of their SMS subscribers they can lose that value quickly.

Personally, the local businesses that I’ve seen put an SMS campaign into practice have gone just the opposite. Instead of sending out too many messages, they seem to forget they have the system and don’t get anything out of it. Even some larger chains are not doing it correctly.

Doing SMS Marketing Correctly

If you happy customers, they do want to hear when you have something cool going on. That could be a lunch special, a special event, or a photo of your latest culinary creation.

The first rule to make your SMS system work for you is to get employees in on it. Offer a gift certificate or other incentive each month to the employee who gets the most people to opt in for SMS messages. This helps build your list of SMS subscribers so you actually have customers to send messages out to.

Help your employees out on this point by offering customers a discount coupon when they opt in. This coupon can be sent automatically right when they sign up or it can be delayed for a day so they can use it next time they come in.

The critical point once you have a few hundred subscribers is to use the system, but don’t abuse your inbox privileges. Send out a message once or twice a week. If your slow day is on a Monday or Tuesday, send a message just before lunch letting your customers know if they come in before 1pm they get a free drink with their lunch.

If you have a special event coming up on the weekend, remind them it’s coming and help get them excited about it!

One of the cautionary tales about SMS messaging for business involves signing up mobile numbers without permission. That’s a big no-no. Subscribers should always sign up from their own phone and know they will be getting a certain number of a messages each month.

Is SMS Marketing in Bellingham worth it?

Sure, you see just about everyone walking around with cell phones and texting, but is it good for business? It turns out that if mobile marketing is done correctly it can help you bring in 25% to 100% more in sales just from your existing customers.

To put a number on how many people actually use text messaging, 81% of mobile users have sent or received a text in the last 30 days. And people 55 years and older are the fastest growing group of texters, so it’s not just the kids doing it!

When I first looked in to providing SMS services for local business I knew it was a great idea. Not only because I love mobile technology, but because I see so many other people looking for information through their mobile phone. People want to hear from the business they love through text messaging, mobile websites, and Facebook.

Still, I know that it’s still an unknown for many business owners. So I’m ready to remove the risk. For a limited time I’m helping set up a small number of businesses with the text messaging technology free for 30 days. Give me (Roger) a call at 360-733-9727 and mention that you read this blog post and I will help get you set up! You can also contact me here if email is more your style.

What are your thoughts on SMS messaging for business. Is it right for your kind of business? Are you not sure? Leave a comment with the line of business you’re in and I’ll be sure to give you an answer!