‎Mobile‬ Impacts Your Small Business. "How" Is Your Only Choice.

CITI knows "digitization" is the most powerful, disruptive force on the planet, and it impacts nearly every business model.  They experienced a 25% increase in mobile interaction by engaging their customers where they want to be engaged.
JC Penney has discovered that "old metrics and models need to be thrown out".

Customer research interviews of one major marketing conpany revealed that certain factors in the shopping experience - choice, price value, service, speed, convenience, contextual relevance, and frictionless purchasing - are now taken for granted (particularly by millenials).

Local small businesses are not immune. ‎Mobile‬ impacts local small businesses, in one way of two ways, because more and more buyers every day search "near me" for what they want, when and where they decide they want it, on their  ‪#‎smartphones‬. Buyers can't - and won't bother to - find businesses that aren't there.

 

It doesn't end when buyers find you, of course.  Starbucks knows that once a buyer finds you, you have to build an emotional connection with them. And that you do that by telling your own story; by refusing to be defined by anyone else; by sticking to your values.

 

And you have to maintain that emotional connection.  Millenials are not alone in feeling empowered and entitled.  If your ongoing communication isn't relevant to and personalized for a particular buyer, the message they receive is "we don't actually care about you <<NAME>>".    This is where national (and international) "brands" and "marketers" often fail.  For example, texting marketing messages at 9 AM Eastern Time to customers in the Pacific Time Zone (and Alaska & Hawai'i), about products they have no interest in.  They know the value of their personal information, and are willing to share it.  But they expect - they DEMAND - preference-driven personalization as a fundamental requirement. 

They expect you to know, just because it's knowable, whether they're "just looking", "deciding", or "ready to buy".  Google calls these "micro-moments".  (more about this next week).

 

If you're ready to bring your local small business into alignment with their expectations, we stand ready to make that a reality.