Why Your Mobile Marketing Sucks

I’m borrowing the title theme of Your Marketing Sucks by Mark Stevens, which is a great read and highly recommended, but it won’t tell you about your mobile marketing efforts sucking, which I’m about to hate on right now.

Alright, so you’re starting to feel good about your marketing efforts for your small business, you’ve got your internet marketing foundation set, and you’ve got your small business website and are even making some edits to it or even regular updates. You’ve got your Facebook page for businesses and you’re posting updates to it with (hopefully) a link back to your website.

Heck, you’ve even started running some paid search marketing campaigns and you’re starting to get some converting traffic!

Taking a peek into the analytics of your site, you’ll find more mobile traffic than you expected… in fact, according to BIA/Kelsey – local search volume is already pretty comparable to desktop traffic and will exceed desktop traffic by 2015.

Your sweet Facebook business page reach that you’ve been building through fans, is reaching these people on their mobile devices… in fact, according to Flurry, 18% of smartphone users’ time on the smartphone is spent on Facebook. Another 20% is dedicated to using the mobile browser.

…and Facebook’s mobile traffic is growing FAST!!!   –  Facebook Mobile Traffic Jumps 23% since March

Possibly, unbeknownst to you, you’ve been mobile marketing already! I would say you probably already have a “plethora” of mobile traffic.

Problem is, the mobile user experience you give them SUCKS. It sucks SO BAD!! And I’m just the person to hate on it.

Here’s 3 reasons why your mobile marketing sucks:

1. Your website sucks in a mobile browser:

When mobile users need your service, whatever marketing path they use on their phone to get to your site, be it Facebook, search or other channels, you give them this gem:

You need to give your mobile visitors something like this:

See for yourself!

This is a responsive design website. This is the gold standard of websites for 2013. Mashable called 2013 “The Year of Responsive Design”, read more about it here, but the gist is that one website serves all devices.

Here’s an example from O’Neill Clothing switching from no mobile website to responsive design:

For Android:

• Conversions increased by 407.32%
• Transactions went up by 333.33%
• Revenue increased by a whopping 591.42%

For iPhone:

• Conversions increased by 65.71%
• Transactions increased by 112.50%
• Revenue increased by 101.25%

Read the whole article here:  “How Responsive Design Boosts Mobile Conversions”

In lieu of a responsive design website for your business, try a simple mobile website.

2. Your Google Local Profile SUCKS SO BAD!!!

I’ll use results of a Google Maps Search for “Los Angeles, CA Window Treatment”

Here’s an example of a poor local profile:

source: https://plus.google.com/107246282276336716616/

The profile has no pictures of the business, no website listed, no hours, 1 category, no reviews… just overall generally lacking in every way. I don’t want to go there!

Here’s a good example of a good local profile:

source: https://plus.google.com/112171517502056958368/

This profile has pictures, website listed, hours, reviews… really good stuff here. I’d feel comfortable knowing what I’m going to get when I go to that store. Let’s buy some window treatments.

If you need help getting your local profile sorted, go here: A Better Setup of Google+ Local for Small Business Owners in 5 Steps.

3. Your Business Profile on Superpages.com SUCKS SO BAD!!!

Same thing here as with your Google Local Profile… it needs pictures, website, hours, business description, videos, etc…

While the Superpages.com site, Superpages.com mobile website and Superpages.com mobile apps themselves aren’t as much traffic as Google, the consumer traffic is VALUABLE. No one comes to Superpages.com for leisure… they come to do business.

Also consider that this data is distributed to development and traffic partners, where your business profile data is displayed on other websites and more importantly, mobile apps. This distribution of your business profile data provides tremendous reach to an extremely valuable audience.

Go tidy up your business profile on Superpages.com here.

To be fair, there are other services like this (just none as awesome). Go set up your business profile on City Grid, YP.com and these other properties.

So to sum up all the hate on your mobile marketing:

1. You need a Mobile Website.
2. You need good content on your Google Local Business Profile.
3. You need good content on your Superpages profile and other data distribution services.

Good luck, and I’ll keep hating.