Peter James – WSI Digital Marketing Consultant

As a mobile marketing consultant, I have to be mobile!  This is how I stay online wherever and whenever as well as what I do online and what this means for businesses that want to market to people like me.

How I Keep Mobile

In my job as a digital and mobile marketing consultant I travel a lot.  I always need to be online.  I used to lug around a laptop and a mobile phone nowadays I use an iPad and and iPhone.  The iPad is a lot lighter than a laptop and the batteries last a lot longer so for me it’s ideal. Here’s some tips and tricks that have been really useful to me…

1. Don’t buy a 3G/4G enabled iPad – just get the WiFi version.  I have a separate MiFi modem on a different network to my mobile phone.  I bought an ulocked Huawei E586 which I’m currently using on a ’3′ prepaid sim with 3GB of data for 3 months at £11.  I can also use my iPhone as a wireless hotspot tethered modem (just make sure that this is include in your mobile price plan) if I’m out of ’3′ coverage.  Thus, I have two networks behind me so I very rarely get coverage issues.  I can also put a foreign prepaid sim in the modem when I’m abroad to avoid extortionate roaming costs.  It’s important to note that, as well as putting in the sim card into the modem, you need to set the right profile (APN) into the modem.  This is easy to do and you can find details for most networks here for UK and here for overseas.
2. If you’re going to be out for more than a few hours take a spare battery of some sort.  I have one which can charge up my iPad to about 50% and also has adaptors for charging up my MiFi modem.
3. If you need a keyboard then there are a variety of combination keyboard covers for iPads.  I bought one for £20.
4. Use Dropbox to synchronise all your files so you have access from both iPad and iPhone.

What I Do When I’m Mobile

1. Obviously, I have access to email all the time.
2. I use Kindle and Newspaper apps to read newspapers and books.
3. I use Keynote for client presentations.  When online I can also take a client through SEO and website analysis reports.
4. I use the iPhone for weather and travel information including maps.

How To Market to Mobile People

When I’m looking for something local to me I use Google Places.  If you get business from travellers then you need to be listed on Google Places. A mobile website which is easy to view on an iPhone (or similar) without ‘pan and zoom’ is also a good idea.

Mobile marketing is a great way to communicate with both customers and prospects.  New advances in technology mean that it is now an excellent and cost effective technique for small and medium sized companies.  This article is a brief introduction to mobile marketing with links to other articles which have more detail. 

Google Places

This is an easy way in to mobile marketing.  Most companies already have a free Google Places listing.  There is a Google Places App for the all the major smart phones.   When a user launches this App, it will list businesses near to the user’s current location (from the GPS).  The user can select a particular business type (e.g restaurants) and get all those nearby listed.  The user can also select another location for listings (e.g. a city to be visited).  So, if you validate and complete your Google Places listing this gives customers and prospects an easy way to find your business.  For more information see Mobilise Your Marketing and Google Places.

Text Marketing

Text marketing is a great way to connect to customers and prospects but you need to do this carefully so that you don’t alienate them.  There are many text marketing services that allow you to send out text messages to your customers and prospects.  Text messages have a much better open rate than email messages.   The services will give you a shortcode ( a five digit number) which allows you to send and receive from your subscribers.  The services will also give you a keyword (e.g 2BUY) which subscribers can text back to the shortcode so that they can accept an offer.  Texts back to the shortcode are collected so that you can contact them (e.g. to confirm a booking).  There is more information and some guidelines at Text Marketing.

QR Codes & Microsoft Tags

These are like two dimensional bar codes.  You can put these on printed material (leaflets, adverts, shop windows, products, vehicles etc) and when scanned by a smartphone app they can cause it to display details about your products and services, take users to your website, display contact details etc.  Think of it as a link between the online and offline worlds!  You can find out more information at QR Codes & Microsoft Tags, QR Codes and Microsoft Tags.

 Mobile Websites & Apps

Anybody with a smartphone  should be able to view websites.  Being able to reach out to mobile users is a great way to promote your business as well as connecting with customers and prospects.  Remember, more and more internet access is happening from mobile devices and a recent Ofcom report says that a third of UK adults use a smartphone.  Here are some ideas to help make this work for your business.

You should probably develop a special mobile website or pages.  Most devices can view a normal website but they are quite difficult to navigate around and often slow to load (and can take up a lot of bandwidth credits).  Keep it simple.  Don’t use Flash (or at least without detection and a decent alternative).  iPhones, iPads and iPods won’t display flash.

