Everyone has a mobile phone, and the penetration into the market of smartphones is at an all-time high. As a business, not making real and meaningful use of these mobile devices and their capabilities is an enormous opportunity wasted. Here are some examples of how your business can embrace and leverage the power of mobile to create opportunities.
Access to Information
Getting information to your current and potential customers is one of the most important things you can do as a business owner or marketing manager. It might start with a website or great social media strategy, but if your customers can’t find the information they need about your business quickly and easily while they’re on the go with access to a mobile device, they might just revert to a competitor instead.
Simple things like listing your business on Google and making your website and email marketing mobile-friendly and responsive are incredibly important in this age of instant access. You want to make sure you can answer any question your customer has, and giving them answers in a mobile format can only be a good thing.
The Mobile App and the Push Notification
If your business is big enough, or if your market demands it, having a mobile app gives you more access to your customers than just when they’re using your app. It means your business logo and branding are on their mobile device’s home screen and they see it almost every time they lift their device. It also means you have access to the push notification so you can, as the name implies, push your message to your users’ mobile devices. You can use web push notification and send targeted push notifications on mobile. Customers will receive the push notifications even when not on your site.
When used cleverly and with a strategically low frequency, communicating vital information or marketing blasts about special deals or new services will mean you are almost guaranteed of your users seeing it. Think of it like leaflets at the traffic light that every person will take and read.
Innovate Your Data Collection
Leveraging the power of mobile devices isn’t only about giving your customers information; it also allows you to quickly and effortlessly collect data from them. Using services like Forms on Fire, who make it easy to create customized mobile forms, customers can give you the information you need quickly.
These kinds of innovations are not just for your customers either. If you have a mobile sales team or workforce who rely on feeding data back to your head office, they can do so using a mobile form. There are countless internal uses for this, particularly in the services and information technology space.
Chatbots and Self-Service
Now we’re getting into the realm of real innovation and potential cost saving. Embracing the use of chat and self-help bots, which often take the form of a conversation on a mobile device using services like Apple iMessage, these bots can engage your customers in rudimentary conversation. Chatbots are an emerging trend and are only getting bigger and more popular.
They work by analyzing the input of the user and returning self-help or links to FAQs and similar media, matching the input with keywords. Some of the newer and smarter chatbots are using artificial intelligence to make even more impressive what they can offer your business.
These are just a few of the best use of mobile for business. There are many, many ways that embracing the power of mobile devices can improve your business practices and strategies. Fundamentally realizing what benefit having a direct link to your customers in the palm of their hand can do for your business is the first step to realizing it.
