Small Businesses That Use Mobile Marketing See Their Sales Soar, Survey Shows

May 3rd, 2012 :: Rieva Lesonsky

By Rieva Lesonsky

Is your small business using mobile marketing yet? In celebration of National Small Business Month, Web.com today announced the results of its Small Business Mobile Survey. The study found that while 69 percent of small businesses consider mobile marketing crucial to their growth in the next five years, and plan to increase their spending on it, a majority of them still haven’t taken full advantage of mobile marketing.

With 82.2 million Americans using smartphones, according to comScore figures, the benefits of mobile marketing are clear. Out of the 500 small business owners surveyed, 14 percent have a stand-alone mobile website; 84 percent of those entrepreneurs say they have seen an increase in new business activity due to their mobile marketing efforts.

Why are small business owners eager to invest in mobile marketing? Their top motivations were:

1. Provide better service to existing customers (38 percent)
2. Attract more local customers (36 percent)
3. Gain competitive advantage (34 percent)

“With more and more consumers specifically searching for local businesses on their mobile devices, it is imperative that small businesses invest in a mobile presence,” said David Brown, chairman and chief executive officer of Web.com, in announcing the survey results. “Having a mobile presence can be a huge competitive advantage for small businesses trying to attract local customers by instantly introducing a potential customer to their business’ products and services in a mobile-enhanced way.”

But for most small businesses, there is still a long way to go when it comes to adding mobile marketing to the mix. While 60 percent of small businesses surveyed have a website, only 26 percent have a mobile-friendly website (the same layout/content as standard site adjusted to suit a smartphone screen). There’s also a large gap between the rapidly increasing number of mobile searches and small businesses’ mobile search strategy. Over 61 percent of small businesses currently do not have a mobile search strategy, meaning they’re missing out on consumers trying to find them via mobile device.

As a small business owner, you probably know that the biggest hurdle to embracing mobile is lack of time and resources. Some 64 percent of small business owners in the survey said they are their own one-person marketing team. It’s tough to wear multiple hats and find the time to build a mobile presence as well as running other aspects of your business.

Still, it looks like 2012 might be the year when mobile-savvy small businesses step it up. Some 64 percent of small business owners surveyed plan to increase their mobile investments this year.

You can find a full copy of the Web.com Small Business Mobile report and Infographic on in our Small Business Resources secton. Help your friends in the small business community go mobile during National Small Business Month by sharing this report on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn using the hashtag #smbmobile. Presenting on Small Business Mobile please see our handy Powerpoint presentation on the side bar h

We build a lot of apps for restaurants and I like to arm myself with the knowledge of features restaurants can use. And using QR Codes can be a tremendous benefit to restaurants if they use them correctly. Here’s 15 ideas that I found from Chris Edwards that I think you’ll find very helpful in understanding better how they apply to the restaurant industry whether you are an owner of a restaurant or you are selling an app to the owner..

“From what I have seen, the adoption of QR codes in the Restaurant Industry has been very slow. In this article, I will explain to you how easy it is to implement this hot new marketing technology into your restaurant business. I will tell you how it is currently being used as well as throw out some cool and unique ideas on how to use QR codes in your restaurant.

15 Ideas for QR Codes in Restaurants

Please note that I am not a restaurant owner, therefor these ideas may need to be tweaked to work in your restaurant.

1. Photos/Videos of Your Different Entrees

Many times, posting a photo of your entrees in your menu can be hard to do or may not fit with the style of your restaurant menu. Using QR codes, you can place a small QR code inside your restaurant menu that when scanned will lead someone toa mobile friendly website showing off different photos or even videos of the different entrees or menu items. This could help that picky eater make a decision on what they would like to purchase.

2. Menu Nutrition Information

With so many that are trying to watch their figure, menu nutrition information has almost become necessary. I know that I often check out the nutrition facts of most of the places I eat so I know what entrees I can have on my good days and what dishes I can have when I want to splurge a little. An issue arises when I visit a restaurant and see a menu without any information on it. Yes, normally you can ask for a nutrition fact sheet, however most are kinda shy about letting others know they are watching their weight. Simply setup a QR code on the menu that will take them to a nutrition mobile friendly site showing all the nutrition information they crave.

