Small Businesses Gearing Up for Mobile Marketing - Slowly

Small businesses that were early adopters of mobile marketing have begun to earn tangible returns on their mobile investments, according to a study by Web.com. Even so, most small businesses haven't embraced mobile marketing yet.

Among surveyed owners of small businesses (companies with fewer than 100 employees), fully six in ten (60%) have a Web presence, but few have a mobile Web presence:

·  26% have a mobile-friendly website (the same layout and content as standard site adjusted to suit a smartphone screen).

·  14% have a stand-alone mobile website (content and layout designed specifically for mobile purposes). 

Even so, more than two-thirds (69%) of small business owners strongly agree (39%) or agree (30%) that mobile marketing is crucial to their growth over the next five years.

Moreover, among those 14% of small business owners with a mobile presence, 84% say they have generated increases in new business activity due to their mobile marketing efforts. 

Additional findings from Web.com's Small Business Mobile Survey, conducted by Lab42 Market Research:

Mobile search strategies are lacking

Despite rapid increases in mobile search volumes, 61% of small businesses do not have a mobile search strategy (in order to be found via mobile device).

The biggest hurdle to mobile is limited time and resources

Time and resource limitations (36%) and lack of budget (31%) are the top two hurdles that prevent small businesses from moving forward with mobile.

Moreover, 64% of small business owners are acting as their one-person marketing team—in addition to running other aspects of their business.

However, mobile budgets are on the rise: 64% of small business owners say they plan to spend more on mobile marketing in 2012, 33% plan to spend the same amount, and 3% plan to spend less on mobile marketing in 2012.

The greatest motivation for mobile is providing better service to existing customers

Asked to rank their motivations for investing in mobile marketing, small business owners cite the following top three: 

·  Provide better service to existing customers: 38%

·  Attract more local customers: 36%

·  Gain a competitive advantage: 34% 

 
About the data: This survey was conducted online via social networks, April 5- 12, 2012, among 500 owners of small businesses (companies with fewer than 100 employees).

Read more: MarketingProfs

3 Backlinking Mistakes to Avoid

A strong SEO program relies on backlinks—links to your website from external sources. "Those backlinks signal to search engines how influential and relevant your business is online," writes Chris Sheehy in an article at MarketingProfs. They "trigger local citations of your business and aid in deepening your local market penetration," he notes.

In other words, backlinks enhance your online visibility and give you an edge on the competition.

But what if you're not getting the backlinks you expect? What's going wrong? Sheehy suggests you could be making mistakes like these:

You assume backlinks will simply appear. The hard reality is that you must work for each and every link. "Businesses have to commit to the notion that just as they have to be on the hunt for their next customer, so too do they need to be vigilant with their online linking," he says.

You pursue backlinks sporadically. While the occasional flood of new links might yield good short-term results, you're better off with a consistent slow-and-steady approach that demonstrates sustained value to search engines. An hour a day "keeps the competitors away," Sheehy quips.

You're trying to game the system. Some SEO practitioners use "black hat" techniques that often improve rankings—until they're caught and the site plummets to the tenth page of results, or worse. If you stick to "white hat" techniques—those sanctioned by search engines—you'll do much better in the long run..

Thus: Don't back down from your backlinking efforts. In an ideal world, people who love your product or service would automatically link to your website; in the real world, they need ongoing encouragement to do so.

Source: MarketingProfs.

LinkedIn 4X's Better for B2B

Among three leading social networking platforms—LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook—LinkedIn is the most effective source of leads for B2B companies, according to data from HubSpot.

 

In a study of 3,128 HubSpot B2B customers in 2011, LinkedIn generated a visitor-to-lead conversion rate of 2.60%, on average. That's four times higher than the average visitor-to-lead rate for Twitter (0.67%) and seven times higher than the average rate for Facebook (0.39%).

Moreover, LinkedIn is growing faster than Twitter and Facebook. Though LinkedIn now ranks behind Twitter and Facebook in monthly user activity, LinkedIn is growing at a much faster rate than both social networks, according to separate research from Compete.  LinkedIn attracted some 28.1 million unique visitors in March 2012, up 7.3% from 26.2 million in February, and up 60.7% from 17.5 million one year earlier.

By contrast, Twitter attracted 42.0 million unique visitors Twitter in March, up 35.5% from 31.0 million visitors a year earlier. Facebook attracted 169.9 million visitors in March, up 20.7% from 140.7 million a year earlier.

About the data: Findings are based on data from 3,128 B2B HubSpot customers that generated traffic and leads from social media in 2011, collected via the HubSpot system.

Source: MarketingProfs