Local Retailers Play Black Friday Catch Up with Mobile Marketing

Chicago, IL USA - Black Friday is just around the corner and mobile marketing and advertising is predicted to play a bigger role in driving in-store sales than ever before. “The 2010 holiday shopping season will demonstrate the strength of mobile marketing and advertising to drive in-store sales to the masses and introduce 2011 as what we and many other mobile experts believe will be the “stepping out” year for mobile.” says Scott Metcalfe, Chief Strategist at FetchLocalCustomers.com a Chicago based leader in local online marketing and local mobile marketing.

Local Retailers are Behind the Mobile Curve

National brand retailers such as Target, Kohl’s and H&M are making mobile a major part of their holiday advertising and marketing strategy this year and Metcalfe believes that local merchants should be following suit. “While the impact of mobile on the 2009 holiday shopping season went entirely unnoticed by local businesses and the general public, the most savvy national chains took note, saw the value, and are ramping up their mobile focus and spending"

This puts most local businesses and retailers behind the learning curve for this year’s biggest shopping season but it’s not too late to take action. Fortunately for small or local businesses, mobile can be implemented in a number of ways very quickly.

Mobile Capitalizes on Existing Customer Activity

One of the advantages to mobile marketing is that for the most part your potential customer is already out and about. Therefore, local businesses need only detour them toward their locations which is a lot easier than getting people to get off the couch, put their coats on and get in their car. “My advice is to let the deep pocket retailers get your customers out of their homes using expensive mass advertising in print, TV and radio while you use highly focused and enticing mobile campaigns to get them to visit you while they’re out”, says Metcalfe.

Mobile Quick Hits - What Local Business Should Focus On

Even with just days left before the start of the holiday season local retailers and businesses of all kinds still have plenty of time to get some “quick hit” mobile strategies in place to draw holiday shoppers in. Here are some tactics that Metcalfe recommends.
• Businesses that have an established SMS text message list should send compelling offers such as discount codes and time sensitive offers. Even “shopper relief” offers like a free cup of coffee, hot chocolate or a snack could be used to draw traffic into your establishment.
• If the business has never done any mobile marketing, they should consider “click to map” or “click to call” advertisements that don’t require a new mobile website yet are still highly effective. Combining geographic and demographic targeting with appealing offers and discount codes is probably the easiest way for a local business to take advantage of mobile this year.
• Another option is to build campaign specific mobile landing pages that are designed to get the mobile user to take action. For example, a landing page with information on a popular, yet hard to find item in a mobile-friendly format will entice the target consumer.
• Restaurants can easily attract hungry customers by taking full and strategic advantage of local listings in Google, Yahoo, and Bing. From that point, restaurants can add click to map, click to call and other strategies.

Sameer Samat, Director of Product Management at Google recently wrote “The line between online and offline shopping is starting to blur: According to a study by Forrester while 93 percent of retail purchases today happen in a store, more than 46 percent of those in-store purchases are influenced by online research.” Google is helping to blur that line even more by introducing local product search results and a find local stores option.

Metcalfe offers this final thought. “The 2010 holiday shopping season represents a huge opportunity for all local retailers, stores and businesses that take action and put the power of mobile marketing and advertising to work. The question is not whether mobile can benefit local businesses and retailers this holiday season but rather which businesses will choose to use it.”

FetchLocalCustomers.com is based near Chicago, IL and serves local and regional professional practices, businesses, and retailers throughout the United States. FetchLocalCustomers brings new customers to their clients by using search marketing strategies. They make sure their clients’ websites are found when consumers are searching, and that consumers are offered the information they need to make the decision to buy. FetchLocalCustomers can be reached on the internet at www.FetchLocalCustomers.com, by phone at 888.505.6162, or by email at customerservice@fetchlocalcustomers.com

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Kathleen Rudy

VP of Operations

FetchLocalCustomers.com

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