3. Daily Specials

Save on paper cost by having a QR code for your daily specials. Simply create a mobile friendly website displaying your specials for the day. This will helpyour paper costs as you will not have to print new specials each day and also can take a load off your staff from having to re-explain the specials menu each visit back to the table. You can also display photos of each item on this page.

Another great idea is to also display upcoming daily specials, if you already know what they will be. This will help bring your customers back the next day for their favorite item.

4. Special Recipes

For restaurants that are willing to share, put recipes on a mobile friendly site allowing customers to view some of your recipes. Just be careful not to give away the secret recipe that keeps them coming back!

5. Your Restaurant History

While waiting for their food, customers may be interested in how your restaurant came about. Rather than taking up precious space in your menu, a simple QR code can lead them to the complete history of your restaurant, with photos and all.

Kick it up a notch by having the qr code open a video of the restaurant’s history!

6. A Message From The Chef/Owner

Create a qr code that opens either a video or mobile friendly site with a message from the Chef or even from the owner. Here you can showcase your education, history, bio and your favorite dishes.

7. Meet the Family/Staff

Similar to the idea above, this idea has a QR code that leads to a mobile friendly page or video introducing your family and/or staff. This will help customers connect on a more personal level with your restaurant.

8. Take-Out and Contact Information

Using the same method you would use to create a QR code business card, create contact information that will allow your customers to quickly and easily add your restaurant contact information into their phone. This is a great idea for restaurants that have a take-out service.

Be sure if you create a contact card for the purpose of a take-out service, you place the url of your take-out menu, on a mobile friendly page, in place of the website address. This will allow customers to pull up your restaurant on their mobile phone and instantly pull up your take-out menu.

9. Customer Survey Receipts & Placards

This is the biggest pet peeve of mine. When I visit a restaurant, they always list a website or phone number to contact to take a survey. The problem with method is that once I walk out that door, my receipt ends up in all kinda of crazy places never to be seen again. By placing a QR code on the receipt, customers will be encouraged to scan the QR code and take your survey on their phone, maybe even before they leave.

Take this to the next level by working with your software vendor to see if they can create custom QR codes for each receipt that will contain a website link with the transaction or receipt number in the variables. This would allow a customer to scan the code and be taken right to the survey without having to enter any information. If this were in place, I can say I would be taking a lot more surveys.

10. Coupons and Print Advertising

Create QR codes in your print advertising and use QR codes on your coupons to make things easier on your customers. Have a QR code on all your materials you print that lead your customers to coupons. You can even place a QR code on the coupon itself which could have a page or even video showcasing your menu. Since more and more people are becoming aware of QR codes, however there are not as many restaurants and businesses taking advantage of it, your QR code will likely cause your ad or coupon to stand out and scream “scan me”.

11. Text Message Sign-Up

I have found many restaurants participating in a text message sign-up or loyalty program. Many of these restaurants have a sign telling me to text “tacos” to some 5 digit number to be added to the list. That is great and all, however it still requires me to pull out my phone, open my text message program, type in the number, double check the number is right, type the text and hit send. It may not seem hard however when you are trying to watch the kids, figure out what you want to order, hassling with the line and other stresses, this task can turn into to much trouble to deal with.

Here is a simple way to do it. With most QR code generators, you can create a pre-filled text message QR code. This will allow that same stressed person to pull out their mobile phone, scan the advertisement or sign and hit send. Now they are a new member of your text message loyalty program.

12. Events, Live Bands and Celebrations

I see most restaurants posting up flyers, banners and placards advertising upcoming events in their restaurant. Too many times, I look at the date and tell myself that I will try and attend. I do not take the time to add this to my calendar so often I forget. By adding a QR code to the event flyer, I can scan the flyer and have it automatically added to my phone calendar. Come the date of the event, my phone will remind me to go.

Some Unconventional QR Code Usage Ideas for Restaurants

So the use of QR codes in restaurants is still pretty unconventional today, however as more and more restaurants learn how easy it is, the 12 ideas above will start to become the norm. Here are some crazy out-of-the-box uses for QR codes in restaurants:

“Clean Your Plate” Reward or Coupon

Reward your customer with a coupon when they clean their plate. How you do this have entree plates made with QR codes printed in the center of them. You can pick the right colors to make this into a nice design. Once your customer finishes their dinner, they scan that QR code on their plate for a coupon or reward, say a discount on desert. This will help your restaurant with up sales as well as give your customers an enjoyable experience.

