Sell Pizzas By Cellphones? This Can Be A Great Marketing Tool!
Today, you can see a rapid increase of people who uses their cellphones to access the internet. From coffee house tables to New York subways, people use their iPhones, Blackberries and other mobile devices to locate places they wan to go, from flower shops, jewelry stores to cake shops.
While many businesses around the globe has an online presence, they fail to notice the potential business value of a mobile internet. Globally, small businesses that have created mobile Web sites experiences a competitive advantage over business rivals.
However, it’s still not that simple as it seems to create a mobile website. The small screen size and high cost of transmitting data, for instance, create a number of stumbling blocks to transacting business by mobile phone.
The good news is that it’s easy and affordable to establish a presence on the mobile Web and to begin attracting customers on the go. And the best part is that it needn’t cost much. Here are five simple steps to getting started:
Mobile web site
Mobile web sites are specially designed for accessing and viewing the internet using small devices like cellphones and PDAs. When creating a mobile version of your Web site, ease of access and usability should be key.
Unless you are a skilled multimedia programmer, you’ll be looking for a quick and easy online tool to help you out. A good online tool to start with is Ubik.com, a free-to-use online service which allows anyone to publish compelling mobile Web sites. Following it’s simple step-by-step approach, with Ubik.com you can set up a mobile web site in less than 15 minutes.
By simply removing the mobile-unfriendly components of your traditional web site, your mobile web site can can adapt to the parameters of a mobile phone browser, thus enhancing user experience. If you’re thinking of coding mobile web sites for hundreds and thousands of mobile devices with varying screen dimensions and resolutions, it’ll probably take you forever. Ubik.com achieves this for you, all you need to do is provide the text, images and menus.
Dozens of scenarios could be used to demonstrate the usefulness of having a mobile Web site. Here’s one: A group of friends exit a movie theater one night with an urge to splurge on a pepperoni deep dish. They wonder if your pizza shop is still open, one of them flips open a mobile phone and finds out. Here, having your mobile site ready to reassure them that they can satisfy their cravings until 11 p.m. is key to closing the sale.
Simplicity
Avoid inundating your mobile customers with text and slow-loading pictures. Mobile shoppers are looking for simple solutions that they can act on quickly, so keep your messages short. Even today with the “all you can eat” data plans, many users are still paying for every byte they download.
Mobile customers need something far simpler than the average PC Web site. Say they are craving pizza while running errands. You can adapt your mobile web site to highlight information that’s key for hungry and busy people on the go, such as this weeks specials, menus, establishment location, store hours and contact information. Make it simple, consistent with your brand’s theme/look, while keeping the navigation simple and directly provide the right information. If you choose to focus on creating a mobile web site with clear, easy to access and navigate controls, you’ll be be filling your pizzeria with loads of customers and not your competitors’.
Marketing through text messaging
Treat your customers as your community. SMS marketing is designed to generate an immediate response from them. And since people always carry their mobile phones with them, you can keep in touch with them by sending text messages informing them of your special deals and for introducing a new menu item.
You can even send out electronic coupons. Most people are more likely to respond to a text message than any other forms of communication. This can be your chance to increase your sales by sending them notifications about their nearing expiration offer and they need to act now in order to get an even greater reward.
According to Mobile Marketing Association (MMA), an international non-profit industry trade group which represents over 600 agencies focusing on marketing via the mobile channel, 89 percent of companies who used multimedia messaging to reach their audience last year (2008), with nearly one third spending more than 10 percent of their marketing budgets on advertising in the text message marketing medium.
As a means to boost sales and edge out the competition, many restaurant chains are introducing mobile ordering services by text massaging. Typically, your customers can create an account on an online form at your web site and activates the text message ordering service when they enter their mobile number and chooses a list of their favorite orders, such as “large cheese.” This favorites list correlates to an online customer account, letting you know to get that large cheese cooking when the “FAV” text message arrives.
The way to success
The latest handsets come with location-based capabilities and mapping software. How can you tell that your establishment is listed and searchable when someone nearby search for what you offer? Google Maps for mobile would be a good answer to that, a popular application that is used in smartphones.
This free, downloadable application puts your business listing, maps and location directions directly in the hands of mobile users. Google’s local search engine allows mobile phone users to search for your businesses by name – such as “Joe’s Pizza Shop” - or by type – such as “pizza.” They’ll be able to search for your business address, working hours, menu, contact info, payment method, ratings, pictures of your establishment and even be able to contact you through text messaging or calls.
You can also link directly to your Google listing from your Web site.
Google Maps: Embedding on to your website
To add your business to Google Maps:
• Visit the Google Local Business Center “Add/Edit Your Business” page.
• Before you create a new listing, it’s important to verify that your business isn’t already listed. To avoid duplication by searching for your business name within your city.
• If your business already listed, select “Claim Your Business” and, if not, continue to signup in the Local Business Center.
• You will receive a personal identification number which you can either choose to receive by mail of phone. This PIN must be entered into the account before listings are activated, which can take up to a month.
• Landing pages are a good way for providing your customers an interactive means to map their way to your location. To be able to find you, they’ll just simply click on a link to your web site and they’ll be able to accurately map your location.
Profiting from all of these hard work
Today, mobile marketing is all about the multi-channel approach. To most effectively communicate with your current and prospective customer base, do all the means of traditionally marketing your business such as posters, ads, billboards, etc. along with mobile marketing, wich also includes online and email marketing.
Mix your mobile community with your other marketing community, don’t consider it as something you run alongside.
As an example, sending a piece of direct mail about the latest special offer puts something physical in the hands of the consumer but with no guarantee that it’s available to them when they need it. Do consider sending your customers coupons on their mobile phones, so they are stored and ready to use. Use the traditional flyer to let people know about your text messaging services, for example by offering short code addresses to get them started.
By simply adding your mobile service as a component of your marketing strategies, it can expand your reach to the multi-tasking, on-demand generation that searches for something more than the traditional media.
With over 20 years of restaurant point of sale expertise the author of this article is the Customer Relations Vice-President at POS-for-Restaurants.com — where the experts help you use your Restaurant POS technology to help you make your restaurant more efficient and more profitable.
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