Easy Ways to Market your Business with Your Smartphone

Podcast Archives • Strong Coffee Marketing

Sometimes as a business owner you simply do not have the time and resources to execute grand marketing plans. Many entrepreneurs are left wondering how to maximize their efficiencies without necessarily breaking bank or devoting too much of the little time they have to improving the visibility of their business.

You want to market your business but you don’t want that to be too taxing, right? You want to put more money back into the business than spend it on other things. How then can your marketing activities align with those goals? Digital marketing is a good start when you consider budget constraints and return on investment.

What better way to use digital marketing than turning to the one device you have with you at all times; your smartphone! Smartphones are extremely powerful devices that constantly open doors we never knew existed. Savvy business owners should be aware of this fact. Use it to your advantage!

Here are some easy ways to market your business with your smartphone

Camera

You can turn your smartphone camera into a smart business tool. Capture moments and devote time to doing it well. This includes capturing photos and videos. If you are a ski hill then you can get pictures of the ski slopes from numerous angles, people having fun at your ski hill, even the sky. Using the restaurant example from the very first Strong Coffee podcast, if you are a restaurant you could take pictures of well-presented meals, restaurant set up, staff having fun etc.

Among other ideas, your camera can also be your tool of choice to get instant video testimonials from satisfied clients and get real-time product images for enquiries. You might not always use every picture or video you take but one thing you always want to have is options.

Social Media

Before you dig into the world of social media, follow these 5 golden rules as a foundation for how you use social for business:

1. i) listen
2. ii) join discussions

iii) learn what’s important to your audience

1. iv) share information
2. v) have a call to action

Use your social media apps on your smartphone to create content that ignites and engages your audience. Make sure that it is relevant and resonates with the people who make up your customer base. Here are some great social media apps to turn to on your smartphone as business tools:

• Facebook – Facebook is a hub for various audiences which is great for marketing.
• Twitter – A platform to grow your audience.
• Instagram – I know of a restaurant owner who focuses their Instagram page on showing pictures of influential people who’ve recently visited the restaurant: from business owners, famous people to respected members of society. The owner tags these people in their Instagram posts thanking them for stopping by and supporting them. In turn these people repost the pictures on their own pages. Through that, the restaurant has branded itself on social media as an upscale establishment where people go there on special occasions with the opportunity to rub shoulders with those considered of a higher class in society.
• Periscope – Real-time marketing is now a thing. Established brands such as Nestle, Red Bull and Doritos are using real-time marketing exceptionally well. If your business has something special going on for example a live band or a seminar, show another side to your business through real-time marketing.
• SnapChat – another real-time marketing platform where brands strive to stand out organically.

Customer service – Many individuals are gravitating towards social media as platforms to engage with their favourite companies and quickly obtain information. With that in mind, your social channels can be your customer service kiosk. If you are helpful, transparent, answer questions and skillfully join conversations, you could turn customers into some solid brand advocates for your business.

Blog Updates – delicate balance between quantity and quality. Blogs often are about consistency and value. Have you considered blogging while on the train home or when you have a bit of down time while on the go? Numerous platforms that host blogs make this an easier-than-you-thought experience.

• WordPress – Android and iOS app – Email blogging is also available
• Squarespace – Android and iOS app – Email blogging is also available
• Microsoft Word is free on Android and iOS where you can use it to draft and save posts as word documents that you can refer to later

Review platforms – use these to know what your customers are saying about your business. It is a good way to respond to the good, the bad and the ugly to show that you take what your customers say seriously. You wouldn’t ignore someone who reaches out to you in person so don’t ignore them online. For your marketing, such an approach builds brand perception. You can then post the good reviews to your website.

• Yelp
• TripAdvisor

Both have excellent apps.

Use RSS or newsfeed aggregators – Building a personalized newsfeed. Why is this important in your marketing strategy? It’s a good way to find ideas, learn more about and keep in touch with happenings within your industry. Knowledge of which is essential to your strategic direction. Closing yourself off from what is happening around you is not necessarily a good idea.

• Feedly – I personally love Feedly because it allows me to follow a plethora of sites from all over the world, sort news into groups according to certain topics so for example I have all my sports news under one group, recipes and food as another and so on. It has a clean and simple interface as well.
• Inoreader – good search function so if you want to find certain topics quickly browsing news articles, this could be the app for you.
• Reddit – they market themselves as the front page of the internet and well, they’re pretty close. Reddit has kind of taken over the internet as a message board and link sharing site for almost everything.

What the phone was designed to do – video call customers or follow up with them as a way to build relationships and go above and beyond for customer satisfaction

• Skype
• Facetime
• Google Hangouts

The major stepping stone to using your smartphone for business is realizing the power of apps. Knowing how to fully use your smartphone and the different apps available to you will help you to fulfill your marketing strategy more efficiently especially if you are pressed for time of which many business owners are.

You can get more information on this topic by listening to the Strong Coffee Marketing podcast where we discuss this topic at length. Episodes are available on iOS and Android via iTunes and TuneIn.

Use your smartphone to the benefit of your business!

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