10 Digital & Mobile Marketing Tips to Transform your Business in 2013 – Part I

10 Digital & Mobile Marketing Tips to Transform your Business in 2013 – Part I:from Business 2 Community by Brian Stephenson
So 2013 is upon us and it already feels like it’s going to be a better business year than 2012. The Mayans turned out to be ‘full of it’, the budget was passed, a deal on the bank debt seems to be nearing, the fiscal cliff in the U.S. was avoided (at least for now), retailers had a great Christmas period and there is hope that The Gathering will breadth new life into our ailing tourist industry.
So with all that in mind we thought we would put our heads together here at Text Republic and come up with our top ten digital and mobile marketing tips for 2013. Clearly each area we have focused on won’t be applicable to every business type but hopefully there will be some nugget in here whether you are completely bricks’n’mortar, 100% online or a bit of both, that will in some way make 2013 a better year for your bottom line than 2012. So here they are in no particular order.

1. Stop obsessing over On-Page SEO

The Google algorithm is an ever changing beast and the good old days when you could set up each page around a key word (URL, Page Title, H1 Tags, Image Alts and Content) and then sit back and watch the sales come rolling in are well and truly over. As the internet and the world changes so does the Google algorithm, these days it’s all about content and social interaction. Several SEO software companies have even stopped including keyword ranking functionality in their products! Why you wonder? It’s because there isn’t really a single unique ‘Google Rank’ anymore…. it’s now a series of different Google Ranks which are dependent on many things, such as where you are, who you are linked to socially, what websites you have visited in the past, which cookies are on your machine and a whole host of other things.
That’s not to say you shouldn’t spend some time thinking about on-page SEO for your website and blog posts, because you should, but just do it and move on quick. It can only bring you so much ‘Google Love‘ – the hard work really starts after that. More on this later.

2. Embrace SMS

As stated before on this blog Coca-Cola split up their mobile marketing budget 70:20:10 between SMS, Mobile Web and Mobile Apps. Whenever Coca-Cola do something in the marketing world you can be damn sure there is a lorry load of data and expert reasoning behind it. In this case though it’s pretty straight forward, child like simple in fact – SMS can reach 100% of your customers while Mobile Web and Mobile Apps reaches a much smaller percentage. Think of it this way – if you could place a free ad on page 2 of The Irish Times or page 2 of The Kerryman which would you choose? The Times of course… why would you choose to make your case to a tiny percentage of the overall population when you could make your case to the entire population!

3. Forget about Mobile Apps they are generally vanity projects

Before we start this point let us state that this is clearly and obviously a generalisation – some mobile apps are absolutely worthwhile and can be very successful. However the vast majority are a complete waste of time. Sure they can make you look cool and progressive but I’ll take ‘bottom line’ over ‘cool and progressive’ any day of the week and twice on Sundays.
Not convinced? Still think you should pay that 25k for that cool new free app that all your customers will use and will drive new and repeat business?
According to Pinch Media for free iPhone applications only 20% of users return to the app the first day after download. From there it gets even worse and by day 30 only 5% are still using the app. The data on paid apps shows an even steeper fall-off rate!
We’ll finish this point with a quote directly from Hubspot – “You unequivocally should be investing in mobile marketing. Investing in mobile application development, however, is a distraction and resource sap for most marketers.”
Yes that’s the same Hubspot who are considered world market leaders in inbound marketing and the second fastest growing software company on planet earth. Still want to part with that twenty five thousand euros to look cool?

4. Don’t waste anymore time not building an opted-in database

We were recently standing in line at a large multi-location home-ware store. As we approached the till we noticed the same question being asked to every single customer – “Would you like to join our mobile club by writing down your name and number here?”. “What’s in it for me?” or some variation of that question was generally the reply. “We will notify you 3 days in advance of our sales so that you get first pick of the deals that are on offer.” A nice benefit but it didn’t blow our socks off, yet almost to a person each customer wrote down their name and number – us included!
I since heard on the grapevine that this store has built up a database of 300,000 customers names and numbers from this, pretty basic form of database building alone. They can now send a bulk text message to those 300,000 people 3 days in advance of their monthly sales in the knowledge that 95% of them will open that message within 5 seconds. So just think about that for a second, they can inform 300,000 consumers (who they already have a relationship with) about their sale for a cost of about €9,000. Imagine a marketing medium exists where a marketing manager can spend €9,000 and have 300,000 people instantly know about their sale. With that kind of ROI we’ll take the Pepsi challenge against any other marketing medium you care to mention.

5. Get serious about Inbound Marketing

Hubspot are not the second fastest growing software company in the world for no reason. Inbound marketing software is an exceptionally powerful tool and if you are not already using it then 2013 is the year to start. Text Republic use Hubspot and not only does it allow you to turn website visitors into hot leads it also contains a complete SEO package. Optify are not far behind and there are also several other vendors entering the fray priced at more affordable prices. Most offer a free 2 month trial so testing it will not cost you a cent.
OK so that’s it for this week. Check back next week for the second part of our top ten digital and mobile marketing tips for 2013. If you enjoyed this post or found something interesting or even contentious we would love to hear from you. Until next week.