You can also have the QR code play a funny video, tell a joke or show a cartoon similar to how Popsicle sticks do, basically, make them feel like they are a kid again!

Unlock The Code

Place signs, posters and placards around your restaurant and have QR codes on them that provide a “piece of the puzzle”. Each code could be used to unlock a secret pass phrase. This works great for destination restaurants that want to have fun with their customers and encourage their customers to travel around their restaurant. Encourage them to visit your bar area, maybe a certain dining room or even scenic locations in your indoor or outdoor waiting area. The sky is the limit with this one, however it is best to try and leave the bathroom out of it. People scanning or snapping photos in the bathroom often looks odd to anyone else in there.

Trivia and Riddles

Place trivia questions or riddles up on the wall around your dining room. Make them difficult to answer yet still fun for the whole family to try and figure out. Place a QR code under the trivia question or riddle that says “scan for an answer” and have it display the answer.

Kick this up a notch by working with a programer to create a mobile friendly page that ask them to answer the question on their mobile phone. If they get it right, they get a discount code or coupon for their meal.

Current Usage of QR Codes in Restaurants

Mobile Food Ordering Features:
- Allow customers to order from iPhone, iPad, Android, and all other smartphones
- Notifications made via email and small receipt printer integration (optional)
- Online food ordering widget available to place on restaurant website
- Customize currency, takeout / delivery, delivery fee, delivery radius, free delivery, convenience fee, times in which they can order, tax, and more.
- Payment integration with PayPal, Google Checkout, and Authorize.net
- Customize the mobile food ordering system’s look and feel
- And much more…

How do restaurant customers benefit?
- Customers can make an order directly from home or office
- They can easily find and select restaurant locations and choose the preferred time for pick-up
- No waiting on hold, no standing in lines, no order mistakes as customers control the process
- Order history allows customers to select from past orders stored in the system
- Customers can easily customize their orders
- Integration with Google Maps allows them to have driving directions
- No need to go into the restaurant with curbside takeout convenience
- Easy and fast promotions, including specials, coupons and discounts, information about locations, hours of operation, menus, nutritional info…etc.

How do restaurant employees benefit?
- Employees no longer have to spend time on the phone
- With up-to-date online ordering solutions many tasks performed by staff are automated
- No need to handle money, payments are integrated inside the app
- Save your restaurant money by reducing time spent handling an order

Statistics supported by National Restaurant Association Survey:
-60% of adults 18 – 34 are more interested in home delivery than dining in the restaurant
- Half of the consumers said they would take advantage of a delivery service from their preferred restaurants if it were available
- 35% said they have or would order online from their favorite restaurant
- Nearly 20% of customers have already placed online orders and made online reservation
- Nearly 70% of operators regard online ordering as an up-and-coming order innovation
- Nearly 40% of customers say that they would like to receive an e-mail daily from their favorite local restaurant to know what the specials are for that day
- Nearly 20% of quick-service restaurants provide their clients with an online ordering option
- Most popular restaurant chains get about 25% of their orders through online and mobile ordering

How do restaurant owners benefit?
- More orders
- More money spent per order
- More repeat customers
- Increase restaurant bottom line
- Direct return on investment

As New iPad Debut Nears, Some See Decline of PCs

Aly Song/Reuters

Customers tested out iPads in an Apple store in Shanghai last week.

By NICK WINGFIELD

His forecast has backing from a growing number of analysts and veteran technology industry executives, who contend that the torrid growth rates of the iPad, combined with tablet competition from the likes of Amazon.com and Microsoft, make a changing of the guard a question of when, not if.

Tablet sales are likely to get another jolt this week when Apple introduces its newest version of the iPad, which is expected to have a higher resolution screen. With past iterations of the iPad and iPhone, Apple has made an art of refining the devices with better screens, faster processors and speedier network connections, as well as other bells and whistles — steadily broadening their audiences.

An Apple spokeswoman, Trudy Muller, declined to comment on an event the company is holding Wednesday in San Francisco that is expected to feature the new product.

Any surpassing of personal computers by tablets will be a case of the computer industry’s tail wagging the dog. The iPad, which seemed like a nice side business for Apple when it was introduced in 2010, has become a franchise for the company, accounting for $9.15 billion in revenue in the holiday quarter, or about 20 percent of Apple’s total revenue. The roughly 15 million iPads Apple sold in that period was more than twice the number it sold a year earlier.

