• Deja Vu: Grocery shoppers want mobile tools A few years back I was a junior participant on a project to create point-of-purchase digital video units for grocery stores.

    The business concept was to convert purchase choices to private label brands.  The project sponsors were famous private-label gurus, so the venture looked pretty promising.

    Our prototype units were quite cool, a bit smaller than an iPad (but a lot thicker) and mounted directly on the store shelves and freezer cases.  Video content was distributed using WiFi, which was bleeding edge technology at the time.

    The units worked great, technically--and customers absolutely hated them.

    This article, Shoppers want mobile tools to improve food retail: study, arrived in my stream today and my eyes rolled and I groaned.  Someone else was going to blow a zillion dollars to make something that grocery shoppers won't like and won't use.

    But after reading the article, I'd have to agree that there is a recipe for success in there.

    The reason our turn-of-the-century attempt failed was because we thought it was a promotion channel. The media was too hard to ignore and it turned out people resented the intrusion.

    Grocery shopping is mental down-time for a lot of people, and they don't want to be over stimulated with infomercial-like solicitations.

    But give them simple access to real information, when they ask for it, and they will buy.

    And customers may even appreciate a reasonable button that links to a better value private-label equivalent.

    Hope this helps.

    Chris
  • Let your iPhone do the walking We Canadians are known for being nice to a fault,  so today I wanted to nicely say that small business owners need to take a look at Google Places and perhaps re-evaluate what they're spending to advertise in the Yellow Pages and other traditional business directories. 

    If you're listed properly in Google Places, you'll get new customers, period.   And it's free!

    Many small business owners spend hundreds of dollars to advertise in the Yellow Pages.  But the times have changed and Google has set it's sights on dominating the business directory market.  And consumers are loving it, especially those 1/3 to 1/2 of the population who carry smartphones.

    Now, I am not saying you should stop advertising in the Yellow Pages and the other traditional directories. If you feel it's worth the money then go with your gut instincts as usual.

    But here is an experiment to try.

    Go to the regular Google home page and search for "dog groomer in Newmarket", leaving out the quotation marks.  You'll see the top listing is "Local business results for..." with a map.  Now try the same experiment except with your own business category and your city name.   Are you mentioned on the first page?

    It turns out top rankings in Google local business results are often up for grabs at the moment.  It does not take an SEO guru to get there.  All you need to do is go to Google Places and follow the instructions.   It's about a 10-minute job to "claim and verify" your business listing which is probably already there.

    The key to winning a high rank in the search results is to type in a highly consumer relevant blurb about your business.  Add a link to your existing website and upload a few pictures of your store and you'll likely beat out your local competitors for a mention on page one.  That is, if you do it before they do. :-)

    Hope this helps.

    Chris

    p.s.

    While doing research I found this article http://www.killianbranding.com/whitepapers/why-are-the-yellow-pages-like-nursing-homes/, which is so un-Canadianly poignant that it's kind of entertaining.  So I just had to share it.  Enjoy.
  • Publishing prices on your website OK, every small business is different and your mileage may vary, but the consumers we talk to all want to see prices published on websites.  

    E-Commerce on the Mobile Internet is coming, but let's not talk about that today.  Let's talk about getting people to physically come to your store and buy something.

    Point number 1:  The lowest price does not always win.  But people want to know beforehand if they have room on their card for those new shoes or that new lawn mower.

    Point number 2: You can be sure your customers will check online to see if the big-box down the road carries the same item at a lower price. They may even check for competitive specials while they're in your store!  The good news is you can play this game in reverse.

    These days price is just another piece of information.   People want it.
  • Word of mouth It's not news that a lot of small businesses rely primarily on word-of-mouth to get new customers. The good old face to face word-of-mouth referral is alive and well, and unlikely ever go away.

    But we're finding it is "news" to many small business owners that the Mobile Internet is driving a whole new aspect to word-of-mouth.  And it's huge, lightning fast and doesn't care about distance.

    When you see someone tapping away on a smartphone, chances are good that they are communicating with another person or even their whole group of friends.  Mobile text-messaging is the way people keep in touch with one another these days.  Facebook and Twitter are the ways to socialize with groups.

    As a small business owner, you may or may not choose to personally participate in all this. But you need to know that a big chunk of your customers and are already doing it. The new word-of-mouth is the Mobile Internet.
  • Welcome! My name is Chris Atkinson and I am the founder of www.Mobile-Website.ca - The Mobile Website Solution for Canadian Small Businesses.

    Sorry for blowing in so fast with our tag line. We're just getting into "marketing mode" after a long, hard product development cycle and we're excited. The sales teams have been out & about in the GTA for a couple weeks now and the feedback has been good.

    But to be honest, we're getting a lot of blank stares at first. But when we show small business owners what their conventional websites look like on a smartphone, most of them understand instantly. Check here to see what we mean.

    I'm surprised so many are surprised though. According to Rogers, a full third of their customers carry smartphones as of June 2010. That's a lot of affluent prospects that can't read your website.

    In the event, I'll try to keep the sales pitch low and the information content high in this blog. Feel free to post any comments or questions, or eMail me directly at chris@showmethe.mobi.

    Cheers and thanks for reading.

    Chris