Democratization of Technology Benefits Local Retailers

The Democratization of Technology refers to the process by which access to technology rapidly continues to become more accessible to more people.  Thanks to the mobile revolution, never has this democratization happened at a faster pace and is resulting is a huge boon to the local retailer.

In the U.S., comScore reports that 94 percent of those 18-24 years of age own a smartphone, 93 percent of those 25 to 34, 84 percent of those 35 to 54 and even 58 percent of those over the age of 55 do as well. These numbers are huge and result in both the consumer and the local retailer having technology in their in their pockets and on the counter that can intercommunicate.

At an increasing scale, Retailers now have greater access to use and purchase technologically sophisticated solutions that in the past were only available to the big box retailers. That's because the new breed of mobile solutions are powerful yet user-friendly for the small retailer. No longer do these retailer solutions require extensive networking expertise or costly service contracts.

I have had a lot of experience lately with a local retailer mobile loyalty app called Flok that is a great example of how the democratization of technology is benefiting local retailers. Flok enables small retailers the ability to have their own branded loyalty app that motivates and engages customers.

Flok requires no in-store hardware ... not even WIFI since merchant interactions take place on the customer's smartphone.  In addition to contextual rewards, Flok allows merchants to leverage beacon technology, push messaging, geo-location, and social media integration to accomplish results that were previously unattainable for the small business retailer.

Flok is a fantastic example of a product that gives local retailers digital technology that allows them to execute a merchant engagement solution far more effectively than a big box retailer could ever possibly achieve.  Local retailers are part of the community and can more effectively engage their customers in ways that are impossible from a big box retailer's marketing department.

So local retailers, what are you waiting for? User-friendly, powerful mobile tools are out there that will help you grow your business. Most are available at a cost that is a fraction of what you pay for your home cable bill ... and they work. No better time to start than now!

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #5: Loyalty Programs

The way your customers earn rewards is changing. . .

We’ve all been stuck behind that customer in line at the grocery store. You know, the one rifling through her purse, then her coat, and finally her keychain to produce her rewards card. We all have them. We all go through the same stages of panic as we realize— often too late — that we will need to present them at the register in order to reap the rewards. Well, those days are over. Just as the way we swipe credit cards has changed, the way businesses offer rewards has changed, and mobile loyalty programs are the new king.


I will confess that I have turned down loyalty programs in the past because I didn’t want to do two things:
1) sign up at the register and 2) add a fun-sized credit card to my keychain. Now, thanks to the mobile phone, I don’t have to do either. All of my reward cards are in one place: on my mobile device. This newfound convenience goes both ways. Not only do customers benefit from ease of use, but businesses benefit from easier access to customers. The process of getting a physical reward card involves a lot of effort from both parties. But with mobile loyalty programs, offering exclusive deals to your customers has never been easier, just as it has never been easier for customers to redeem them.

By producing repeat customers, an easy-to-use loyalty program will help your business maintain its reach in a local market. Because of the rise of applications such FourSquare and Yelp, repeat customers can also become content creators for your business. Customers are rewarded for becoming repeat customers through your program, and you are rewarded with more exposure from their check-ins and reviews. Like most of the pieces of hyperlocal marketing, it’s a win-win. Customers and businesses alike reap the benefits. Hopefully you are starting to see how all of the pieces of a hyperlocal marketing interact with one another. Alone they are strong, but together, your business becomes a digital powerhouse. Your customers have constant access to your business. This includes industry news, exclusive deals, customer news, special events, and much more. Hyperlocal marketing is a surefire way to connect with local customers, retain their business and expand yours.

Read the rest of our Hyperlocal Series:
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #2: Local Directories
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #3: A Responsive Website
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #4: Social Media

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #4: Social Media

Attracting local customers through social media

In recent years, social media has entered the zeitgeist of marketing. It has become imperative to have an online presence as a means of exposing customers to valuable information about businesses. Social media can be a way to inform, comment, advertise and promote. The best part? It’s free to start. A social media presence can fit into any marketing budget, and with steady monitoring, can become a personality-rich extension of your business online.

