Alan Keller, chief revenue officer for DudaMobile, offers advice on how service providers can convince their small business clients to go mobile.
You and I both know that your clients need to establish a mobile presence, and they need to do it now. While this need is crystal clear to those of us who live and breathe tech, conveying this to clients who aren’t focused on emerging technology can often be an uphill battle.
The creative agencies and service providers in DudaMobile’s reseller program often come to us asking how they can gain new mobile website clients and how they can convince their existing clients to go mobile. When it comes to the mobile web, I’d like to think that the proof is just as much in the recipe as it is in the pudding.
Know the facts
Your clients are busy running their businesses, so they may not be aware of how the quick adoption of mobile is affecting the way they need to market to their customers. According to vSplash’s ongoing SMB DigitalScape study, 98 per cent of SMB websites are not mobile optimised yet the consumer adoption rate for mobile has toppled over the 50 per cent threshold.
With more and more people accessing the web from a smartphone, it’s critical for small businesses to think of the mobile web as an entirely new way to reach connected, on-the-go and savvy online consumers.
Not only that, but mobile users are highly motivated. It makes sense that nine out of ten mobile searches lead to action, according to Google. After all, someone searching for a business from their mobile phone is likely on-the-go and looking to do business right then and there.
Look at your client’s stats
It’s easier to brush off bigwig stats and studies than your very own data. Review your client’s desktop website analytics, and take note of the amount of traffic currently coming to their site from mobile devices.
If your client’s business reflects global trends, you’ll see traffic from mobile devices, such as Android and iPhone, going up. It will be difficult for your client to ignore the impact of this consumer behavior if it’s staring them in the face
Don’t just tell them… show them
Ask your potential client: do you have a mobile-friendly website? Many of them will say yes simply because they can view their website on a smartphone. However, what they need to understand is that the ability to see a website on their phone does not mean that it’s optimised for mobile.
Pull up their website on a phone and show them how it displays compared to a site that is optimised for mobile. Site visitors do not want to pinch and zoom their way through a desktop website; they want a seamless experience with the information like phone numbers and directions front-and-center.
Go for the low-hanging fruit
DudaMobile’s most successful resellers identify small business segments with high value mobile audiences. Oftentimes, these are businesses that rely on immediacy and want their phone to ring. Restaurants, for instance, seek the business of hungry, on-the-go patrons looking for a mobile menu or wanting to call for take-out.
Car services and taxis rely on people who are out-and-about and need a quick lift. Emergency services such as locksmiths, tow trucks and even bail bonds receive phone calls from people who find them in search results.
Honing in on the types of businesses that want their phone to ring and already get a disproportionate amount of traffic from mobile is a great place to start when you’re trying to grow your mobile client portfolio.
Speak to your client’s goals
You need to have a good idea of what your clients would want from a mobile website, and show them how you would build their site to align with their goals.
If they want more calls, show them how you would integrate click-to-call across their mobile site. If social media is a priority, show them how they can connect their mobile web presence with social features.
If they want their clients to be able to make appointments or reservations from their phones, show them how you’d make that happen with their mobile website. Keeping your client’s goals top-of-mind when you’re pitching the idea of a mobile website is key in gaining their trust and their business.
Alan Keller focuses on sales and business development for DudaMobile, leading enterprise partnerships, the reseller program and mobile ad sales.
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