The Third Screen author Chuck Martin believes small businesses have an advantage when it comes to the rapid movement and instantaneous nature of mobile technology and mobile marketing.
“They have less infrastructure and things in the way, essentially, between the decision and the actual consumer. With larger companies there’s a real gap between when someone says they’re going to create and deploy something in mobile and the consumer, but that’s where a lot of companies fall down.”
Retail giant sets the example
In his book, Martin uses shoe retail giant Steve Madden as the perfect case study for the possibilities of effective mobile marketing. More importantly, the tactics that were employed can be emulated within your own small business. While Steve Madden is a global entity, they researched other companies to find who reigned supreme in the realm of social media, in text message marketing, and in sending video messages. They found that an app was largely unnecessary, but instead created a mobile website with all the functionality of an app. Through this, they started to accumulate interactive relationships with their users. They would ask potential buyers to vote on five different shoes Steve Madden were looking at launching, for example, and voting would run all day. Then they would say, “We’re going to have this shoe that you voted. We’re going to have a certain number of them on sale at this location.” All the voters who are using that platform are able to go and pick up that deal, and a special relationship is created between company and consumer, says Chuck Martin.
Personalised marketing
Steve Madden also made sure to personalise their marketing activities, with birthday MMS video messages and the like, which is a low-cost but effective marketing tool, and one that many companies are beginning to include in their strategies. The magic of engagement that mobile marketing allows does not need to extend to all of your customers, as many of them will not deal with your business via that tool. Instead, as Chuck Martin notes, you need to pinpoint customer profiles with the most potential. While the numbers of customers that opt-in for text messages might seem insignificant, they are likely to be the customers providing you with the majority of your revenue.
Personal engagement
While using a company that sells millions of dollars worth of shoes every day might seem a little far away from your small business earnings, the key message is ultimately the same for your small business—personal engagement is inherently valuable. This article is based on an extract from the Marketing Goes Mobile webinar with Chuck Martin, author of The Third Screen: Marketing to Your Customers in a World Gone Mobile. Learn more about Chuck Martin, here. Watch the Marketing Goes Mobile webinar on-demand, today.
This article was co-authored by Elizabeth Rowe. Elizabeth graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (English Literature) at the ANU and a Masters of Media Practice at the University of Sydney. She is currently completing an internship with the Australian Businesswomen’s Network.
