Mobile website design isn’t just for multi-billion dollar corporations or even small businesses with shops popping up all over the state. Even having a five-employee mom and pop shop means that you will soon have to depend on a mobile site to bring customers in.
Customers Are Searching for You
The news that may be surprising is that nearly half of all mobile business searches are for local businesses with 97% of people searching for local businesses. Even if a customer isn’t searching directly for your site, customers are relying heavily on researching for the best product and price. If you’re selling that superior product, customers are willing to dismiss brand loyalty and buy your product.
This research isn’t simply to find what product that they want, but also to find out where they can get it. Nearly three-quarters of customers and smartphone users have accessed Google Maps at one point or another. Many times it is to search for business categories that have the type of product they are looking for. This may be especially true for the vast majority of people who, at some point, go into the store whether to research or purchase.
Using Mobile Social Media
Well over 60% of smartphone users use social media while on their phone. This may be through apps or through mobile optimized sites, but it holds huge potential for businesses of all sizes. And that potential is only getting bigger. Social media is word-of-mouth on steroids. Nearly three-fourths of your customers will trust online reviews as much as word-of-mouth and over half are likely to use a local business with good reviews. In fact, more often than not, if someone is on their phone in your store it is because they are researching your store or a product in your store via their social media apps. Having a superior mobile website design for your local business can send that browser over the edge into customer territory.
Thirty percent of Facebook’s ad revenue (coming from ads for businesses like yours) was directly from mobile ads in the first quarter of 2013. Initially, that may seem like a market you don’t want to ignore but, at the same time, you don’t want to put too much emphasis on. But compare that to the fact that just three months prior, in the fourth quarter of 2012, that piece of the pie was just over 20%. Three months prior to that, in the third quarter of 2012? Mobile ads produced a scant 15% of Facebook’s ad revenue. And if mobile ads are being clicked on, you’d better have a mobile site.
Not only is social media great for promotion, but it’s a direct line for feedback from customers and direct engagement with customers. This type of face-to-face interaction with your customers is an ability that huge multinational corporations do not have. Facilitating and maintaining direct customer interaction, by and large, improves the customer’s perception of the business drastically.
Engaging the customer directly involves, in large part, being accessible to those who are looking for you or a product or service that you provide as well as bringing your business directly to them through social media, great reviews, and exclusive mobile deals. But the mobile market doesn’t simply have to be bringing them to you, it can also bridge the gap from you to them by allowing quick access to analytics and customer opinions that can help you improve your business and build the social media and mobile word-of-mouth. Continuing your business through great mobile website design will allow you and your customers to easily find each other.
