With the raging popularity of smartphones becoming evident to everyone, merchants are quickly jumping onto the mobile marketing bandwagon in order to draw new customers and encourage existing ones to return and shop.
Businesses can’t simply rely on storefront signage to bring in the crowds now that their customers are more likely to be looking at their smartphone screens as they walk by the shops. They need to place their messages directly in front of their customers at the moment that they are most likely to think about a purchase.
Borell Associates has released a report called “Main Street Goes Mobile” that illustrated that there has been a significant change in the way that small and medium-sized businesses feel toward mobile marketing through advertising and promotions. In fact, according to that same report, mobile advertising is rapidly becoming the most used option for local American businesses as a result of the fast spread of social media and daily deal discounts and coupons.
Local American businesses are keeping up with these latest mobile technology trends, having already spent nearly $800 million on mobile ads in 2011 so far. The report showed that half of that amount was on mobile promotions such as coupons, contests, and other deals.
Approximately 50 percent of the businesses who took part in the Borell survey this summer claimed that they expected to take part in mobile marketing before the end of the year. According to Borell, local businesses are embracing mobile marketing at a notably faster rate than they had embraced cable television advertising in the 80’s, or internet ads a decade ago.
