Mobile First!

Today it is about being mobile first! If people cannot access your content easily and clearly on mobile devices, you are missing the boat! This is true all over, but on the island of Kauai, this can be a literal statement. I was recently chatting with the owner of a rental shop near the port where cruise ships come in. He was telling me that he had developed a web site, but he had not thought about it being mobile first. But his target customers all arrive with mobile devices. He said, “I see them coming off the ship all looking at their smartphone or tablets.” The same is true of nearby hotel and timeshare visitors.

Nielson reports that over the past year, the average consumer spent nearly seven hours more per month with their mobile phones, and more than 70% of mobile users use smartphones.

Mobile first email marketing

According to Movable Ink’s Q1 2014 US Consumer Device Preference Report email opens continue to migrate away from the desktop. In fact, two thirds of emails are opened on a mobile device. Within that, the tablet share of email opens continues to grow.

Movable Ink said that 66 percent of emails were opened on either a smartphone (47.2 percent) or tablet (18.5 percent) in Q1 2014. That’s up slightly from the 65 percent in Q4. By contrast PC email opens were down to 34 percent.

What an opportunity for online, digital marketing. This means that your email reaches your target audience anytime and anyplace. Think about that. But also think about how it must be designed for the customer on the go. If you don’t grab him/her with the title and the first five lines of your email, they will move on to the next one. It has to be attention grabbing, get quickly to the value for your customer, and then to the call to action. In a previous role, I wrote many such emails to be used by the salespeople in our company. Many of them were surprised that they got a quick response from a senior executive. It was because it was targeted at them, designed to be read on a mobile device, with a clearly stated value proposition and an easy call to action.

Mobile First Blogs

Don’t be surprised if mobile devices are soon the primary way that people read your blog posts. You can use Google Analytics to see how they are being accessed today and what the trend line is for mobile devices for your particular site. Have you looked at and thought about how someone will access your blog from a mobile device? Do your sharing icons work on the mobile device? Can users comment? Is there far too much scrolling to the right required?

The best way to find out is to test your site on a variety of devices. But Google also provides a website called Make Your Website Work Across Multiple Devices which helps you test your mobile website for mobile compatibility. There is also a link to their PageSpeed Insights tool where you can test performance on mobile and desktop devices and get suggestions for improvement.

Mobile First Design

How do you get mobile first design? If you are designing a new web site, make sure your developer is enabling responsive design. There are many tools and themes available now to automatically enable web sites to be responsive to mobile devices and to optimize the display and performance. If you have an existing web site that is not designed for mobile, you have a few choices:

Do nothing – your customers will have to enlarge and scroll on a mobile device
Re-design to be responsive – if your web site is a few years old, it may be due for a re-design anyway
Create a separate mobile site – you could have a separate mobile site, but then you have to maintain two sites

Mobile First Features

The rise in use of mobile devices also opens new opportunities to think about exploiting unique features of those devices. A common example is being able to link to mobile turn-by-turn directions. Not only can they find your business online, their device can guide them to you. They can touch the screen and immediately call or email you. They can check back in with you during the day and at different locations. You may also want to make use of location awareness to push certain information or promotions. And mobile devices are also good for social media integration. Making it easy to share on social media directly from a mobile device may increase your reach.

So it really is a new world. I now carry the Internet in my pocket via my smartphone. When I travel, I stay connected with my tablet to use in the airport, on the plane, and in my hotel room. I may search for information about a business anytime and anywhere that I have a connection. If you are not mobile first, you are missing the boat! (maybe literally!)

Kauai small business landmark Na Pali coast

Does a Kauai small business need social media marketing?

I have heard the question of whether a Kauai small business needs social media marketing. On the island of Kauai we have a small town culture. People take time to talk story with each other. People know people who know people. There are a lot of word of mouth business referrals. But there are also many businesses whose target customers include not only locals, but also visitors. Small businesses here and in other parts of the world are wondering what to do about social media marketing and whether it is worth the time and effort. As a small business owner your goal should not be excellence at social media. Your goal should be to increase your business by picking and choosing some social media marketing that will reach your customers and prospects cost effectively. You could get social media training to do it yourself or you could hire someone to write and manage marketing content for you.

Why Kauai small business social media marketing matters

Gain awareness of your target audience, whether locals, transplants, or visitors: People increasingly look for information online and on the go. There are local Facebook groups for causes and for rants and raves. There are locals, transplants, and visitors not only searching the web, but also searching social media for Kauai information, products, and services. Kauai small business is fortunate to have many repeat visitors. What are you doing to stay in touch with them and make sure they do business with you on their next visit? What are you doing to encourage them to share information about your business with friends and neighbors who may also visit sometime? Social media is another place to find out about your small business and to stay connected over time. It is also a fast and affordable place to do A/B testing of content to see what your target customers responds to most and where they do it from.
Drive traffic to your web site: Having a web site is a basic start for online marketing. Getting your web site noticed, though, is the goal for attracting new business. Social media visibility and sharing useful content for your target audience can help to drive people to your web site for more information and to take action. Or it may cause their friends and neighbors to become aware of your web site by seeing a “like” or share.
Capture contact info for email marketing and newsletters: Sharing interesting content in social media may be the hook to get someone interested in your Kauai small business. You now have a reason for them to give you their contact info and to sign up for email updates or a newsletter. They may become aware of your blog posts and updated useful content that will cause them to come to your web site and fill out a form to contact you. Yes, it’s good to have this on your web site. But you can use social media to interest people in contacting you.
Induce trial of your product or service: In addition to generating awareness through social media, you may also be able to induce a trial of your product or service. Providing useful, interesting content can cause them to take action to request more information or to visit your shop. You might also offer a special promotion on social media for a free sample at a certain time that creates an urgency and excitement to be shared with other friends and neighbors.
Foster customer relationships and repeat business: Social media marketing is also a great way to retain customers, to deepen customer relationships, and re-inforce their buying behavior with you. We feel proud as consumers when we see an ad or promotion for a brand that we use and with which we have a positive relationship. Your customers will feel a much stronger connection to your business by also knowing more about you, your suppliers, your employees, your locations, etc. We all like a peak behind the scenes and to feel like we are insider.
Create social media referrals in addition to word of mouth referrals: This is a real strength of social media marketing. Humorous, emotional, or just useful content doesn’t have to go viral to benefit your business. But having your customers’ friends and contacts seeing and hearing about your brand is an online word of mouth that can spread much faster and certainly much wider than just talking story at the farmer’s market or other local gathering spot. What are the chances that your small business will come up in conversation? But if there is useful or interesting information on social media, that can be seen by or shared with others.

