Why is Mobile Marketing Important?
Currently 86 million Americans shop on their smartphones
With an increase of smartphone users, mobile marketing has become an integral component that is necessary for the success of any eye care practice’s integrated marketing strategy. Currently, 50.4% of U.S. consumers are using smartphones. And that number will continue to grow. From now until 2016, it is estimated that there will be a 15-18% growth rate for consumers who use smartphones. As the number of smartphone users continues to grow, it is important for eye care practices to remain competitive within the market place by developing a mobile marketing strategy that is in line with technological advancements and evolving patient needs.
Patients are Ready to Take Action
Mobile browsing capabilities are assisting patients in their decision process, by enabling them to easily compare goods or services, location, price, quality and rating scores to other local practices. Although patients can compare goods and services to other practices, 50% of consumers in general have local intent and are looking to make a relatively immediate purchase. Research shows that consumers that find a good or service with their smartphone have a task completion rate of 1 hour.
How is Mobile SEO is Determined?
Since consumers are readily searching, comparing and making the purchase, it is important for a eye care practice’s website to be at the top of mobile browser search results. How can this be accomplished? For a website to be mobile-friendly it is important to remember.
- Mobile spiders (bots from search engines that crawl pages) determine ranking based on the bounce rate of a page. This means that the quicker a page is able to download, the more likely the page will have a higher ranking.
- Mobile spiders also take overall site performance, usability and screen rendering into account. It is important that the HTML coding is valid and not being altered when the website is opened on a smartphone.
- Utilize traditional SEO strategies, such as using topically appropriate key words in the body text as well as the headlines. Create thorough page descriptions that accurately describe the topic at hand.
- Integrate outbound links from your website to other reputable and relevant sources for increased mobile and traditional searchability.
Now What?
Once an eye care practice has a mobile friendly website, they can take the next steps in developing a strong mobile marketing strategy through implementing a mobile ad campaign. Eye care practice owners can take action by:
- Creating a Google Mobile Ad and implementing a click-to call campaign. A local dentistry in Washington created a click-to-call campaign with a defined target location and key search terms. They found a 74% increase in their click-through-rate for mobile devices.
- Mobile Coupons: Consider creating a check-in or mayor special on Foursquare as an incentive for local customers to visit your eye care practice. Check out Foursquare’s case studies to see how other eye care practices benefited from creating mobile coupons.
- Compile a list of your customer’s contact information and send out periodic email or text messages with promotional offers.