Small Business Retailers: Find The Right Mobile Marketing Partner
Unlike large corporations, small business retailers have the advantage of being able to respond quickly to shifts in shopper expectations. But when it comes to mobile marketing trends, small business retailers are having trouble responding quickly enough.
Small Business Retailers Struggling To Keep Up
According to the RetailMeNot Mobile Survey conducted in April 2017, 47% of small business retailers are struggling to keep up with the latest mobile trends. Changes in technology are happening at such a rapid pace, that retailers find themselves at risk of falling behind when it comes to mobile marketing. “ 54 percent of retailers say the technology used in mobile marketing evolves too quickly for their company to keep 
pace.”
Compound the above with the daunting challenge small businesses (with limited resources and tools) face in trying to measure or tie-in their spending to actual ROI. Nine out of ten small business retailers said they plan to increase their investments in mobile advertising. Often, it’s a guessing game as to what worked or didn’t or what channel to attribute the success of a campaign. Not knowing critical performance data leads to small businesses’ inability to optimize spending to boost ROI or provide consumers with customized offers to drive deeper engagement.
Mobile Marketing Partnerships Help Small Business Retailers Compete
To stay competitive, businesses need to continue to invest in mobile. In fact, 84% of small business retailers say that mobile marketing is critical to their success and is a top priority.
Retailers are turning to partners with expertise in mobile marketing to help fill the gap and are finding their shared efforts to be be effective. Websites have been made “mobile-friendly” and customers are engaging more and more through retail apps and/or social apps like Snapchat and Instagram.
Many challenges still remain, however, including the ability to effectively target customers and link mobile marketing efforts to in-store sales.
How SMS Marketing Can Help
With SMS Marketing, or text message marketing, retailers can target customers in a direct and meaningful way. Customers must opt-in to receive messages, so retailers have a base of customers that are already interested in what they have to sell. Plus, this form of mobile marketing lands directly on a customer’s phone as a text message – the most intimate, and personal of communication types. There is no app to download or barcodes to scan.
Not only can the performance of SMS marketing be measured, it’s also highly effective. While the average marketing email open rate averages between 10 to 20 percent depending on the industry, text messages have a 98 percent open and read rate – most within 15 minutes of receiving them. Many don’t look at or receive their emails, but text messages are hard to ignore.
Text message marketing is also a fast and easy way to mobilize what most retailers are already doing – pushing coupons and promotions to drive people to their store. Retailers can send a well-timed text coupon to their opted-in list of mobile subscribers and see a boost in store sales as a direct result.
To learn more about SMS Marketing for small business retailers, call 800-696-1393 or email tmsales@textmarks.com.
