While success in terms of a mobile store for your business comes in the customer making a purchase from your store via their mobile device, there are a number of different things you as a the business owner need to do to ensure that the customer gets to this stage. Before they can even access your store, you must first create those initial levels of engagement.
Now there are a number of different ways you can engage with your customers in order to get them to visit your mobile store. While the majority of these methods will be mobile specific, as most smartphones have social media and email capabilities, there is nothing to stop you using these traditional methods in order to bring traffic to your site.
However, the best success, in terms of bringing people to your ecommerce store through their mobile devices, is going to come through mobile specific methods.
SMS messaging
One of the more popular methods some business use is mobile messaging. This will involve sending text messages to users mobile phones, providing information about your business and what you have on offer, as well as giving the user a link on how to gain access to your store. To carry out this service you would need to employ a mobile messaging company to carry it out on your behalf, which charge a specific amount based on each text message sent. For this reason, sending out a text message to anyone and everyone isn't probably going to provide you with the best ROI. You could instead focus people based on a number of different parameters such as geographical location, shopping habits and demographic traits such as age and gender.
This allows you to focus your efforts, targeting a specific group of individuals who you know will have an interest in what you have on offer, ensuring you get the best ROI possible.
QR Codes
QR codes are a tool used more by large businesses with an already established brand identity, but they are a great way to target people who are constantly on the move. The QR code is placed on any promotional content a business may have such as posters or other display advertisements. A person can then use a QR scanning application on their smartphone to scan the code on the poster which will then redirect them to the webpage that is programmed into the code. This is a way for a business to provide users with a large chunk of information without them having to stand in front of the promotional material in order to read it all. If for example you did this for your online store, the QR code on your promotional material could take the user directly to your mobile store.
Mobile applications
While a lot of these mobile marketing methods require effort on your part, having a mobile friendly store will allow you to take advantage of some location based applications such as the one produced by eBay, that allows a buyer to locate an online store within their country or specific region that has the products the user is looking for. This means that these types of applications can engage with the customers and then possibly direct them to your site. All you need to do is make sure you have your mobile store set up correctly to keep these customers happy throughout the purchasing process.
Getting ready for Christmas
With the Christmas period fast approaching, many online stores are now gearing up for a business festive period. As users are constantly busy during the Winter months carry out a range of tasks, having a mobile store is evermore important. Last year around £8 billion was spent in the UK alone online during the Christmas period. That was an increase of 16.5% in comparison to 2010 and the figure is set to be even higher this year.
This alone is reason enough to get your mobile store in order post-haste and that's not even considering the 4G technology that is set to be released across the UK in the coming months.
What makes a good mobile store?
When setting up your mobile store, you should make sure it provides the following:
- A shorter checkout process
- Larger buttons for customers to see and click on
- As little text as possible - You only have a small screen to work with
- A quick load up speed - Users generally expect a website to load up within 3 seconds
- Contact information at the top of the page - Telephone number and email
- Appealing images - Not too many as more data will result in slower loading times
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