The following is an article “Why Smartphones are Important for Referrals” by Marc Primo.
E-commerce is a vast playing field and social media is just one of the channels where businesses can generate leads. In recent years, social marketing has become the best way to reach your target market, even with just a simple touch of your smartphone.
In the past two years, a good number of social referrals come from the use of smartphones, with visits to retail websites gaining more momentum as of the 1st quarter of 2019. Over the years, consumers have taken the easier route when selecting and purchasing products via smartphones. This also proves to be favorable to businesses’ marketing efforts as it leads to more potential buyers and eventually drive sales.
According to reports, smartphones generated 70.5% of social referrals in the past year, with consumers opting to shop, search, study, and compare products online. Adobe Digital Insights reports that Facebook is the best driver for e-commerce referrals at 80%. Other social media networks that comprise the last 20% are Instagram, Pinterest, Reddit, and Twitter.
Today, with huge technological advances implemented in various operating systems and apps, smartphones have overtaken desktop computers in how users engage on social media sites. Adults currently spend close to 20 minutes per day on social networks, using mobile devices and only around 6 minutes via desktops and laptops.
With these numbers, you would want to concentrate more on your cross-platform strategies to help your business gain more marketing referrals. As the use of mobile phones continues to dictate the way your target market participate in e-commerce, connectivity is always key. Making your digital marketing efforts a priority and not just a second-rate platform, and developing brand-specific apps, websites, and social media accounts will help users make referrals online.
Since 2016, smartphones have been a vital tool for both B2B and B2C marketing. Businesses have learned to make their products and services unique from the competition, allowing them to reach more end users to interact with. This dynamic mobile experience becomes more effective with cross-platform flexibility as it provides users more ways to visit your site and consider your offers.
Given this kind of flexibility, there are numerous ways you can increase referrals from your customers online via smartphones. You can find potential companies to partner with or sell to on LinkedIn, pick out positive comments from your sites and pair them with your referral requests, provide a user-friendly template for your customers, or simply align with what they expect from your product. Another effective strategy is to develop an online customer loyalty program wherein you let customers earn points for every successful online referral. These strategies will get your target market talking about your product and eventually create leads.
Once your online marketing referral strategy is in place, measure your social media traffic and track engagements from your users and make improvements as you go along. There are some analytics packages available online such as Google Analytics, Matomo (formerly Piwik), and Open Web Analytics, which let you view a list of URLs that users click through before making a purchase, and show their online shopping habits. This information can help you refine your own purchasing mechanics and make it easier for customers to shop on your online store.
Smartphones continue to be the main alternative for customers to engage in e-commerce and social networks may soon be the preferred point of purchase. Investing on your online marketing strategies today will give you more leverage in establishing customer connectivity as shopping habits continue to go fully digital.
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