As a fleet owner, you recognize the convenience of mobile phones and the efficiency of communicating with your drivers and others using mobile devices. However, did you realize that marketing has gone mobile. According to ComScore, more than 1.8 billion people worldwide use mobile devices, and 64% of Americans are now smartphone owners. This includes your customers. They’re using smartphones and tablets to find information about your company. In fact, 48% of Internet searches begin on mobile devices. If a potential or current client cannot easily view your website on their favorite mobile device, it could be impacting your bottom line.
Recently, I was driving to a client meeting and an associate of mine used his tablet to research a business opportunity. He found the company’s website, but struggled to read the information that was not optimized for mobile viewing. After a few minutes, he became frustrated and moved on to his next opportunity. Considering how much it cost to acquire and retain a new customer, an investment in optimizing your website to make it easier to access and read on mobile devices is a smart marketing move.
You need to be in the mobile marketplace if you want to be seen as a relevant leader in the trucking industry. According to CNN, in January 2014, Americans used smartphones and tablet apps more than PC’s to access the Internet. So, while a lot of the people you see walking down the street staring at their phones or sitting in airports using tablets may be watching YouTube or checking Facebook, there’s a growing segment of the population that use their mobile device to find valuable information they use to make buying decisions.
According to Entrepreneur here are a few usage statistics you should consider:
- 99% use mobile devices to search for valuable content and information
- 63% of all Internet access is from mobile devices
- 62% of users access email from mobile devices
- 15% make purchases from mobile devices
Mobile usage has exploded during recent years. Even if your clients are not buying through a mobile device, they are researching your company and reading your marketing emails using smartphones and tablets.
Here are four suggestions to improve your mobile marketing:
Make Your Website Mobile – Your clients want mobile sites that load fast and are optimized for mobile viewing. Ensure the critical information on your website is easily accessible and navigable with clear links and user-friendly icons.
Imagine if a potential client saw your URL on one of your trucks or drove past your office and decided to do some quick research to determine if you could provide services they needed. Could they quickly find the most important information about your company on their smartphone or tablet? Without a mobile-ready site, you could lose the sale before you ever get the chance to speak to the client.
Relevant Articles and Content – Your potential clients use mobile devices to search for more than just what your company does. They want and appreciate valuable and relevant content. If you can connect with potential clients and provide the industry information they want, you boost brand credibility which can result in future sales.
Socially Friendly – When current or potential clients find great content on their mobile devices they want to share that information immediately with others. This happens millions of times each day on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter. Ensure users can easily share your content on top social sites by placing social media icons on all of your web-based marketing.
App- Centric –According to the U.S. Mobile App Report, Americans spend more than half their mobile time using mobile applications. While this does not mean that every company needs a mobile app, it does suggest that your mobile presence within apps such as Facebook and LinkedIn must be easy to find and easy to use. Ensure that your company profiles on these sites are complete, up-to-date and provide relevant information.
Smartphone screens are getting larger. Tablets are getting more sophisticated and data transfer speeds continue to increase. All of these factors make it easier for your current and potential clients to find and consume your company information on their mobile devices. Business owners who adopt smart mobile marketing will be better positioned to tap into the rapidly growing market of mobile consumers, stay ahead of the competition, boost sales, and potentially increase company values.
