They Couldn’t Find Their Way Across The Street

Like it or not, smartphones are “the go-to guy” for everything in the digital age.  

A friend (and business associate) recently told me this about a spur of the moment project meeting that took place after our weekly entrepreneurs collaboration event.

This was a meeting of particular people who had each decided to align their unique skills to make a specific project a reality.

“When the meeting place was announced, most of them went straight to their smartphones to look it up online instead of just asking where it was.”

When I mentioned “but that’s straight across the street”, my friend’s exasperated rely was “I know!  They couldn’t find their way across the street!”   

For better or worse, technology is in control of your holiday business revenues.

Take a July 15 “industry” article about information reported by Statista:

“The holiday season accounts for more sales than Mother's Day, Father's Day, Valentine's Day, Halloween, Easter, and St. Patrick's Day combined.”

Most “industry” websites focus their attention on “e-commerce”.  So it’s fair to wonder

 How does this affect local “brick and mortar” businesses?

An earlier article (June 28), was about a “shopper survey” that found

42% of shoppers will make Amazon their primary destination in 2016.

And another 16 percent said they “don’t know”.

Among the strategies that your “big business” competition will rely upon for the holiday season are:

1. Use data to know your customers better than anyone else

Our Saguaro Hotspot^® “Social-Wi-Fi” opens up opportunities for local “brick and mortar” businesses to capture holiday dollars by compiling social data from the 40% of consumers who say “online” is not their primary holiday shopping destination.

This “first-party data” gives local “brick and mortar” businesses a growing customer insight deeper than even Amazon can, through building rich, deep customer profiles that help you understand each customer better than any competitor to give them more relevant and intelligent suggestions.

Your “big business” competition will also:

2. Make shoppers’ lives easier

“Big data” shows that only 8% of shoppers use smartphones as their primary way to actually make a purchase, and even less use tablets. Even if six out of ten of them choose buying online, local “brick and mortar” businesses are uniquely able to provide shoppers with the highly personalized, relevant information they want (especially during the holidays). Saguaro Hotspot^® “Social-Wi-Fi” allows those shoppers to trade their data – for their own convenience – in return for that “genuinely helpful information”.

3. Personalize digital advertising

43% of shoppers say that digital marketing influences purchases. Saguaro Hotspot^® “Social-Wi-Fi” can help your local “brick and mortar” business do better at something e-commerce will never be able to achieve: You see customers as people, not impressions or cookies, rading their date helps them get discounts or deals.

With as many as six out of every ten holiday shoppers planning to spend “from the comfort of home”, local “brick and mortar” businesses need every edge they can get.

Our Saguaro Hotspot^® “Social-Wi-Fi” is that edge.

CALL or TEXT “Tis the season” to 602-618-6626 to start building the rich, deep customer profiles that help you capture holiday dollars.