Get Higher Conversion Rates by Attracting These People

Monday, May 6th, 2013
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When people have some time to kill, they’ll often fire up the desktop or laptop computer and start browsing. They often don’t have any particular intent other than to see what they can see. Mobile users, on the other hand, tend to have more purpose. They could be out shopping and needing to compare prices. They could be talking with friends about skateboarding and looking up brands and styles. They could be discussing aches and pains with parents and deciding to shop for supplements before they forgot which ones they wanted.

The point of these scenarios is that mobile searchers are action-oriented. They pick up their phones because it’s on-hand, always on, and they can get immediate results. A Google report found that 55% of mobile conversions happen within an hour, whether it’s contacting the store, visiting a website, or making a purchase.

As a retailer, you really want to attract these action-oriented people. Their searches are more specific, they want valid results now, and they are more likely to act upon what they find. Here are a few ideas:

Set up a mobile-friendly website
If your store is hosted by Nexternal, then you are in luck. Nexternal has a mobile-friendly store layout ready for you. All you need to do is turn it on. For your own website, you may want to check out third party solutions to go mobile-friendly.

Send text message coupons
Sending a text message is very personal, so make sure your recipients have opted in for them. Spam messages make you look bad. Read more about text message marketing to get some ideas on what kind of coupons you can offer, and what services you can use to send these text message coupons.

Set up Google Places and Yelp listings
If you have a retail location, you’ll want to make sure your listing is claimed and set up on Yelp and Google Places. Your location may already be listed with reviews thanks to review-writers, but you’ll still want to claim the listing and customize it with details about your business, for example store hours, if it’s family owned, what you specialize in, etc. Google places a lot more emphasis on local search results when the search originates from a mobile device.

Mobile-specific ads
If you’ve downloaded and played free games on your smartphone, chances are you’ve seen ads. These ads are only one way to distribute ads onto a mobile network. You can also purchase Google Mobile Ads to target specific mobile searches. Look out for a follow-up article where we’ll discuss mobile display advertising.

Zoe is a web designer by day and a caped super-hero by night. Okay not really, but she really is a web designer at Nexternal with over 14 years of experience coding HTML, CSS, and other magical web things. She also enjoys helping others, which is a bit like channeling her inner hero.      Google+ Profile