As stated early, both Facebook and Twitter are free to start. You can get an account up and running in seconds. That’s the easy part. From there you will need to develop a social media strategy. Who do you follow? What are you posting? What are you saying? Connecting with a company that offers marketing consulting will help you optimize the best plan for your business, and will open up the opportunity to engage in paid search programs to increase your reach at a cost. Both Facebook and Twitter offer paid search packages as well as the tools to analyze and optimize your strategy.

As an added bonus Twitter made a deal with Google to allow tweets to show up in Google search results. This news is huge for social media strategies, as they now double as SEO strategies. So when you expand your social media presence, you expand how well your business indexes in online search. It’s a win-win.

With a strong social media presence comes the responsibility of monitoring feedback. It is important to respond to positive comments and even more important to resolve negative comments. Both positive feedback and positive complaint resolutions can go a long way online, often times becoming the subject of subsequent content. Allowing your customers to create content is part of interacting with them, and embracing their content will help your reputation and reach grow.

Another advantage of social media is grooming accounts to be industry news aggregators. Think of your Facebook feed. We know what every member of the family and our high school class is up to. However, if we build a social media profile around a solid strategy of following industry-savvy accounts, our pages will begin to aggregate valuable news for viewers. And don’t forget, this can also be a way to monitor competitors in your industry.

Clearly, there are more advantages than disadvantages to a strong social media presence. Social media offers exposure, personality and a near-direct line to customers. While customer feedback can be negative, a good social media strategy can turn it into positive content. With the help a consulting team, a social media strategy for your small business will give you the extra reach you need to connect to customers, all while keeping you updated on industry happenings.

Read our latest hyperlocal marketing posts:
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #2: Local Directories
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #3: A Responsive Website

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #3: A Responsive Website

What the rise of mobile search means for your business

Very quickly, let’s recap the two statistics presented in the overview of hyperlocal marketing in the first article of this series, because they provide a foundation for understanding what emphasis on the marketing strategy can do:

In 2014 (for the first time ever) there were more mobile searches than desktop searches. Furthermore, according to the Global Web Index, 80% of adults online have a smartphone, and nearly 50% have a tablet.

It doesn’t take a seasoned marketing strategist to figure this one out, but I’ll just come right out and say it: you’re going to need a responsive website. Failure to adopt a website that can scale to a mobile device is going to cut off a huge portion of potential customers. So what exactly are you giving up by not having a responsive website?

Brace yourself, here comes the numbers.
According to a Google/Nielsen study, 45% of mobile searches have goals. What kind of goals? Well, when people mobile search, they are:

30% more likely to visit a retailer’s website
57% more likely to visit a store
51% more likely to make a purchase
39% more likely to call a business

As discussed in the local directories article of this series, setting up your business online involves listing it among as many relevant business directories as possible. But it doesn’t end there. The data above tells us that those searches are going to land customers on your website. The following statistics (a store visit, a purchase or a call) are the results of optimizing your marketing strategy for mobile search.

Lastly, another (often overlooked) advantage of a responsive website is the value of the data it collects. In addition to landing goal-oriented local customers, your responsive website will yield more detailed search analytics—the perfect ammunition for getting the greatest return on investment for your marketing budget. The collection of data such as how often the website is visited, how long it’s visited, how much new traffic versus repeat traffic and from which devices it is being accessed (mobile, tablet, desktop, etc.) is going to be very valuable in the hands of marketing consultants who can help you test and optimize the best hyperlocal marketing strategy for your business.

At the end of the day, failing to embrace mobile search will result in your business missing out on a large percentage of prospective customers. A hyperlocal strategy that fully optimizes the power of a responsive website is going to yield much more customers than the local competition. And this isn’t just hearsay on a company blog, this is marketing strategy based on easy-to-understand data. You don’t need to be a statistician or an analytics specialist to crack this code. The writing is on the wall: A responsive website is a necessary tool for attracting local customers.

Check out the other stories in our Hyperlocal Series:

Hyperlocal Marketing Series #1: How to Connect With Your Best Customers
Hyperlocal Marketing Series #2: Local Directories