At this very moment in time, having an online mobile site and presence isn’t a must, but it’s certainly very advantageous. However, soon a time will come where it will be damaging to a business not to have an online mobile presence, and as you may have guessed, there are many reasons why your business just won’t be able to live without integrating mobile technology into your business. Here are the four most prominent reasons.
Customer Acquisition for Mobile
The internet has become one of the most successful platforms for businesses to gain new customers, and this is because customers rely on a lot of services, and thanks to the internet, and particularly mobile, potential customers can now quickly search for the best services they require online.
Having a website will help you to attract customers looking for your business that may otherwise be unaware of the services or products you offer. However, if you do not have a mobile website, customers may turn away from your website when they visit it because the desktop optimized website may leave a poor experience for those using the website on mobile.
This may not sound too important, but Google research shows that 61% of people who don’t quickly find what they are looking for will move onto another site
Brand Awareness
The more places to see your name, the more places people will have the chance of seeing and remembering your name. If you don’t have an experience optimized for mobile users (and there is a whole lot of them) you could be losing out on a big chance to improve your brand awareness.
Thanks to a lot of mobile social applications, you can also use your customers to help improve your brand recognition. For example, if you have just one customer to “like” your Facebook page or “follow” your twitter account, you are opening yourself up to potentially hundreds of other people. Other apps include location-based apps such as Foursquare which encourage users to “check-in” to a place of business every time they visit. Once again their activity related to your business is portrayed to all of their friends using the mobile app, and this can really help you build upon brand awareness.
Mobile Trust
It’s starting to reach a point where every well-established business has their own social media profiles. The same can be said for websites and online customer service. Soon enough, it’ll be required to have a mobile website or app to prove to your customers that you’re an established and trustworthy business.
As a business person you should know that customers rely on the safety of knowing that the product or service they are buying won’t backfire in any way, and that they are getting their money’s worth from you.
If there is a business similar to yours across the road that offers that extra layer of security with a mobile optimized web page or a mobile application, you can guarantee those who feel the need to trust a business will stick on the other side of the road.
Business Potential on Mobile Devices
Even if your business is a very small start-up, you still have the capabilities of reaching your dreams and making your business as big as possible. With mobile technology, there are many ways larger businesses can help to improve the way things work for everybody involved with the business.
For example, if you own a retail store you can use QR codes to provide more information about the products you’re selling. You could create more mobile services such as an automated SMS system to help notify customers of the orders they have placed. As a service provider, you could provide information about the service they receive via a mobile website and could build upon your current online presence to allow quicker access to a customers personal information related to the services they order.
It’s always best to start small, but there are many ways to improve the functionality of your business, and by implementing the right technologies at the right time, you’ll be able to easily impress and keep hold of all of your customers old and new.