In the fall, Amazon introduced the iPad’s first credible competitor in the $199 Kindle Fire. Although Amazon does not release sales figures for the device, some analysts estimate it sold about four million in the holiday quarter. Later this year, tablets from a variety of hardware manufacturers based on a new, touchscreen-friendly operating system from Microsoft, Windows 8, could further propel the market.

“Tablets are on fire, there’s no question about that,” said Brad Silverberg, a venture capitalist in Seattle at Ignition Partners and a former Microsoft executive, who hastened to add that he was speaking mainly of the iPad, which dominates current sales.

Tablets are not there yet. In 2011, PCs outsold tablets almost six-to-one, estimates Canalys, a technology research company. But that is still a significant change from 2010, the iPad’s first year on the market, when PCs outsold tablets 20-to-one, according to Canalys. For the last two years, PC sales were flat, while iPad sales were booming. The Kindle Fire and Barnes & Noble’s Nook gave the market an additional lift over the holidays. Apple is banking on the tablet market. Its iPad brought in nearly 40 percent more revenue during the holidays than Apple’s own computer business, the Macintosh, did.

“From the first day it shipped, we thought — not just me, many of us thought at Apple — that the tablet market would become larger than the PC market, and it was just a matter of the time that it took for that to occur,” Mr. Cook of Apple said recently at a Goldman Sachs investor conference.

Gene Munster, an analyst at Piper Jaffray, estimated that Mr. Cook’s prediction would come true in 2017, but others contend tablets will be on top sooner than that.

For example, in a blog post on Friday, Horace Dediu, an analyst with Asymco in Finland, made a detailed argument that tablet sales would pass traditional PC sales in the fall of 2013. His projections rest heavily on an assumption that Apple will face more serious competition in the tablet market from Amazon’s Kindle Fire, Windows 8 and a wave of other devices based on Google’s Android, an operating system that has been mostly successful in the smartphone market.

Tim Bucher, an entrepreneur who has held senior positions at Apple, Microsoft and Dell, said tablet sales would “absolutely” pass those of PCs, a trend he argued will become even more pronounced as a younger, tablet-savvy generation ages.

“I think the older generation does not pick up on the way of interacting with the new devices,” Mr. Bucher said, contrasting older people with the next generation. “I don’t know how many YouTube videos there are out there showing everyone from babies to animals interacting with iPads.”

Where does that change leave the PC, the lowly machine that defined computing for decades?

At a technology conference in 2010, Steven P. Jobs, then Apple’s chief executive, heralded what he called the post-PC era and compared personal computers to the trucks that prevailed in the automobile industry until society began moving away from its agrarian roots. PCs are “still going to be around and have a lot of value,” said Mr. Jobs, who died in October. “But they’re going to be used by one out of X people.”

Even Mr. Cook in his recent speech said he was not predicting the demise of the PC industry, although he did say the iPad was cannibalizing some computer sales, more Windows PCs than the much smaller market for Macs. One category of PCs where that is especially true is netbooks, the inexpensive notebook computers that have had a steep decline in shipments in the last couple of years. “What the iPad is doing is taking growth away from the PC market that would have gone to a secondary or tertiary device,” said Mr. Dediu. “It’s not so much people are going to drop PCs. They’re going to add this additional device.”

Traditional PCs are not standing still. Boxy desktop computers are an ever-diminishing part of the PC business, while Apple’s MacBook Air and a category of Windows laptops with Intel processors called ultrabooks have reinvented traditional clamshell notebooks as super-thin devices that turn on instantly like tablets.

Microsoft’s introduction of Windows 8 promises to shake up computer designs further. Microsoft and its hardware partners have shown laptops with keyboards that can be swiveled around or removed altogether, turning them into tablets.

“The tablet and PC markets are all going to blur,” said Tim Coulling, an analyst at Canalys. “We’re going to see a lot of form-factor innovation. We’ll be asking what is a tablet and what is a traditional PC?”

Mobile app use soars while mobile browsing wanes

The world is increasingly going mobile: mobile apps, to be more exact. New data out of app analytics firm Flurry finds that mobile users are spending more time in mobile apps than mobile web browsing, widening a gap that began for the first time last summer.

