PODCAST: Why Small Business Can Benefit Most From Mobile Marketing; Strategic Growth CEO Speaks Out On Engagement, Education & Effective Targeting » mobilegroove

In brief: This week we move away from the big brands to hear how small businesses are waking up to the huge opportunities in mobile marketing. Linda Daichendt, CEO of new media marketing firm Strategic Growth Concepts, points out it’s small establishments with close customer ties that can benefit the most from mobile. Permission-based marketing doesn’t just encourage an on-going conversation with people; it allows all companies, everywhere to compete on a level playing field.

Small businesses generally don’t have the budgets to pursue big-money marketing campaigns. They need results, not awards.

This is why Linda Daichendt, CEO of Strategic Growth Concepts – a Detroit based new media marketing firm with a long and impressive track record helping small businesses understand and leverage mobile in their marketing efforts — sees a significant increase in the number of companies that are beginning to “get mobile.”

It is common sense really. As Linda puts it: “Every marketer knows that it is much less expensive to communicate and get more business from an existing customer — who already likes your company, who already likes your products or services — than it is to go and get a new customer.”

Conducting permission-based mobile marketing allows companies to communicate with the customers that want to hear what they have to say.

More importantly, having an opt-in customer base — people that have indicated what they like, what they are interested in receiving messages about – allows small businesses to deepen their customer relations.

In the U.S. opt-in a legal requirement. However, Linda points out that it’s knowing how to use that permission that drives the real results.

“The people that you are able to send mobile messages to have opted-in to say I am interested in this company, I am interested in their products or services, I want to receive messages from them.  That automatically gives you a captivated audience, someone who wants to hear what you have to say and it enables you, particularly if you’re using some of the more sophisticated mobile systems, to set up campaigns that will let you drill down and gather more targeted demographic information so that future campaigns can really be specifically targeted by products that they’re interested in or by age group.”

Mobile marketing is clearly gaining traction among small businesses. What will encourage brands and agencies to spend even more on campaigns?  In a word: education. “Mobile is still so new and it is constantly, constantly changing….So,  making people understand that mobile is now available as a medium that they can use to market very effectively, that it is extremely cost effective and letting companies know what they can actually do with it is crucial.”

Among the highlights:

THE GOOD & THE BAD: Predictably, the best and most creative campaigns come from the major brands that have the budgets to execute them. But Linda says small businesses are also getting in on the action. There the focus is not on apps or flashy landing pages. Small businesses are harnessing text to deliver the most effective “pitch” of all: a conversation. What are some examples of bad marketing? All the companies (and she does hear complaints about this) that are disregarding best practice and legal requirements, and sending people messages they didn’t opt-in for in the first place. “Because they’re not following the rules, they’re giving mobile a bad name. We need to ensure that those early adopting advertisers are doing it right, that they’re following the best practices and the legal requirements, so that by the time small business is ready to really enter the space in significant numbers, consumers aren’t already turned off by the medium.”

VALUE CHAIN: Operators have two important roles: facilitator and enforcer. “They are first and foremost what I call the vehicle, very similar to a newspaper or a radio station that you’re advertising in. They’re the way that you’re getting your advertising out.  However, in the mobile space, they’re also the enforcement. They’re the ones who are ultimately responsible for ensuring that the rules of engagement have been followed. They’re the ones who will be required to do audits if it becomes necessary to go and audit a company’s mobile opt-in.”

QR CODES ARE COMING: What’s the next big thing in mobile? Linda is convinced QR codes have the potential to be the next really big growth area. Usage is high (even the norm) in Asia– but that’s because the readers come as standard in the phones that are sold there.  In the U.S. the only handset that comes with the readers pre-installed is Android. “Now, everything I hear tells me that the manufacturers are planning on including that software as standard probably by the end of this year.  So, if that does happen, I do think that there is going to be a huge potential for QR codes to really just blow out of the market.”

MY TAKE:

It is encouraging to learn that small businesses in the U.S. are beginning to explore the benefits of making mobile part of their overall marketing strategies. It’s these small establishments — this Long Tail of mom and pop shops,  restaurants and neighborhood businesses — that could potentially benefit the most from using mobile to engage their existing customers and reach out to new ones nearby.

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST HERE [13:30]

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Strategic Growth Concepts, a division of DAIMAR Enterprises, Inc. is a Detroit area firm that provides consulting and training services to start-up, small and mid-sized businesses nationally in the areas of Start-up, Marketing, Operations, HR and Strategic Planning with areas of specialization that include: mobile marketing, social media marketing, and virtual events production. The firm’s CEO, Linda Daichendt, an award-winning blogger on the use of new media in growing a business, is a recognized business expert with 20+ years of corporate, small business and franchising experience. Linda can be contacted at linda@StrategicGrowthConcepts.com . You can also follow her company on Twitter @StrategicGrowth.

Disclaimer: Optism is an MSG client and supporter.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, August 4th, 2010 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Briefing Rooms, Featured, Mobile Marketing, Optism, Podcasts. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.