Mobile Apps are applications which run on a mobile device.  They are generally downloaded and installed  from the phone operating systems supplier (e.g. Apple or Google Android).  They will generally (but not always) communicate with the internet and/or with your systems.  They can be for entertainment, for customers to order stuff from you, for information or to provide services.  For more information see Mobile Websites & Apps.

 Location Based Services

Location based services are applications that provide information or entertainment to a mobile device that is based on the user’s location.  Some of these services also offer augmented reality where that information is overlaid onto a real time picture (taken through the device’s camera) of the location. An introduction to these emerging services along wth some ideas on how they might be exploited by businesses can be found at Location Based Services.

 My full range of mobile marketing articles can be found at Mobile Marketing.

Anybody with a smart phone (iPhone, Android, BlackBerry, Windows Phone 7, Nokia Symbian) should be able to view websites.  Being able to reach out to mobile users is a great way to promote your business as well as connecting with customers and prospects.  Remember, more and more internet access is happening from mobile devices.  Here are some guidelines and ideas to help make this work for your business.

Mobile Websites

1. Mobile websites can be launched from QR Codes or Microsoft Tags (see my last blog post).  You can put these codes or tags on paper adverts, on flyers or even on your shop/restaurant window.
2.  Mobile websites can also be launched from local directory apps on mobiles.  An example is where somebody uses Google Places (make sure you’ve developed your free listing on this) on their mobile to search for a business (e.g. a restaurant) near where they are now.
3. You should probably develop a special mobile website or pages.  Most devices can view a normal website but they are quite difficult to navigate around and often slow to load (and can take up a lot of bandwidth credits).  Keep it simple.
4. Don’t use Flash (or at least without detection and a decent alternative).  iPhones, iPads and iPods won’t display flash.

Mobile Apps

1. These are applications which run on a mobile device.  They are generally downloaded and installed (easily) from the phone operating systems supplier (e.g. Apple or Google Android).  They will generally (but not always) communicate with the internet and/or with your systems.
2. They can be purely for entertainment, to promote a brand, such as Barclay Card Waterslide (which is linked to a major advertising campaign which you should look up on YouTube) – try it it’s amazing! 
3. They can also be used for customers to order stuff from you.  Domino’s Pizza in US has promoted a mobile app to ‘build’, order (and pay for) delivered pizzas.  Amazon has an iPhone app to order stuff from them.
4. They can be informative, giving your customers information which is useful to them as they move about.  They can also provide services.  For example Sky have an app which lets me find out what TV programmes are on and set them to record – from anywhere.
5. Such mobile apps are no longer prohibitively expensive and the province of large corporations.  They are becoming available for economic use (with great ROI and competitive advantage) for small and medium sized companies.

As ever, if you want advice on how your business can benefit from mobile websites and apps then please do not hesitate to contact me.

More and more companies are exploiting mobile marketing techniques.  This is a great way to communicate with both customers and prospects.  New advances in technology mean that mobile marketing is no longer the preserve of large companies.  In fact, it’s now an excellent and cost effective technique for small and medium sized companies.

In this and the following few articles, I’m going to outline some particulary effective mobile marketing solutions.  If you have any questions or want any more information then please do not hesitate to contact me.  First, I’m going to write about Google Places.  In the next two articles I’ll write about Text Marketing and QR Codes.  Following that I’ll write about some emerging and more advanced solutions such as Apps and Augmented Reality.

Google Places

Google Places is a free local directory.  Most companies already have a Google Places listing (Google has created them by scouring other directories).  Check by Googling your company name and location.  If you have a listing then you should verify that you’re the owner and develop the listing with further information (including pictures and videos).  If you haven’t got a Google Places listing then create one.

There is a Google Places app for the major smart phones (iPhone, Android and BlackBerry).   When a user launches this app, it will list businesses near to his or her current location (as determined by GPS).  The user can select a particular business type (e.g restaurants) and get all those nearby listed.  The user can also select another location for listings (e.g. a city to be visited).

So, a business can use their free Google Places listing to be found by mobile users.  Also, Google Places includes reviews (including those on review sites such as Qype).  Therefore, it’s not only important to be on Google Places (and to make your listing compelling) but also to know what reviews you’ve got listed on it.