Flurry said Monday that average smartphone users now spend 94 minutes in apps a day compared to 72 minutes in a mobile web browser. Last summer, Flurry noted the first time app usage eclipsed mobile browsing, with users spending 81 minutes in apps compared to 74 minutes daily on the web. Now, Flurry said app usage is continuing to grow each day, while the use of mobile web browsing has fallen. ComScore  also noted a shift last fall toward mobile apps, finding users are now spending more time in apps over the browser for the first time. For the study, Flurry examined app usage in 140,000 apps running Flurry analytics and compared it to mobile web data usage from comScore and Alexa.

The shift to apps appears to be driven in part by mobile users’ waning interest in accessing Facebook from a browser, Flurry said. It said while the average Facebook user in June last year spent more than 33 minutes on average each day on the website, that number is now below 24 minutes. Traffic to Facebook now appears to be increasingly channeled through mobile apps, including a new Facebook app for the iPad, which launched in October. But with Facebook’s increasing use of HTML5 and web technologies, it’s possible Facebook could also help push the tide back toward web browsing as it looks to enable more developers to build mobile web apps that work through Facebook. And with the overall maturing of HTML5, we should see more interesting web apps emerge that can attempt to pull user attention away from native apps.

Flurry said the growth of mobile app usage appears to be slowing, however. Between Dec. 2010 and June 2011, the time spent in mobile applications grew more than 23 percent, but from June 2011 to December 2011 time spent in apps has grown 15 percent. While the growth in time spent on mobile apps is slowing, users are engaged in more sessions, visiting apps more frequently than in the past, said Flurry.

The jockeying between apps and mobile web browsing will continue into the future. Native apps make more sense for intensive programs that require more use of the hardware. And with native app stores making it so easy to download purpose-driven apps, it’s simple for users to turn to apps to get what they need done. But with HTML5 emerging, there are a lot of native apps that can exist just as easily as web apps. And in fact, many apps are being built now in HTML5 with a native wrapper designed for specific platforms. Forrester recently came out with a report recommending developers and enterprises go with this hybrid approach, which cuts down on costs and helps apps fit a number of platforms. I think native apps will continue to increase their advantage over web browsing until HTML5 grows up some more and we see some solid distribution channels and stores for web apps.

Sarah Perez

Monday, January 9th, 2012

14 Comments

Mobile analytics firm Flurry has updated its report from last summer which compared mobile apps to web consumption and found that apps came out on top. In June, Flurry discovered that users were spending 81 minutes per day in mobile apps versus 74 minutes on the web. As of December, the usage of mobile apps has skyrocketed to 94 minutes per day, while web consumption dropped to 72 minutes.

The interesting thing about this data is that the most recent growth in mobile apps usage hasn’t really been at the expense of browsing the traditional web. People have just been using mobile apps more. We should note, however, that Flurry pulls its web data from comScore and Alexa, which aren’t always the best sources and use differing methodologies to determine browsing habits. In addition, users of mobile apps also browse the web, so it’s not so much a question of apps “versus” the web, as it is a look into our data consumption in general (despite Flurry’s positioning it as a battle that’s to be won or lost).

But the bottom line is: apps are hot.

Flurry notes that roughly 40 billion applications have been downloaded from the iTunes App Store and Android Market since their debuts. And we’re only at the beginning of the mobile app era. As Flurry’s end-of-year research found, the addressable market for mobile app developers is still in the millions.

The new report attributes the small decrease in traditional web consumption to a decline in Facebook use. In June, people spent over 33 minutes per day on the Facebook website, and now that number is below 24 minutes. Meanwhile, time spent on the web without Facebook grew by 2% between June 2011 and December 2011.

That doesn’t necessarily mean trouble for Facebook – it just means good news for Facebook’s mobile apps. As an unrelated report recently found, the number of monthly active users of Facebook’s mobile apps recently passed the 300 million mark (or 40% of Facebook’s official 800 million+ users). Flurry confirms the same trend, saying “we believe that Facebook users, and users of other traditional style websites, are increasingly accessing services through mobile applications than from desktops.”

In this case, it may be a choice of apps “versus” the web.

As a part of today’s research report, Flurry also provided insight into which mobile app categories were the most popular. Not surprisingly, games led with nearly half (49%) of U.S. users’ time spent. Social networking (30%), Entertainment (7%) and News (6%) followed, with the “Other” category (accounting for everything else) at 8%.