How a Kauai small business can get started

Social media marketing for a Kauai small business takes some time and effort. But you don’t have to be everywhere. Work with an advisor to pick and choose the platforms that make the most sense for your target customers. Focus on one or a few. Don’t try to be an expert on every social media platform. Focus on the content to be interesting, humorous, emotional, useful (see our other blog posts on compelling content). It’s not about selling. It’s about communicating, gaining awareness, inducing trial, and fostering customer relationships. Test to see what works and to focus your efforts on those that produce real results to grow your business.

So if you are a Kauai small business, you can likely survive without social media marketing, but will you thrive?

Couldn’t I do social media marketing and a web site myself?

You may be looking at our site and wondering if you could do all this yourself. Can’t anyone do online and social media marketing? The answer is yes. There is nothing magic here. It is not rocket science. But will you or should you do it yourself? It’s

time consuming
requires learning new skills
needs new tools
is easy to forget or de-prioritze

Marketing strategy

You know the most about your business. You’re the one who runs it every day. You may know the most about your current and potential customers. You can talk to your own customers and prospects to understand their buying behavior and how they search and use information online related to your product or service. You can research and monitor your competitors online. You can create your own logo and brand identity or hire a graphic designer to assist. You can research marketing best practices and new technologies. It takes time. It may take even more time until you have gained some experience.

You could use a soup to nuts digital marketing platform, like HubSpot. It will cost you more money, but it will provide all the tools and already has them integrated. We looked at HubSpot for our business, but thought we could be more economical, have more flexibility, and do our own integration to achieve a higher return on investment. Many small and medium-sized businesses are going this direction for digital marketing. It’s not cheap and it will take time. You will be locked into their tools and integration platform, but it may easier and faster to do it this way. And you have complete control of what or what isn’t done.

Web site

Yes, you can develop a web site. There are tools available now to do a simple web site using drag and drop. It will get you a web site, but will it communicate in the way your audience looks for information? Will it lock you into using one particular company’s technology? Are they stable and well-established or are they a start-up that may disappear?

We use WordPress to develop a web site. You could install and learn it, too. It’s the most popular web site development tool. You could take a class on it. It will still take some trial and error to learn the ins and outs. And there are lots of options, like themes and plugins to consider and choose as part of your design. You will also have to register a domain name, select a web hosting service, and install whatever web design tool you choose.

You can choose the topics and write/edit your own blog posts. You can keep your site up to date both with the latest technology updates and compelling content.

You can also learn and do SEO (search engine optimization).

Email newsletters

You can also do this on your own. You will need to manage your own email list. You will need a design for your newsletters. You will need to write and edit. You could use a service for this, like Constant Contact.

Social media marketing

You can decide which social media platforms you want to use for your customers. You can write, schedule, and post compelling updates. You can decide whether or not to run ads on social media. You can create and post ads and monitor their results. It just takes getting familiar with each platform, best practices for using it, etc. You can also get a tool like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite to help manage and monitor your social media marketing. We use Hootsuite so that we can schedule posts across multiple social media sites at once.

Analytics

You can set up Google tracking code for your web site and use Google Analytics to analyze its performance (and performance of your social media to drive web site traffic) relative to your marketing strategy. You can get and monitor analytics for ads placed on social media sites. It’s all available online. You can read about it or take a course. It takes some time and some analytical skills.

So yes, you can do all this digital marketing stuff yourself. Do you have the skills or the time to acquire the skills? Is it where you want to use your management time and creativity?

What is Online Marketing? Inbound? Digital? Content?

When I moved from the mainland to Kauai, I needed to find new resources to assist me. I didn’t listen to broadcast ads or read a newspaper. I went online and searched for information. In the process of searching for information, I formed impressions of service providers based on what I was learning from them. I also was looking for providers who had simple, well laid out web sites, with up to date information. Not only did I search the worldwide web, I also searched on Facebook for local businesses. I “liked” some that I found interesting. I signed up for email newsletters. I read blogs and learned a great deal that influenced how I planned my move and possible vendors for me to contact that would fit my needs.

It’s a new world for marketing your business. Consumer and business behavior is evolving to be much more like my personal experience above. Will your potential customers find you and be compelled to engage with you? Will your online, digital content show up high in their searches? Will your existing customers feel that they have an ongoing relationship with you, recommend you to others, and do more business with you over time?

If you are presenting no online information or stale, out of date information, I would not probably contact you. I would look to your competitors who provide me with information and insight and who show they want to have an ongoing relationship.

If you already have a Web site for your business, that’s great. Is it easy to find information? Is it regularly updated? Do you have a blog that provides background, context, information, and insight? Are you educating your audience, not just selling to them? It’s a new model of marketing that goes by different names such as online marketing, digital marketing, and inbound marketing. It’s not just a technology project. It’s a new way of engaging prospects and customers for your unique business.

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