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Smartphones Provide Better Monetization for SMBs

TMCnet Feature

April 10, 2014

Smartphones Provide Better Monetization for SMBs

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By Frank Griffin
TMCnet Contributing Writer

A new report by BIA/Kelsey greatly highlights the importance of smartphones in the lifeline of SMBs as they continue to navigate in the physical and digital world of commerce. One key data point that should make all brick and mortar stores happy is, e-commerce only accounts for about 7 percent of U.S. retail spending and the rest takes place offline; and in the majority of the cases within 10 to 15 miles of one's home.


The study is titled, "Phone (News - Alert) Calls Are the New Click: The True SMB Marketing Opportunity," and its focus is on mobile local lead attribution for SMB's. Basically what the study said is smartphones are the computer mouse of this generation. While in the past and still to this day clicking on an ad is a way to engage consumers, people that use their smartphones to find a product have a 57 percent local conversion rates in driving calls compared to only seven percent for local desktop searches.

Google (News - Alert) also backs the local connection with mobile searches by reporting 73 percent of mobile searches result in, all very local or proximity-based actions and conversions by making calls to a business, visiting a store or purchasing something.

With 25 percent of overall search queries being made on mobile devices, 50 percent of these queries having local intent, and 55 percent of the conversions taking within an hour of the initial search, the opportunities for local businesses is tremendous if the technology is used properly.

According to the report this is because mobile users are more ready to buy, they are in the right location and they have a device in their possession whose primary function is to make phone calls. This has led BIA/Kelsey to forecast a sizable boost in call volumes to local businesses based on many different trends including the increasing adoption of smart phones by Americans, which currently stands at 63 percent. According to the company mobile search will eclipse other sources and be responsible for driving 65 billion calls to businesses by 2016, a compound annual growth rate of 42 percent.

Having looked at all this information the company estimates $68 billion is spent annually on different forms of media on localized ads in order to generate calls to businesses. This is any advertising that’s targeted to reach audiences in specific locales using ads in newspapers, radio, TV, and Yellow Pages. This data point is backed by 66 percent of SMB's considering phone calls as their most valuable form of incoming lead.

"Most local commerce takes place offline, but is increasingly influenced online, or through mobile devices. We’ve seen a movement towards more tangible and simple lead sources such as foot traffic and phone calls driven from mobile search. BIA/Kelsey data show these calls to be high-intent, which means callers in the buying stage that could easily convert to sales," said Michael Boland, VP, content and a senior analyst at BIA/Kelsey.

The study points out most of the technology that is readily available today is mostly used by large enterprises, but the growth of cloud-based solutions now makes it possible for anyone to host virtually any service or application to integrate mobile related services in to their organization. So SMB's no longer have any excuses when it comes to accessibility to technology larger organizations use.




Edited by Stefania Viscusi


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