The smart phone is quickly becoming the main avenue for commerce around the world. Although there are currently billions of people with smart phones, the market is still growing into Third World countries and integrating itself into the most rural areas in the First World as well.
In order to create a small business brand that can grow in this new environment, you need to understand the behavior of the consumer on this medium. This will inform your advertising and your methods of communication with this type of customer. Here are some ways that the smart phone has changed consumer behavior.
First, information is communicated in a lightning fast way.
In order to correspond with this new generation of consumers, you must make sure that your information is streamlined. There is no room for any kind of bluster in your advertisements. Communication needs to be authentic and direct. You must tell your audience exactly what you can do for them and why they should make a purchase from you. You must do this in a very short period of time.
Because communication is so fast today, you have the ability to access exactly where your communication has gone wrong with the right analytics. Depending on your platform, you will be able to see when consumers cut away from your advertisements so that you can change your methods of communication in real time.
Second, people who are using smart phones are more likely to make a purchase immediately.
When people are using smart phones, they are more likely out and about. This has a great deal to do with how your potential customers at when they view your content. When you are on a smart phone, you are probably out and about. You are more likely to make a purchase because you went out with the intent to spend money.
This means that you should get to the point on your mobile responsive website. Put your loss leader upfront so that it can easily be seen. Use big text that is formatted for the smart phone medium specifically. You can also incorporate sales tools such as localized coupons in order to provide an incentive to make a purchase immediately rather than having them think about it.
Third, people on smart phones leave immediate reviews.
If you want to make a name for yourself, all you have to do is provide good service to a person with a smart phone. Many review sites such as Yelp and Foursquare make it very easy to weave a review about a business immediately after patronizing it. Some of the heaviest users of these websites will actually write real-time reviews that go out to thousands of fans.
If you notice that a potential consumer has a smart phone, du everything you can to treat them with the utmost respect. You never know who you're dealing with. The person with a smart phone may have a following of tens of thousands who are looking to this person to tell them where to shop next.
Fourth, smart phone users will purchase from around the world.
Having a great production value is not as important as having the most effective product on the market. Keep in mind that consumers on smart phones are not looking at a beautiful storefront – all that they are looking at is your website. You can be much more feature sensitive when it comes to describing your product over a smart phone then you should ever be when you are trying to sell to someone in person.
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