As a growing number of smaller companies use mobile technology, advertising trends are emerging.
Small businesses are, on an increasing basis, discovering the opportunities that are available to them over mobile and preferences regarding techniques such as geolocation, social media marketing, and others are beginning to emerge.
Recent research has shown that when it comes to smaller companies, social media marketing is preferred.
Not only is that the preference for the majority of small businesses, but they are also showing that they don’t have a strong liking for geolocation and other location based advertising. In fact, in a recent survey, 97 percent of participating small business owners said that they were already using various types of social media channels, such as Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, YouTube, and Instagram for marketing purposes.
On the other hand, far fewer said that they were using geolocation based campaigns and promotions.
In fact, among the respondents to the survey, only 17 percent said that they were using geolocation strategies – for example, Foursquare – for the promotion of their business, brand, and/or products.
Even though they don’t seem to be attaching themselves to geolocation technology, they are embracing mobile – both smartphones and tablets – with a vengeance. They are consistently coming up with strategies that are friendly to these devices, such as text message marketing, optimized websites, QR codes, and others.
According to the Joel Hughes, the senior vice president of strategy and corporate development at the company that conducted the survey, Constant Contact “It’s encouraging that a majority of small businesses recognize that their customers are relying more than ever on their mobile devices to find information, look for deals and even to make purchases.”
At the same time, Hughes also pointed out that while small businesses are embracing mobile commerce and marketing, they are still learning the ropes. Therefore, he doesn’t find it that surprising that they are sticking to areas such as social media and email, where they have already experienced success, and are not yet leaping on board with geolocation, which is not nearly as familiar to them and which is untested for their companies.
